Woman recalls finding dead grandchildren
Daughter stands trial for 2009 murders
LAVAL, QUE. • Teresa Di Cesare woke early, went downstairs, and started her usual routine.
Her youngest granddaughter, Sabrina, eight, was already awake watching television in the playroom. Her daughter, Adele Sorella, and other granddaughter, nineyear-old Amanda, would wake soon after.
As she would every morning, Di Cesare brushed the family dog and took it outside. She then poured each granddaughter a cup of milk with a splash of coffee in it — so they could all share “coffee” together in the morning — and gave them two S-shaped cookies for breakfast. She did the dishes and prepped the girls’ snacks for school.
Around 9 a.m., she left for her sister’s apartment in downtown Montreal, kissing everyone goodbye before heading out. Sorella was supposed to drop the girls off at school and join Di Cesare around 11 a.m. for a doctor’s appointment.
When Sorella didn’t show, Di Cesare called the house, but no one answered. She then left her daughter a voicemail on her cellphone.
Her calls were returned a little after 11 a.m.
“She said, ‘We missed the appointment, I can’t come,’” Di Cesare, 75, testified in court on Monday. “And she didn’t come. That’s all.”
Sorella, 52, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of firstdegree murder in the deaths of her daughters that day, March 31, 2009.
The two girls were found dead, side-by-side on the floor in the family playroom. The trial entered its third week on Monday.
Di Cesare, allowed to sit in the witness box to be more comfortable while testifying, was asked to explain to the jury what happened later that day, once she returned to Sorella’s house in Laval.
She said the first thing she noticed was her two sons, Enzo and Luigi, standing outside — “I said ‘My God, I’m spoiled tonight, I have my three children all under the same roof.’ ”
Her hands clenching and unclenching as she testified, Di Cesare began to tremble when asked what came next. She took deep breaths and a long sip of water, then explained how she and her sons found the two girls in the playroom. Unable to continue, she asked for a break to gather herself.
Sorella, mostly calm throughout the trial to date, was visibly shaken as her mother struggled to walk toward the hallway, passing her on the way out.
The trial has heard how Di Cesare moved in with her daughter after Sorella’s husband, Giuseppe De Vito, went on the run in 2006 when he was targeted in a lengthy police investigation into organized crime. Sorella had become suicidal and paranoid, making attempts to end her life.
On Monday, Di Cesare said she couldn’t explain how Sorella’s mental health had deteriorated. She spoke of two suicide attempts and how she thought her daughter had been doing better in between.
“She was really, really well,” she said. “And all of a sudden, I don’t know, something must have happened. At the hospital, she took my hand and said, ‘Mom, never leave me alone. Not here, not at home.’”
The Crown has said it intends to prove Sorella had the “exclusive opportunity” to kill her children.
There were no obvious signs of violence on the girls’ bodies, and a cause of death is yet to be established during the trial.
A hyperbaric chamber found upstairs and seized by police has been featured prominently. The jury has been told it was used to treat Sabrina’s juvenile arthritis.
Di Cesare is expected to continue her testimony later this week.