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September 8, 2009

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Mother stabbed sleeping daughters

A HOTEL worker stabbed her teenage daughters to death while they slept at her home before telling a friend she had done "something terrible," a British court heard yesterday.

Rekha Kumari-Baker killed daughters Davina, 16, and Jasmine 13, with a kitchen knife in a frenzied attack, prosecutor John Farmer told Cambridge Crown Court.

Davina was stabbed 39 times before her younger sister died from an "awful lot" of wounds, Farmer said.

He said Kumari-Baker had disagreed with her ex-husband David Baker over the care and custody of the children and that she may have wanted to "wreak havoc" on him by killing them, the Press Association reported.

Afterward Kumari-Baker had changed from her nightdress, got dressed and twice gone out in her car before ringing her friend Natalie Barford, a special constable.

She left a message on her answerphone, saying: "I've done something terrible, Natalie. Please call me."

Kumari-Baker, 41, denies murdering the two girls at their Cambridgeshire home in Stretham in June 2007.

Jurors were told that her lawyers would argue that she was suffering from a severe abnormality of mind when she killed the girls.

Farmer said if jurors accepted defense arguments, she would be guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

In another call, Kumari-Baker said: "I stabbed them with knives from the kitchen. This is terrible. At least the children are safe now. Nobody else can hurt them."

Kumari-Baker told police in an interview she denied making the remarks, saying at that stage she did not realize the girls were dead.

The case continues.





 

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