After 15 years and three trials, the legal saga of Adèle Sorella, convicted twice of having killed her 8 and 9 year old daughters then acquitted last December, will go no further.
The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) indicated on Friday, at the end of the time limit he had to appeal the acquittal of the wife of a mafia boss, that he would not move forward.
The DPCP says it has carried out “a rigorous analysis of the reasons supporting this [dernière] decision” and having come to the conclusion that “although this verdict is not what was expected, in light of the applicable rules of law, the DPCP concludes that it cannot appeal this case”.
“Remember that, to justify the intervention of the Court of Appeal following an acquittal, the prosecutor must raise an error of law and that simple disagreement is not a sufficient reason,” adds his spokesperson ,Me Audrey Roy Cloutier.
The death of Adèle Sorella’s two daughters, Sabrina and Amanda De Vito, will therefore remain a mystery.
The woman was acquitted last December, at the end of the third trial, due to “gaps” in the evidence and the possibility that the mafia could have killed the girls.
On March 31, 2009, Adèle Sorella left her residence without giving any news before being found during the night in her damaged car. His daughters Amanda and Sabrina were later found dead by their uncles at the end of the day.
They were then in the living room, still wearing their school uniforms, and no trace of violence or forced entry could be found on their bodies or in the house.
A long saga
A third trial was ordered by the Court of Appeal because the judge of the second trial had prohibited the defense from pleading the theory of the involvement of organized crime.
You should know that the father of the little girls and husband of Adèle Sorella at the time of the events, was Giuseppe De Vito, an influential mafia clan leader who had been on the run for three years. He died of cyanide poisoning in a maximum security prison in 2013.
Adèle Sorella had become paranoid since her husband’s sudden departure. She had attempted suicide three times. According to experts, she suffered from major depression and pathological dissociation. Amnesia also prevented him from remembering the fateful day when the girls died.
She was found guilty by a jury of first degree murder on June 24, 2013, during a first trial, a decision overturned by the Court of Appeal.
An appeal by the prosecution remained possible, but a fourth murder trial would have been virtually unprecedented.
With Louis-Samuel Perron, The Press