Colorado mother drugged, shot and stabbed her two children before fleeing to Britain, prosecutors say

LONDON – A Colorado mother fighting extradition from Britain to the United States allegedly drugged her children and told them to close their eyes before shooting and stabbing two of them to death, a court heard Wednesday.

Days after the lifeless bodies of her children, ages 7 and 9, were found in their Colorado Springs home on December 19, Kimberlee Singler was arrested in London on December 30 after flying to the UK.

The 36-year-old Singler is resisting the American extradition attempts on the grounds that the crimes she is accused of – which she denies – would automatically be punished with a life sentence without the possibility of parole, which her lawyers believe is a violation of European human rights law.

Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights – a legally binding statute followed by 46 countries, including the UK – prohibits “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

Details of how she allegedly killed her children and then covered up her crimes were heard at Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London.

The seven charges she faces from Colorado Springs police and the FBI include two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and two counts of murder of a person under the age of 12 by a person in a position of trust.

She is also accused of the attempted murder of a third child, aged 11, who survived despite serious injuries and was told to lie about the ordeal, the court heard. The surviving child told police the perpetrator was a man who entered the home, but later told a foster mother her mother was responsible for the attacks.

The court heard that Singler said God had commanded her to do it.

Singler, who will give evidence at the three-day hearing, would only confirm her name and date of birth. Her lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald KC, said she denies the allegations against her and maintains her innocence.

Joel Smith KC, the US government lawyer, said the murders took place in the context of a bitter custody dispute between Singler and the children's father.

Singler was ordered to turn the two over to his care, but he failed to do so, Smith said. On Dec. 19, the day after the court order was issued, police responded to a 911 call from Singler's home and found the two children dead.

“She shot the first child in the head and stabbed her in the neck, she shot the second child in the head and stabbed her in the neck. She attacked the third child with a knife in the neck, causing severe lacerations,” Smith said.

The police found the two dead children lying together in bed.

Investigators also found live ammunition and empty cartridge cases in a closet, as well as a gun that had been handled by someone with blood-stained hands and a blood-stained knife, the court said.

Two empty sleeping pill bottles were found in the kitchen trash, Smith said. There were no signs of a break-in.

“(The surviving child) said the defendant told the three children to close their eyes. She led the first two children into the bedroom, approached the third child and told her to close her eyes. She then cut her on the side of her neck,” Smith said.

Smith argued that there is no obstacle to Singler's extradition under human rights law because crimes in the U.S. can be commuted by the governor. A life sentence, which Singler will almost certainly receive, should not be an obstacle to extradition, he said.

“If there is an executive branch pardon route in America, that is sufficient. It doesn't necessarily have to be a judicial route,” Smith said.

Fitzgerald, who also represented Julian Assange in his lengthy extradition proceedings in London, argued that it would be unlawful to extradite someone facing a life sentence without parole without taking mitigating circumstances into account.

In Britain, 63 people have been sentenced to life imprisonment, in the USA 49,000, he said.

“It is completely alien to us to say, simply based on the category of the crime, 'I would sentence you to life imprisonment without parole,' without taking into account the circumstances of the person,” he said.

“Here is a first-time offender, a devoted mother, doing something like this out of the blue,” he continued. “Are we saying that a mandatory life sentence without parole… would be OK?”

The hearing is expected to last three days.