Closing arguments begin in trial of Quebec mother accused of killing her two girls

By The Canadian Press

LAVAL, Que. — The lawyer for a Quebec mother accused of killing her two daughters is questioning the work of investigators who analyzed the crime scene.

Pierre Poupart told jurors in his closing arguments today that police were obsessed with proving Adele Sorella had killed her daughters, aged 8 and 9. The cause of death was never established after the girls were found, dressed in their school uniforms, in the family playroom in March 2009.

Poupart says investigators never checked for fingerprints or verified whether someone could have broken into the home. He adds that police didn’t examine the hyperbaric chamber in the house that was bought to treat one of the daughters’ juvenile arthritis.

Poupart says the investigators’ tunnel vision prevented them from looking for other clues in the case.

The Crown has maintained that only Sorella would have been able to cause the deaths of Amanda and Sabrina De Vito because no one else was in the home. A pathologist who testified on behalf of the Crown suggested the girls could have been asphyxiated in the hyperbaric chamber.

Sorella testified last month that she had almost no memory of the day her daughters died. The trial began in November.

The Canadian Press

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