Mother Admits Killing Her Two Babies

A mother who suffered postnatal depression has admitted killing her two children at their home. Felicia Boots, 35, killed Lily Boots, aged 14 months, and her 10-week-old brother Mason in Wandsworth, south-west London, in May. Her manslaughter plea on the grounds of diminished responsibility was accepted by the prosecution at the Old Bailey, and murder charges were dropped. She was ordered to be detained at a psychiatric hospital. The judge, Mr Justice Fulford, said the case was indescribably sad and what she did was a result of psychological forces beyond her control. A preliminary inquest hearing found the two children had been suffocated. Her husband Jeff found the children lying side by side on the floor of a walk-in wardrobe when he arrived home on 9 May. She had also tried to kill herself.