Adele Sorella asked brother-in-law to come over on day her daughters died, court hears

Adele Sorella's brother-in-law said he had a feeling something was wrong when he received a phone message from her, not long beforeher daughters were found dead.

Nicolas De Vito was testifying Tuesday at Sorella's first-degree murder trial in Quebec Superior Court in Laval. The 52-year-old woman is accused in the 2009 deaths of Amanda, 9, and Sabrina, 8.

De Vito said he was in a work meeting in Montreal when he received a message on his cell phone from Sorella.

Describing her tone as "normal" and "business as usual," De Vito said the message was short. "Nick, you gotta come to the home. Come to the house," he recalled for Crown prosecutor Nektarios Tzortzinas.

De Vito said given Sorella's previous attempts to commit suicide, he thought she might have made another one.

He said Sorella had made at least two previous attempts at suicide after her husband, Giuseppe De Vito, fled in 2006. He was wanted in connection with a police operation targeting organized crime.

"When I picked up the message ... I said something like: 'Here we go again' or 'Something happened to Adele,'" said De Vito.

"We were in that routine where I was always there for the kids. I was always there for Adele."

Defence lawyer Pierre Poupart asked De Vito if he had any concern for the lives of the children when he was on the way to Sorella's home in Laval after hearing her message.

"Never," responded De Vito, who described Sorella as a loving mother.

Upon arriving at the house, De Vito could not get close because of a police barricade. One of Sorella's brothers told him something may have happened to her daughters.

Their bodies were found in the home's playroom, lying side-by-side, still in their school uniforms. The trial has not yet heard a cause of death.

Strained relationship

Under questioning from the prosecution, De Vito also told the jury about Sorella's relationship with his brother, Giuseppe. He confirmed that his brother died in the Donnacona penitentiary in August of 2013 from cyanide poisoning.

"To me now, she's nobody I guess," De Vito said when asked by the Crown about his relationship to Sorella. "In 2009, she was married to my brother."

Nicolas De Vito said his brother and Sorella became childhood sweethearts after they began dating in the early 1980's.

He said their relationship was strong at the beginning. But he told the court it eventually deteriorated, to the point that when his brother disappeared, he could see they were not as close.

"At the end, it started to be different. You could see that the connectivity wasn't there any more," said De Vito.

The trial is in its fourth week of testimony and is taking place before Superior Court Justice Sophie Bourque.