Crown won’t appeal Quebec woman’s acquittal after third trial in daughters’ deaths

MONTREAL — The Crown says it won’t appeal the acquittal last month of a Quebec woman following a third trial in the deaths of her two daughters.

Adele Sorella was acquitted by Quebec Superior Court Justice Myriam Lachance on Dec. 18.

Sorella had been convicted twice previously, in 2013 and 2019, of murder in the girls’ killings following jury trials, but both of those decisions were overturned on appeal, which led to a third trial that took place last year before a judge alone.

The victims, nine-year-old Amanda and eight-year-old Sabrina, were found dead in their playroom on March 31, 2009, lying side by side in their school uniforms. 

Lachance said in her ruling that there were gaps in the Crown’s theory of what transpired that led her to acquit Sorella on two counts of murder.

Their bodies bore no signs of violence and the cause of their deaths has never been determined, although prosecutors theorized they were killed in a hyperbaric chamber, which had been used to treat juvenile arthritis in one of the girls.

Audrey Roy-Cloutier, a spokeswoman for the province’s director of criminal and penal prosecutions, says in an email that the Crown disagrees with the acquittal but has concluded there was no error of law in Lachance’s decision that could justify an appeal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 19, 2024.

The Canadian Press