A Perth mother will spend at least 18 years in jail for stabbing her husband to death as he slept in their home, before turning the kitchen knife on two of her young sons.

Cara Lee Hall, 38, was found guilty last year of murdering 33-year-old Glenn Hall at the family’s home in the southern Perth suburb of Leda in December 2015, before attacking two of their four sons, who at the time were aged 11 and 4.

Mr Hall was stabbed more than 16 times as he slept on a mattress.

Hall then called triple zero and said she had stabbed her husband because he was trying to kill her and their children.

The Supreme Court was told that during the call Hall could be heard telling her sons to go to a neighbour who would keep them safe, and she later told detectives she had not been able to bring herself to kill them.

Killer was ‘psychotic’

At her trial, Hall claimed she had acted in self defence because she had endured years of physical and mental abuse and feared her husband was going to kill her and the children.

But, during the sentencing process, psychiatrists determined she was suffering a “trauma-induced psychotic episode” before, during and after the attack.

The court heard Hall was having paranoid delusions that her husband was trying to kill the children or that he was trying to sell them into the sex trade.

She also claimed she was hearing voices from God and the Devil.

-ABC