A mum who locked herself in her bedroom, stabbed her five-year-old son to death before killing herself, left a note saying "I am a bad person".
Yi Chen and her son Xingduan Yuan were discovered at the family home in Barnet, north London on June 21 last year, by her husband after he returned from taking their other son to school.
In the run up to the murder-suicide Chen had been seeking psychiatric support for depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, migraines and insomnia from NHS and private practitioners.
Less than week before she had a zoom meeting with a psychiatrist attended by her husband but was not seen in person by him.
Her husband Shuai Yuan updated the psychiatrist and they had agreed a management plan.
Mr Yuan told North London Coroner’s Court via video link he was under the impression his wife's condition was improving but in hindsight realised she had been hiding what was happening.
He said previously she had been open with GPs, psychologists and a private psychiatrist about her suicidal thoughts.
He added: "From what I saw, I believed she was getting better but now I realise she was getting worse and chose to hide it from me.”
Senior coroner Andrew Walker recounted Mr Yuan’s version of events that day.
He said: “You woke up to an alarm on your phone at 7.20am and when you woke up you had a message from your wife at 7.50am saying that she did not want Yuan to go to school.
“You went to take your other son and then came back at 11.20 having dropped him off. Then you realised your son hadn’t taken his tie to school.
“At 11.50 you took the tie to the reception area at school.
“Then you went to the pharmacist where you picked up medication for your wife. Around 1300 hours you knocked on the door of the bedroom which you found locked.
“You broke the door using a hammer to gain entry and then you found your wife and Xingduan Yuan on the bed. You then called emergency services."
Mr Yuan corrected the statement and said he called the police before he broke into the door.
DS Martin Slatterly, from Hendon Serious Crime Unit, provided a statement read out by the coroner.
He said police received a 999 call to the home on Brookside South: “The caller said that his wife had killed herself and her son in the room.
“Mr Yuan was understandably incredibly distressed.”
The officer said he found a “fist-sized hole” by the door used to unlock it from the outside.
The coroner ruled Xingduan died by unlawful killing and Mrs Chen by suicide.
He said: "Mrs Chen was suffering with depressive illness at the time of the incident and that mental illness would seemed to have grown worse in the period before her death."
