Mother found guilty of murdering her children

A mother who drowned her two young children at their home has been convicted of their murders.

Kara Alexander, 47, of Dagenham, murdered two-year-old Elijah Thomas and five-year-old Marley Thomas in the bath at their home in December 2022.

Post-mortem examinations found their cause of death was either drowning or suffocation – but Alexander accepted at trial that she had placed them in the bath before they ‘accidentally’ drowned.

The jury at Kingston Crown Court heard how the children’s father was due to have the boys that weekend and became increasingly concerned when he had not received any responses to his messages and calls to Alexander.

He visited their home and was told by Alexander that the children were upstairs sleeping. When he went upstairs to see for himself, he found the boys’ bodies together, dressed in pyjamas, in the lower bunk of their shared bunk bed.

When the boys’ father came downstairs to call for help, Alexander had run away through gardens into a neighbouring street. The ambulance service and police attended, but there was nothing that could be done for the boys as they had been dead for some hours. It took the police about an hour to locate Alexander.

Alexander denied murdering her children, claiming that they had drowned in the bath while she was asleep.

The prosecution team set about proving that, taking into consideration the age of the boys at two and five, they could not have accidentally drowned and that the only reasonable explanation for their deaths is that Alexander intervened, causing them to drown.

Samantha Yelland, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Our thoughts remain with Elijah and Marley’s family and friends who have been completely devastated by their loss.

“It is unimaginable to think what those poor children went through in their final moments. It is a parent’s job to keep their children safe and Kara Alexander not only failed to do that, but robbed them of their lives.

“I hope today’s verdict will provide the family with some closure knowing now that Alexander has been held accountable for their murders.”