For the first time since 2009, Adèle Sorella can breathe a sigh of relief: she is a free woman as the Crown will not appeal her verdict of acquittal for the murders of her two little girls.
• Also read: Murder of her two daughters in Laval: Adèle Sorella acquitted in her third trial
• Also read: Accused of the murder of her two little girls: a third extraordinary trial
This election of the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) brings to an end a legal saga that has lasted almost 15 years.
Amanda and Sabrina De Vito, ages 9 and 8, were killed on March 31, 2009. Authorities were never able to determine the cause of death. However, a natural and simultaneous death was ruled out and they were therefore murdered.
Amanda and Sabrina De Vito were killed in Laval on March 31, 2009. ARCHIVES ARCHIVES
Since then, two jurors have already found the children's mother, Adèle Sorella, guilty.
First in 2013, premeditated murders, then in 2019, unforeseen murders. Both times the appeals court overturned these verdicts.
A third extraordinary trial opened in the Laval courthouse in the fall of 2023.
Unusual process
The trial actually proceeded in a strange manner as no witness took the stand.
Rather, all of the evidence from the second trial was recorded in full.
Important witness statements were heard in the courtroom in the presence of the parties. The trial took place before a judge alone, a rarity in murder trials, which usually take place before a jury.
Adèle Sorella's third attempt to defend herself was the right one, as she was eventually acquitted.
It was clear to the Crown that the woman was the murderer because she had the exclusive opportunity to kill her children.
She was depressed and suicidal at the time. Her partner, Giuseppe De Vito, a boss with ties to the Montreal Mafia, was on the run at the time.
Giuseppe De Vito with kind permission
He has since been killed in prison with cyanide, months after Sorella's first conviction.
Organised crime?
But precisely because of the children's father's connections to organized crime, it cannot be ruled out that a member of the mafia killed the little girls, the woman's lawyers argued.
In the days before the murders, the recording module of a home surveillance system had been removed. The crime scene technicians also found a trace of a sole without examining it.
Judge Myriam Lachance ruled on elements that raised reasonable doubts about the guilt of the now 57-year-old mother and acquitted her.
“The opportunity [de commettre les meurtres] alone cannot prove the guilt of the accused. It must be combined with other incriminating evidence,” the judge said.
Furthermore, the judge was not convinced by the Crown's theory that Sorella killed her children by asphyxiation using a hyperbaric chamber used to treat a girl's juvenile arthritis problems. When not in use, this therapy device, which delivers oxygen under pressure, is sealed airtight.
The hyperbaric chamber in Adèle Sorella's house. MARTIN ALARIE/AGENCE QMI Martin Alarie/Agence QMI
The judge concluded that it would have taken 1 hour and 30 minutes for the children to die there and that the device could have been opened from the inside. The children who were not drugged could then have gotten out, she said.
“The theory of an unidentified member linked to organized crime [qui aurait commis le crime] affects the prosecution's general thesis, namely that Ms. Sorella is the author of the book [meurtres]” she added.
“Although this ruling does not meet expectations, given the current legal norms, the DPCP concludes that it cannot appeal this case,” said DPCP spokesperson Me Audrey Roy-Cloutier.
Remember that the prosecutor must allege an error of law to justify the appeals court's intervention following an acquittal, and that a simple disagreement is not sufficient reason.
– In collaboration with Michaël Nguyen
A long legal saga
November 22, 2006: The police launch Operation Colisée with the aim of destroying the Montreal mafia. Giuseppe De Vito, Adèle Sorella's husband, goes on the run.
March 31, 2009: The couple's daughters, Amanda and Sabrina, ages 9 and 8, were found dead in the family home. Adèle Sorella is arrested a few hours later and accused of murder.
House in Laval where the drama took place in 2009. ARCHIVE PHOTO/JOCELYN MALETTE/JOURNAL DE MONTRÉAL/AGENCE QMI
October 5, 2010: Giuseppe De Vito is arrested in Montreal.
June 24, 2013: Adèle Sorella is found guilty after an initial trial. Two weeks later, Giuseppe De Vito was murdered with cyanide in his prison cell.
December 4, 2017: The appeals court orders a new trial for Adèle Sorella because the judge's instructions to the jury were incorrect.
March 5, 2019: At the end of her second trial, a jury found Adèle Sorella guilty of second-degree murder.
March 21, 2022: The appeals court again ordered a new trial, partly because Sorella could not put forward the theory that the murders could have been committed by the mafia.
September 13, 2023: The third trial begins with the judge rehearsing 48 witness statements and analyzing 76 documents submitted at previous hearings.
December 18, 2023: In a 70-page verdict, Judge Myriam Lachance acquitted Adèle Sorella.
January 19, 2024: The Crown announces it will not appeal the recent acquittal.