Germany: Katherine Hooper and Joshua, aged 5, were killed when they fell around 100ft from a rock in Dartmoor - police then found toddler son Sam dead at the family home.
A suicidal mother drowned her two-year-old son before going to a rock and plunging to her death - with her oldest son on her back.
Katherine Hooper and five-year-old son Joshua Patterson were killed when they fell between 80-100 feet from Lowman Tor at Haytor Rock on Dartmoor last July.
When police later went to her family home in Paignton, Devon, they discovered her youngest son Sam dead in a double bed.
An inquest at Torquay, Devon, heard that a suicide note was found by police hidden within a book on a shelf at her home. It was not dated but detectives believe it was written a couple of weeks before the tragic triple deaths.
A coroner has ruled that Kat, as she was known, killed herself but unlawfully killed Joshua. He returned an open verdict on toddler Sam.
The hearing was told a Dutch holidaymaker sent police a photo which showed Kat and Joshua on the rock in the moments before they fell to their deaths.
And other foreign and local people saw the death fall and had witnessed Kat moving closer to the edge of the drop from the granite rock with Joshua having a ‘piggy back’ ride on his 24 year old mum’s back.
Kat and Joshua both died from multiple injuries, suffering head and neck wounds which rendered them unconscious before they died.
But a pathologist was unable to ascertain what killed Sam.
The South Devon coroner Ian Arrow said: "I am not certain that I can record drowning as his medical cause of death.”
Mr Arrow said Sam ‘probably died well before’ the day his mum and older brother fell to their deaths and he said Kat and Joshua had left their home ‘in a hurry’ after he died.
A Home Office forensic pathologist Dr Russell Delaney said Sam’s death was ‘suggestive of drowning but not diagnostic’.
He said there was no evidence that Sam had been smothered but a bath half full of water was found by police.
Detective Sergeant Andy James, from the Major Crime Investigation Team, said on Friday, July 12th, police received reports from members of the public of two lifeless bodies being found at the bottom of Lowman Tor near Bovey Tracey, Devon.
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He said people climbing on the famous Haytor Rock saw a woman with a young child which was not that unusual.
But he told the inquest: ”They seemed to be precariously close to the edge of the rock.”
He said one witness looked at them but felt they were intruding and although unnerved by the situation they ‘let them be’.
A German holidaymaker said Joshua was ‘on the back piggy back style walking slowly to the edge’ before sitting down.
They did not intervene because no one appreciated what was going to happen, he said.
Det Sgt James said at the family home police broke in and found Sam ‘laid out’ on a double bed wearing a damp blue Tee shirt and a saturated nappy which did not smell of urine.
He said it appeared Sam had been paid on the bed and the water from his clothes seeped into the bed clothes.
The detective said the suicide note, though unclear when it was written, revealed jobless Kat’s ‘mindset’.
The inquest heard from her father Peter Hooper, a Dartmoor builder, who said in his statement that his daughter was a ‘lovely, caring person’.
He said she met 52 year old Neil Patterson when she was 17 and had the two boys with him.
He said by Christmas 2012 ‘a little bit of the spark had gone’ from Kat and a week later she took an overdose of pills and went missing.
The two boys were taken into care and were returned to her two weeks later.
Mr Hooper said what happened in July was ‘a complete shock’ when she jumped off the rock killing Joshua and herself.
He said when he last spoke to her on the phone ‘she sounded alright’.
He said as a family they used to regularly walk on the moors, most often around Haytor and Hound Tor.
Dr Delaney could not say when Sam died but said it was ‘many hours’ before he was found.
He said he may died from so called dry drowning where water suddenly hits the back of the mouth and throat and causes a heart attack.
Police at the time said they know Kat and Joshua had left their home the day before their deaths and slept rough near a quarry overnight.
A Swiss holidaymaker said on the day of their deaths he saw them near the edge of the precipice.
Uli Dallmer said:”Someone was standing on the other rock for five or ten minutes, right on the edge. It was very unusual.”
A Dutch visitor said:”She was standing there with the child on her back. It was flashing through my mind that it was dangerous, standing there.
“There was a child on her back, then she left it and sat there lying down like she was sunbathing. She was looking at me, I was only about five metres away.”
Coroner Mr Arrow said he was satisfied Kat intended to take her own life and it was self inflicted.
He said of Joshua:”On the balance of probabilities his mother jumped from rocks with the deceased on her back. I am satisfied sadly he was unlawfully killed.”
And on Sam he said:”He was left lying on the bed with a duvet under his chin. We do not have a precise medical cause of death.”
He reiterated that he could not say Sam drowned as a medical cause of death.
The coroner said the deaths were ‘an intensely sad situation’ the families had had to bear.
Afterwards the dead boys’ father Neil Patterson made a statement blaming social services for the deaths.
Mr Patterson, who had been charged with assaulting Kat and had been due to go on trial over the alleged attack - a case which was later dropped - called the tragedy a ‘most horrendous case’.
He said if social workers had intervened when the boys failed to turn up at school and playgroup then their lives would have been saved.
And he claimed that Sam had accidentally drowned in Kat’s bath and said she woke up to find him dead and ‘the unimaginable sight’ led to conclude her own was over and she may even face criminal charges.
The Hooper family, who were also at the hearing, left without making any comment.
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