German court jails woman who killed her three children

LANDSHUT (AFP) - A German court Thursday jailed for 14 years a mother who killed three of her children, a young daughter and twin babies, in a forest before a failed suicide attempt.

The mentally unstable 39-year-old mother, a bakery saleswoman identified only as Bianca T., first strangled her six-year-old daughter, then smothered the four-month-old twins.

The woman acted in the throes of desperation after the twins  father committed himself to a psychiatric ward for depression and she could not convince him to return home.

In harrowing testimony, the court heard how the terrified six-year-old, Anna-Lea, had struggled and pleaded for her life, saying "Mama, I don t want to die, not today, maybe tomorrow".

After the attacks on November 13 last year, the woman intended to take her own life and headed, with the children s bodies in her car, straight for a carpark to jump off the roof, having sent her partner text messages about the killings.

The man called police who then spotted the woman in her car, leading to a high-speed chase. The woman deliberately crashed in a suicide attempt but walked away almost unscathed from the wreck, the court in Landshut, southern Germany, was told.

After her arrest, the mother confessed, claiming to have smothered the twins -- a boy and a girl named Fabian and Lisa -- but an autopsy later found both had also suffered fractured skulls and the boy broken limbs.

Anna-Lea and Fabian were declared dead in hospital, where surgeons attempted to save the life of Lisa before she too died of her injuries.

"I m sorry, I m so sorry," the woman said in tears in court, testifying that she had acted without a clear motive.

"I committed these acts, I know... But it s as if it wasn t me. It s like I was outside of myself," said the woman, who has had a total of six children from three fathers.

Prosecutors had demanded a sentence of 14 years and six months on murder and manslaughter charges for the woman, and the defence 13 years.