Two Familicidal Villainesses, Two Countries, Same Motive

I've been a true crime enthusiast for over 20 years, and while I've heard and learned about so many different cases, there is one constant: I haven't heard them all. This fact was proven about a few years back, when I learned about not one, but two similar cases: each involving a divorced woman who suddenly murders her young offspring in a fit of deranged jealousy. Not only are the motive and crime similar, but these crimes were committed in the same year, just two months apart--with one of the few differences being the country of origin.

First off, a case from the UK: Rekha Kumari was born in 1968 in India, but later resided in England. She married businessman David Baker in (circa) 1985, and the marriage resulted in the births of two daughters, Davina and Jasmine Kumari-Baker. Rekha and David had been married for two decades, but in 2005, the couple filed for divorce. Both parties moved on to new relationships; David met new girlfriend Kadi Kone, while Rekha began a relationship with Jeff Powell, a furniture businessman. Despite this, however, Rekha displayed jealousy of her ex-husband's new relationship, even hating seeing her daughters with Kadi.

In 2007, Rekha and Jeff split up, and she had also lost her job as a waitress, with those factors (along with her ex-husband's relationship) turning her jealousy into full blown rage. Rekha's jealousy reached a villainous level by June of 2007, as that was the time that she actually began a plot to kill her daughters just to hurt David. It was on June 11 of that year that Rekha purchased a pair of kitchen knives, and later took her daughters on shopping spree to "soften them up," in her twisted mind. Rekha committed the murders on the early morning of June 13, 2007, stabbing 16-year-old Davina 39 times, while 13-year-old Jasmine was stabbed 29 times.

Rekha used her newly bought kitchen knives in the murders, which she committed while the girls were asleep, and afterwards, the villainess called Natalie Barford, a policewoman and a friend of hers, and confessed to killing her daughters. Rekha revealed that she had planned the murders days in advance, and in her written note, she claimed that she didn't want her daughters to be hurt like Jeff hurt her; though Rekha's true motive was jealousy and bitterness over David's relationship with Kadi. Rekha was convicted of the murders on September 22, 2009, and was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum tariff of 33 years.

Amy Hebert was born Amy Talbot on September 13, 1967, and she worked as a teacher's aide at an elementary school in Lockport, Louisiana. She met and married Chad Hebert at some point in the 1990s, and the couple had two children: daughter Camille (born 1998) and son Braxton (born 2000). Chad filed for divorce in 2005, and later moved on with a new relationship, and as for Amy, she became immensely enraged and jealous of Chad's relationship, and hated seeing her two children around Chad's girlfriend.

On August 20, 2007 (just over two months after the Kumari-Baker murders), Amy became villainous and committed the same exact crime as Rekha Kumari-Baker: murdering her two children. Amy stabbed both of her children to death, killing Camille first--while responding to her daughter's pleas by stating that she "didn't want Chad to get her." The unhinged villainess later stabbed Braxton to death as well, and she even went as far as killing their dog as well. Amy also stabbed herself multiple times, but she was saved and arrested on that same day.

The trial revealed that Amy had left a scathing note geared towards not only Chad, but Chad's mother as well. It had been stated that Chad's mother had encouraged Camille and Braxton to have a kinship with Chad's girlfriend, which was while Amy lashed out at her mother-in-law in the note. On June 24, 2009, Amy was convicted and later sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences--one for each child. The death penalty had been an option, with the jury voting 9-3 in favor of execution, but Louisiana law stated that in order for the death penalty to be enforced, the vote had to be unanimous.

Thoughts: Without question, Rekha Kumari-Baker and Amy Hebert were each deranged, depraved, psychotic, and immensely evil. I've heard many stories of jealousy bringing out the worst in people, but I never thought that people would be so consumed with envy that they would kill, of all people, children--least of all, their own! In the case of Amy, it was her children and an animal, but regardless, both cases were very twisted--solely because of the women involved and the horrendous crimes they committed. A saying I learned on an episode of Seinfeld is, "The best revenge is living well." It is a terrible shame that neither woman learned that lesson; a lot of heartbreak and horrible choices could have been prevented if they had.