Veronique John fatally stabbed her seven-year-old daughter Elizabeth and 11-year-old son Ethan, allegedly motivated by a desire to prevent her husband from having custody, prosecutors told Nottingham Crown Court during the trial-of-facts hearing.
Ethan was reportedly stabbed more than 20 times, while Elizabeth suffered severe brain damage.
After the attacks, John went to a car wash in a dressing gown and stabbed her partner Nathan John in the stomach. She later returned home, dialed 999, and made a distressing call: “I am calling to report I just killed my two kids.”
The charity shop worker allegedly told police who arrived at her home in Stoke-on-Trent on 11 June last year: “If you have a gun shoot me. I am not a monster – he was going to take them from me.”
The day before the deadly incidents, John was arrested for assaulting her husband with a piece of wood while their children were preparing for bed, reportedly due to suspicions of his infidelity.
The court heard that John and her husband had significant relationship challenges, and she opposed him having access to an internet-enabled phone. Prosecutor Peter Grieves-Smith described John’s anger as simmering just beneath the surface in the hours leading up to the children’s deaths.
“What happened on 11 June didn’t come out of the blue. Tension grew in the days before. That day she just erupted, killed her children and attacked Nathan,” he said.
John killed her children hours after making a “chilling” internet search asking, “Can a foreigner be charged with murder in the UK?”, Mr Grieves-Smith said.
Ethan was declared deceased after being discovered in a bedroom with a 17cm-long neck injury, while Elizabeth was found in the living room with head injuries and “three areas of sharp force,” including one to her stomach. The jury heard from a neighbor who reported hearing “high-pitched screaming and crying that lasted for a short period” just before John walked to the car wash where her husband had spent the night.
The court heard how the 50-year-old later told interviewing officers: “I didn’t want my husband to get them [the children].”
She continued: “It’s something I was thinking about for a long time – just kill myself and the kids. Unless you guys are offering me the death penalty I have nothing else to say. I did it because I love my children – to protect the children. If there’s any possible way I could be put to death, I would like that. I mean it 100%.”
