Quebec Appeal Court orders 3rd trial for Adele Sorella - Action News
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Quebec Appeal Court orders 3rd trial for Adele Sorella

Adele Sorella has successfully appealed her 2019 jury conviction on two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of her daughtersAmanda, 9, and Sabrina, 8, for which she had been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 10 years.

Laval woman twice convicted of killing her daughters, aged 8 and 9

Woman walks in a courthouse with a handbag over her shoulder.
The Quebec Court of Appeal has ordered a third trial for Adele Sorella, seen here in a file photo from Nov. 29, 2018. The court found that the judge in her second trial erred by refusing to accept an argument that organized crime might have played a part in the deaths of Sorella's two daughters. (Radio-Canada)

The Quebec Court of Appeal has ordered a third trial for Adele Sorella, a Laval woman who has twice been convicted of killing her daughters.

Sorella had appealed a 2019 conviction by a jury on two counts of second-degree murder in the 2009 deaths of her two daughters,nine-year-old Amanda and eight-year-old Sabrina, for which she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 10 years.

Sorella was first convicted of first-degree murder in 2013 in the deaths of her daughters, but that ruling was overturned on appeal in 2017.

In a ruling Monday, Quebec's highest court overturned the most recent verdict because of the trial judge's refusal to accept an argument that organized crime could have played a part in the deaths.

JusticesFranois Doyon, Jean Bouchard and Christine Baudoinfound that Quebec Superior Court JusticeSophie Bourquemay have exacerbated the impact of that errorin her instructions to the jury.

Sorella's husband and the girls' father was Giuseppe De Vito, a man with ties to organized crime who died in prison in 2013 after being poisoned.

The girls were found dead in their playroom on March 31, 2009. Their bodies bore no signs of violence, and the cause of their death has never been determined.

Sorella had been granted bail in July 2020 while awaiting the outcome of her appeal.

A new trial, this time for second-degree murder, would be a third for Sorella, who has pleaded not guilty due to a mental disorder.

With files from Radio-Canada