Donna Stambulich – WAToday.com.au
Clinical Psychologist
‘Mama no, take me, kill me’: Kewdale death labelled a ‘horrific domestic incident’ by police.
The death of a Kewdale mother-of-two on Monday night is being treated by police as a “horrific domestic incident” witnessed by the woman’s two daughters who begged for her life to be spared.
Neighbours recalled through tears hearing the children, aged 10 and 15, asking the perpetrator to take them instead.
“Mama, mama, mama, no, no, no, no. Take me, kill me,” they said. But their pleadings went unheard.
While police have yet to charge the 37-year-old business-owner, Police Commissioner Col Blanch told ABC’s Nadia Mitsopoulos on Wednesday it was the “likely outcome”.
“Investigations are ongoing,” he said.
“We’ve got some issues with medical – he was involved in a serious crash.
“Let us do the investigation and I’m sure we’ll move to a position where charges will be laid.”
On Wednesday Dean was still under police guard recovering in hospital, being treated for a broken hip sustained when he crashed his car into a tree on a quiet St James street just 45 minutes after Lasakar was critically injured in Kewdale.
On his Facebook page, he describes Lasakar as his fiance.
“Sadly, it’s another domestic issue,” Blanch said.
“These are horrific crimes.
“Domestic violence murders across Australia are, unfortunately, all too common. One is too many but we do see them time and time again. It’s tragically sad for the families involved.”
Tragically, statistics show one woman a week gets killed by their current or former partner in Australia.
Speaking generally, and not about the Kewdale case, Perth clinical psychologist Donna Stambulich said there was usually a build up to the moment a partner snaps, even if it’s hard to spot.
“Historically, we’ve been relying on the idea that it’s a crime of passion and that it’s spontaneous, but that’s just not true,” she said.
“If we start to look at all these cases, there’s planning involved and there’s always coercive control. Some of the things they have in common are a pre-relationship history of stalking, the romance developing quickly or what we call ‘love bombing’ and there’s usually a trigger that threatens the perpetrator’s control.”
That trigger could be the woman getting new friends or spending more time with family.
“They’re losing that grip and then what we see is the escalation, the increase in the intensity of the partner’s control tactics,” Stambulich said.
“That is usually when a woman starts to ask for help or starts talking about it.
“The biggest times of risk are in the weeks after a person has left the relationship.”