Mother killed sons 'out of love'

In his opening address at the murder trial of Donna Fitchett, 51, Crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert, SC, told the Victorian Supreme Court Fitchett was having marriage problems when she killed sons Thomas, 11, and Matthew, 9, in a manner that was "premeditated, planned to the most minute detail and carried out by the accused in cold blood".

The court heard the qualified nurse gave them multiple prescription drugs on September 6, 2005, that she had stockpiled, after allegedly telling the boys they were going on a trip and needed to take some medicine.

After strangling Thomas, Fitchett bathed him because she did not want people to think he was not looked after, the court heard.

Later that afternoon Fitchett, of Balwyn North, took prescription drugs herself and cut herself with a knife in a bid to take her own life.

Her husband came home and discovered the boys had been killed.

Fitchett, who has confessed to the killings, had written to her psychologist outlining her intention to kill them. "Sadly, I am too broken to go on," she wrote.

She said she had told her husband a week earlier their marriage was over and she was leaving him and taking the boys.

"I am not a coward, nor am I crazy. I see this as my greatest act of love," she wrote.

Fitchett has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder on the grounds of mental impairment.

Defence lawyer Patrick Tehan, QC, said she was unaware that what she was doing was wrong.

The trial before Justice Elizabeth Curtain continues.