September 2009

Mother Who Killed Daughters Gets 33 Years

A woman who murdered her two teenage daughters has been jailed for 33 years.

Rekha Kumari-Baker, 41, repeatedly stabbed Davina Baker, 16, and 13-year-old Jasmine Baker, to death at her home in Stretham, Cambridgeshire, in the early hours of June 13, 2007.

Her ex-husband David Baker, the girls’ father, has spoken of his “incalculable” loss and said words were not enough to express his feelings.

During the two-week trial, jurors at Cambridge Crown Court heard Kumari-Baker stabbed her eldest daughter 37 times, then moved into Jasmine’s bedroom and stabbed her 29 times.

Evidence showed Davina – whose body was found kneeling on the floor – had struggled. Jasmine was found dead in bed.

Kumari-Baker killed the girls with two kitchen knives she bought at an Asda supermarket two days earlier, prosecutors said.

Jurors were told she was unhappy about a new relationship her ex-husband had entered into and was upset by the break-up of her new relationship with boyfriend Jeff Powell.

Prosecutors suggested she murdered the girls in an attempt to “wreak havoc” on her ex-husband.

Psychiatrists called by the prosecution said Kumari-Baker was suffering from mild depression but did not have a mental disorder or mental illness.

Kumari-Baker mounted a “diminished responsibility” defence – with lawyers arguing she had an abnormality of mind which would make her guilty of manslaughter but not murder.

But the jury of seven women and five men took just 35 minutes to conclude she was guilty of murder.

Mr Justice Bean told her: “You knew quite well what you were doing and you were not mentally ill.

“The crimes were, as the prosecution rightly put it, murder, full stop.

“Davina and Jasmine were cruelly cut down in the prime of life. Their death has been a shattering loss to their father and friends.”