A mother who was “fixated” on suicide for more than a decade fatally drugged her two young daughters before killing herself, an inquest has heard.
Tiffany Stevens, from Bolton, had feared 18-month-old Darcey Stevens and three-year-old Casey-Lea Taylor would be put into care after her death, the inquest heard.
The 27-year-old gave her children lethal substances before taking a cocktail of drugs in the murder-suicide at the family home in Little Lever on 21 January 2019. Their bodies were not discovered for about a week.
Stevens had spent five years in care herself as a child and endured a “traumatic” upbringing after her father died of a drug overdose when she was five, Bolton coroner’s court was told.
Stevens’s mother, Bobby-Jo, said her daughter was fixated on suicide from the age of 17. “For Tiffany, she was going into another dimension and she would live on. She just thought the world was corrupt and bad, no matter how much we tried to reason with her,” she said.
Dr Adrian West, a forensic clinical psychologist, told the inquest that online searches relating to suicide methods were found on Stevens’s phone. He said she had written that she was sorry for what was going to happen but she was unable to get over her past and had a mistrust of social services.
Stevens took an overdose when she was 19 and went on be referred for mental health treatment on at least eight separate occasions between August 2011 and April 2017. However, she failed to attend the appointments.
She had a history of self-harm and had been diagnosed as having traits of a borderline personality disorder, the inquest heard.
While both children were known to social services, the inquest heard there were no grounds for the local authority to apply for Darcey and Casey-Lea to be removed from Stevens’s care
The bodies of Stevens and Casey-Lea were discovered under a duvet on a mattress in the living room, while Darcey was found in her pram near the front door of the property.
The assistant coroner for West Manchester, Peter Sigee, concluded that the two children were unlawfully killed without suffering.
He concluded that Stevens was of sound mind when she took her daughters’ lives and her actions would have constituted an offence of murder. He added: “This has been one of the saddest cases I have heard.”
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.