Adele Sorella found not guilty in daughters’ 2009 deaths in third murder trial

A Quebec woman has been acquitted in the 2009 deaths of her young daughters after a third trial on murder charges.

A Quebec Superior Court justice acquitted Adele Sorella of second-degree murder charges in relation to the deaths of her daughters, Amanda, 9, and Sabrina, 8.

Sorella was convicted of murder in 2013 and 2019, but both of those decisions were overturned on appeal.

The third trial was heard before Quebec Superior Court Justice Myriam Lachance in Laval earlier this fall, but without any witnesses or new evidence.

The girls were found dead in the family home in March 2009, but their bodies showed no signs of violence and a cause of death was never determined.

Sorella was arrested the following day after crashing her SUV into a hydro pole.

“Our thoughts are going to Sabrina and Amanda that died almost 15 years ago,” said Crown prosecutor, Marie-Claude Bourassa, after the ruling. “And all the people that were implicated both in the investigation, but all the people that were touched by the two young girls when they were discovered and all the proceedings for the last 15 years.”

Last year, Quebec Court of Appeal ordered the new trial for Sorella, who has pleaded not guilty due to a mental disorder.

The Crown agreed to a judge-only trial. Past witness testimony was used.

Justice Lachance said Monday in her ruling, which took nearly three hours to deliver, that there were gaps in the Crown’s theory that led her to acquit Sorella on two counts of murder.

“The judgment that was rendered by Justice Lachance today was a very long one,” said Bourassa. “She took the time to go through the evidence that was a that is very extensive. But for now, the prosecution won’t comment since we need to read the document again.”

Defence lawyers argued that she was in a state of dissociation at the time of the girls’ deaths. They refused to comment after the ruling.

A jury first convicted Sorella in 2013 of first-degree murder, then in 2019 of second-degree murder.

Sorella was granted bail in July 2020 – amid her appeal – and is not being detained while on trial.

Her husband and the girls’ father was Giuseppe De Vito, a man with ties to the Italian Mafia who was on the lam at the time of the girls’ deaths and died in prison in 2013 after he was poisoned.