A father woke his two children and slit their throats while they desperately tried to fight him off before calling his ex-wife to say: 'I have killed your children'.
Jean Francis Say, 62, murdered his eight-year-old daughter Regina and son Rolls, 10, (pictured above) to 'spite' his estranged wife Adjoua, 44, after he was told he was to be evicted from their three-bedroom flat.
Adjoua, who is known as Antoinette, had moved out with the children six months previously and Say was no longer entitled to the flat they once shared in Southwark, south east London.
Today at the Old Bailey Say, originally from the Ivory Coast, pleaded guilty to the double murders through an interpreter. He is due to be sentenced on Monday afternoon. go here to read more
The children, who he had custody of at the time, were playing computer games before Say knifed them sometime between Saturday, February 12 and the early hours of the following day.
He then phoned Adjoua accusing her of 'defaming him on Facebook' saying 'I have killed your children. I have killed your children. I have called the police and am waiting for them.'
He called 999 and then redialled her number and told her: 'Come and get the bodies.'
Officers found the retired concierge and part-time football steward sitting beside the bodies of his children, who had been dead for several hours.
On being led out of the flat Say pointed to some documents and said: 'This paper is evidence of why I did it.' The papers related to his eviction.
Prosecutor Ed Brown QC in his opening notes not read to the court said: 'In the early morning of Sunday, February 13, this defendant killed his own children.
'He took their lives as they lay where they slept. They were quite defenceless.
'It is likely that each of the children tried to fend off the attack upon them by their father before they were each quickly overwhelmed and killed by him.
'The dreadful fact is that the defendant took a knife and cut the throat of each child as they lay where they had been sleeping.
The evidence suggests that the defendant carried out the killing to spite his estranged wife, the mother of his children.'
He said the children had been killed some time before he made the calls to Adjoua, and Rolls had suffered forceful blows to the head while he was still alive in addition to knife wounds to his neck.
Mr Brown said these were enough to cause injuries to his brain.
He added: 'There are in addition what are known as defence wounds that show that Rolls and separately Regina most likely had struggled against the knife during the defendant’s attack upon them.'
Mr Brown said the killings were a culmination of longstanding marital difficulties born from the violent, jealous and possessive behaviour of the defendant and from the consequences that the departure of his wife and children from the home was likely to have on his own situation.
In addition, the prosecutor said there was a history of domestic violence and Adjoua had moved out some time before eviction proceedings were started.
However, there had not been any child safety concerns, he added.
Neighbours claimed officers had been called to the flat on at least one previous occasion after reports of a violent row between ‘controlling’ Say and his wife.
The couple, both from West Africa, married in February 1998 in Southwark. But his wife moved to Holloway in North London with the children six months ago after their marriage failed
