WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT
An immigrant mother of two who felt isolated in her new Australian home drove to a remote area and set herself and her two children on fire after telling her husband she was taking them to McDonald’s.
James Swan Palakamannil gave a harrowing account of what his life has been like since his wife, Jasmine Thomas, and two daughters, Carolyn and Evlyn, died in a car fire in Melbourne two years ago.
“Seeing the coffin fall with all your favorite people changes your life,” he told the Victorian Coroner’s Court on Tuesday. Age reported.
‘I will never be the same again. Never touch, feel or see them again. They will still be images on a screen.
‘On March 24 [2022]the sky became three stars richer.’
Jasmine Thomas and her two children, Carolyn and Evlyn (pictured with Mrs Thomas), died in a car fire in Melbourne’s south-east on March 24, 2022.
On Tuesday, the Victorian Coroner’s Court ruled that Ms Thomas intentionally covered her car (pictured) in petrol and set it on fire with herself and her two daughters inside.
Palakamannil remembers how three-year-old Carolyn would drag a chair to reach the front door handle and open it when she came home from work every day.
She would always wear her favorite color, pink.
Her older sister, six-year-old Evlyn, “was the boss of the house.”
“She was wearing the pants,” Palakamannil told the court.
Her mother, Jasmine Thomas, suffered from postpartum depression and became paranoid during the Covid pandemic.
On the night of March 24, 2022, Palakamannil returned home to Lyndhurst, in Melbourne’s southeast, to find his daughters playing on a mobile phone and his wife lying in bed.
A short time later, Mrs. Thomas told him she would take the girls to McDonald’s.
However, CCTV footage showed the mother first went to a service station in the nearby suburb of Cranbourne West, where she bought and filled a jerrycan.
Mrs Thomas then drove herself and her daughters to the car park of a McDonald’s, where they sat until 7.30pm.
Less than 10 minutes later, she drove to a secluded spot on the Western Port Highway, covered her car in fuel and set it alight with herself and her two daughters inside.
Emergency services were called to the scene after a passer-by saw the devastating fire, which was brought under control within 15 minutes.
Mrs. Thomas, Evlyn and Carolyn died in the terrible fire.
Carolyn and Evlyn’s father (pictured), James Swan Palakamannil, said “the sky became three stars richer” the night they and their mother died.
The court heard Ms Thomas suffered from postpartum depression and became paranoid during the Covid pandemic (pictured emergency services responding to the fire).
“Suddenly, there’s no one waiting for me at the door,” Palakamannil told the court through tears.
‘[I’m now] living in an empty and silent house.’
State Coroner John Cain found that Mrs Thomas deliberately took her own life and those of her two children in an act of family violence.
Nicholas Ngai, the lawyer assisting the coroner, discovered that Palakamannil and Thomas had married in India in 2012 after meeting on an arranged marriage website.
The couple, who were born in Kuwait, moved to Australia and obtained permanent residency in 2015.
Palakamannil recalled how the Gulf War inspired him to teach Evlyn to be a good person.
‘I saw her take her first steps, say her first words. She would give him pep talks before bed… about hunger and war and how children are starving, about global warming and climate change to put in his heart the desire to… be a force for change.” , she said.
Ms Thomas worked in Melbourne hospitals as a nurse, but unexpectedly resigned from Mulgrave Private Hospital in 2021.
However, she remained as a casual employee at Dandenong Hospital.
During this time he told his family that he was having marital problems.
Through tears, Palakamannil told the court: “Seeing the coffin fall with all your favorite people inside changes your life” (pictured, the scene of the fire).
State Coroner John Cain found that Ms Thomas deliberately took her own life and those of her two children in an act of family violence (pictured, after the fire).
Coroner Cain noted that Ms Thomas had contacted various professional services, including the police, and had experienced postpartum depression.
He found that those services had no chance of preventing his murder-suicide.
“Although child protection and Victoria Police were concerned about her mental health, as she was not assessed as seriously ill and did not wish to participate in services, she did not receive any formal assistance or diagnosis,” Cain said.
Instead, the court heard how Ms Thomas was socially isolated and her problems were often ignored by her extended family.
‘My late wife, Jasmine, did the best she could. I wish I had… sought help. She struggled to connect and interact with people and make friends. When she couldn’t take it anymore… in the process she took my most prized possessions,” Palakamannil said.
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