A woman who drowned one of her sons and tried to drown the other has been found not guilty of murder and attempted murder due to mental illness.
The woman, who cannot be named because it would identify the children, took her sons to the Murray River at Moama, on the NSW-Victoria border, in March 2017.
Divers searching for the child's body at the Murray River near Moama.Credit: Luke Hemer/Riverine Herald
She had a "firmly held belief" that her former partner wanted to kill her and the children, and "was convinced that the kinder fate" would be to drown them.
The woman first tried to drown her eldest son, aged nine, but he was too strong and managed to struggle as she held him underwater. She then drowned her five-year-old, whose body was pulled from the river days later.
When the older boy was released by his mother, he was attacked by a dog who had followed the family down to the river bank and was left with serious injuries.
After the woman got out of the river, she was seen walking erratically along a nearby road. She was then taken to the police station after she told a resident of Moama that she had drowned "her babies".
In a lengthy recorded interview with police, her moods varied between dazed and flat, distressed and hysterical, and agitated and enraged.
The woman faced a judge-alone trial this week at the NSW Supreme Court at Wagga, where she appeared distressed and distracted in the dock and at times rocked from side to side.
In finding the woman not guilty due to mental illness, Justice Richard Button said the evidence is "overwhelming" and "undisputed" that the woman killed her youngest son by holding him underwater and "made a concerted effort" to do the same to her eldest.
He said he accepted the unanimous opinion of psychiatrists that the woman had a "constellation of conditions" including borderline personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder and psychotic disorder, which constituted a disease of the mind.
The body of the five-year-old is taken from the river, days after he was drowned by his mother. Credit: 7 News
He ordered that the woman be committed to the long-term care of the Mental Health Review Tribunal.
"My verdicts of not guilty do not lessen the overall tragedy of this matter for a moment," Justice Button said.
"Nor should my verdicts be understood as lessening the recognition by the criminal justice system of the pain that this matter has caused. I extend my condolences to all of those who have suffered, and will do so long into the future, as a result of the events of 2 March 2017."
Justice Button said when the woman carried out her "profoundly violent acts" she did not appreciate the gross wrongfulness of what she was doing and "believed that she was doing her sons a kindness".
"I believe that, if she has not done so already, in due course she will come to see the enormity of the consequences of her actions," Justice Button said.
He said being forcibly drowned was "unquestionably a terrible death".
The woman will not be released into the community unless the Mental Health Review Tribunal is satisfied she will not seriously endanger any person.