Mother accused of murdering daughters may have had ‘dissociative episode,’ trial hears

LAVAL, Que. — A psychiatrist who testified in defence of a Quebec mother on trial for the deaths of her two daughters said she appeared to have been having a “dissociative episode” the day they died.

Gilles Chamberland told the court he didn’t believe Adele Sorella was faking amnesia when she told the court she didn’t remember much about the day her daughters Amanda and Sabrina De Vito died.

Sorella’s lawyers also reminded the court of the Criminal Code section of criminal non-responsibility by way of mental disorder as her first-degree murder trial continued.

Sorella has testified that she remembers only fragments of March 31, 2009, such as seeing the children in the morning and driving her car.

The girls, aged 8 and 9, were found dead in the family playroom, dressed in their school uniforms.

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The cause of death was never established, but the Crown has said the girls had been in good health and that only Sorella would have been able to cause their deaths.

The Canadian Press