A woman who drowned her young daughter in the grounds of a north hospital after witnessing the birth of her lover’s baby son has been found dead.
Rachel Cowley killed four-year-old Isabelle in a burn at Raigmore Hospital on February 23, 2011.
The 46-year-old was later detained in a psychiatric hospital unit after admitting culpable homicide.
Her body was found at a property in the Meadowbank area of Edinburgh on January 6 – just weeks before the fourth anniversary of the shocking crime.
A private funeral was held last week at Warriston Crematorium. Cowley’s parents, Almha and Hugh, were among those at the service.
Cowley, who lived at Shenval, Glenurquhart, at the time, was originally charged with murdering her daughter, but a plea of guilty was accepted to the lesser charge on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
She was jailed for five-and-a-half years and received treatment at the Orchard Clinic in Edinburgh.
It is believed she was released last year and had been living in the capital.
Cowley killed Isabelle just minutes after she cut the umbilical cord of her friend Nicola Charles’ baby boy.
The two women had been in an unconventional three-way relationship with Christoper Everitt – the father of both Isabelle and the new baby.
Maternity staff noticed that Cowley became subdued after the birth and went into a “trance-like state” for 20 minutes.
She drowned her daughter in the burn behind the hospital and put vegetation over her body to try to hide it.
She also put on a boiler suit and fled to Balloch after the crime.
The hospital was cordoned off when the girl’s body was found and a major police investigation got underway.
The High Court was told the love triangle had driven the former circus performer “out of her mind”. She was also said to have suffered “a degree of anger, jealousy and de-personalisation”.
Mr Everitt and Miss Charles moved to the west coast after the tragedy and are now understood to be living in Wales.