A woman has pled not guilty over the murder of her mother from a lethal overdose of depressants almost three years after the event.
As we covered here, Barbara Eckersley was charged with murder in August 2018 after her mother, environmental scientist Dr Mary White, 92, was found dead in her room at a Warrigal aged care home in Bundanoon.
An autopsy found toxic levels of barbiturates in Dr White’s bloodstream, with her daughter allegedly initially telling police that she had helped her mother to die.
However, later Ms Eckersley allegedly told authorities that she had fed her mother the drugs to ease her “pain and discomfort” ahead of an upcoming planned transfer to an aged care home in Coffs Harbour.
Ms Eckersley’s lawyer told the jury that she denied any plan to kill her mother, and that they would argue she was suffering from a major depressive disorder at the time of the incident.
The trial goes on.
