A mother has been accused of murdering her two disabled children for nearly $1 million in insurance payouts.
Maree Mavis Crabtree, aged 54, allegedly forced her 18-year-old daughter Erin and 26-year-old son Jonathan to take prescription medication, causing various health and developmental problems that eventually led to their deaths, according to Australian police.
According to NewsWeek, Erin was found dead in September 2012 in a home she shared with her mother in Maudsland, Queensland. Crabtree was reportedly on a cruise at the time. Meanwhile, Jonathan’s body was found in his nearby Upper Coomera home in 2017.
Detectives preparing a report for the coroner over Erin’s death became suspicious after Jonathan’s death, resulting in Crabtree’s arrest in January 2018. Her committal hearing commenced at Brisbane Magistrates Court on March 16, 2021, where it was exposed that Crabtree allegedly controlled her son’s finances, refused to let him get a job, and forced both of her children to take prescription medication to benefit from disability insurance payouts, according to news.com.au.
ABC reported that Jonathan’s ex-girlfriend Katelyn Lofts told the court: “He was actually petrified of Maree. She was controlling him in everything of his life; he wasn’t allowed to do anything. He just wanted to leave, but she would not let him as his name was on the house.”
Crabtree’s ex-partner Peter McMahon insisted that the children had “no health issues” when he lived with them in 2003. However, in the following years, Erin, who was nine at that time, began withdrawing for an unknown reason.
“She was a very healthy and very talkative girl [and], she started not to eat. She wouldn’t interact,” McMahon said, as reported by ABC.
