Mum jailed for minimum of 24 years for murdering her two daughters aged 3 and 17 months by stabbing them to death

A MUM has been sentenced to life after being found guilty of murdering her two daughters.

Samira Lupidi will serve a minimum of 24 years behind bars for the frantic slaying of three-year-old Evelyn Lupidi and 17-month-old Jasmine Weaver.

The tragic tots died after they were both stabbed a horrfying nine times by their mother with a 12 inch stainless steel knife.

They were found at a women's refuge in Bradford, West Yorks., last November, where Italian Lupidi, 24, had arrived the day before.

A jury at Bradford Crown Court took just one hour today to convict 24-year-old Lupidi of the murders.

She had accepted killing them but claimed it was in a fit of diminished responsibility.

Yells of "yes" could be heard from her former partners family in the packed public gallery as the verdicts were read to the court.

The murderous mother sat with her head bowed and wept as a security guard comforted her in the dock.

She sobbed into piles of tissues after the jury of six men and six women delivered their unanimous guilty verdict after just one-and-a-half hours of deliberation.

Harrowing details of the frenzied slaying were told to the court during the trial as Lupidi's defence team sought to claim diminished responsibility.

Lupidi brutally knifed both her young daughters nine times in the women's refuge after claiming she was afraid of her partner Carl Weaver.

The mum-of-two had claimed she killed her young children, Evelyn Lupidi, three, and Jasmine Weaver, 17 months, as she was suffering torment at the hands of Mr Weaver.

She had left her home in Heckmondwyke, West Yorks., in November last year to go to a women's refuge.

She claimed she was suffering depression and paranoia as she did not speak English, and was isolated by her partner and father of their two children.

But the jury refuted her defence, instead accepting the prosecution's case that she knew what she was doing when she suffocated then stabbed her daughters as they fought and struggled.

Lupidi gave horrific details of the attack to a psychiatrist who recounted to the court the vicious way her children were killed.

Jurors were told how her younger 17-month-old Jasmine wailed as she throttled her elder sister Evelyn.

Lupidi then smothered Jasmine with a pillow telling a psychiatrist "I cried a lot and then she stopped moving," before adding "I never heard her cry like that".

She claimed not to remember using the knife on her kids but the weapon, over a foot long in length, was described to jurors as having "blood on it from the tip to the hilt".

The bloody scene was discovered the morning after she arrived at the shelter when a worker knocked on her door.

As Lupidi answered she was yelling into her mobile phone "they won’t believe that I killed them" and fled outside, her hands smeared in blood.

She repeated:”I killed then, I hurt them, I killed the children.”

Asked when she’d killed them she replied:”Just now.”

Disturbed Lupidi went on to blame Mr Weaver telling staff: ”It’s his fault. Now he has a reason to kill me. If I can’t have them he can’t have them either.”

Heartbroken dad Carl Weaver, 31, a car valeter, was falsely accused of domestic violence by Samira, who the jury heard had a "complete misinterpretation of reality”.

She feared Mr Weaver was plotting her death and that he wanted to take the girls away from her.

In a statement read during her trial Mr Weaver explained how they met via the internet when he was working in Italy and Evelyn was born on 27 January 2012.

Lupidi had a poor upbringing. Her mother Marietta was abusive alcoholic and her father Dario treated his daughter as a ‘scivvy’ at home for him and her two brothers.

“Her mother was violent towards all three children and she tried to kill all the children by opening a gas pipe,” Mr Weaver revealed.

Lupidi’s father disapproved when his daughter fell pregnant and when Mr Weaver lost his job it was decided to return to England together and lived in Heckmondwike, West Yorks.

Lupidi spoke in ‘broken English’. She was isolated having no bank account and no job.

She gave birth to Jasmine on 26 June, 2014, and the couple discovered soon after that Evelyn was autistic – she was clingy and would only say ‘mama’ and ‘pasta’

Despite Evelyn’s problematic behaviour Mr Weaver said Lupidi always coped and never lost her temper.

“She was a wonderful mother,” he said.

But she thought people were against her and was extremely jealous if Mr Weaver returned home late from work and she would go through his Facebook account.

He said they had heated arguments but he was never physically violent towards her

After her arrest she told police: "I know what I have done. My life is nothing now."

Lupidi even told a psychiatrist she dreamt she had "stitched up their wounds and they came back".

But mental health professionals ruled that although she did suffer with a moderate to severe depression it did not contribute to the killing and did not amount to diminished responsibility.