Elderly mom beaten to death by her son, police allege
Slain great-grandmother Maria Desousa was remembered Saturday at a Portuguese-language funeral service at Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Kingston where friends and family gathered to mourn her.
Desousa, 81, was described in her obituary as the “loved mother” of three children, including her Ottawa son — the youngest of the family — who now sits behind bars, charged, alongside his girlfriend, after what police believe was a premeditated plot to murder his elderly mother.
Paulo Desousa, 40, and Danielle LeBlanc, 36, allegedly drove Maria’s body to the Montfort Hospital
on Feb. 10. Police allege the couple had beaten Maria, who lived with them, to death days earlier.
Police believe Maria Desousa, who had moved from Kingston, was killed in the Orléans townhome all three shared on Parkrose Private.
Police documents filed in court say Desousa was killed on Feb. 8 — two days before she was finally brought to the hospital.
Police initially believed that the couple’s account of Maria’s final moments was suspicious. Investigators later classified it a homicide.
Police arrived at the Orléans street they lived on late in the afternoon of the day the couple arrived at hospital with Maria’s body.
The couple appeared in court Tuesday, when they were each formally charged with first-degree murder.
LeBlanc appeared with bandages over her nose and brow.
There have been six homicides in Ottawa in 2018.