Bio

She was born in 1966. Her father worked as a police officer in Scotland. Her mother lived in Forres, Morayshire. Reports say she was left heartbroken by her father’s death when she was young.

She left school at 18. After that she worked in Spain as a nanny for five years. She later moved into office work and became a credit manager for a Lloyd’s insurance syndicate.

Early in her adult life she was married to Derek McCrow. They had two sons together. The marriage ended in divorce in 2003. Custody of the two older boys was later given to their father.

While both were married, she met Paul Donnison, who worked in insurance. Their friendship became a relationship. She became pregnant early in that relationship and gave birth to a daughter, Mia, in 2003. Mia died less than a year later and doctors recorded the death as cot death at the time. After that loss, Paul moved in with her in 2005.

She changed her name by deed poll. She later had further children in 2006 and 2008. At work she was made redundant in July, and reports say she had mounting credit card debts that had been cleared by her partner early in their relationship.

Murder Story

On January 26, 2010, Fiona Donnison suffocated her two young children, Harry, aged three, and Elise, aged two, at her rented house in Lightwater, Surrey.

She placed each child in a separate sports holdall or duffel bag and put them in the boot of her silver Nissan car.

She then drove to Heathfield, East Sussex, a journey of about 90 miles.

She stopped on the way and bought sleeping pills and was reported to have been armed with two kitchen knives.

Early the next morning she walked into Heathfield police station and told officers she had killed her children.

Police found the two toddlers zipped into separate holdalls in the boot of her car.

Initial post-mortem examinations showed the deaths were from asphyxia and that the children had been dead for less than 24 hours.

She surrendered to police two days after the killings and was charged with murder.

Detectives re-examined the 2004 death of the couple’s first child, Mia, which had originally been recorded as cot death.

Donnison was later charged over Mia’s death but a judge dismissed that charge for lack of evidence.

Psychiatrists who examined Donnison after her arrest diagnosed a narcissistic personality disorder.

Prosecutors said her motive for killing Harry and Elise was jealous rage and a wish to take revenge on their father after he ended their relationship and began seeing an old school friend.

At trial she was found guilty of two counts of murder.

On August 9, 2011, she was sentenced to two life terms with a minimum term of 32 years.