Jury doubts key witness's understanding of questions at Sorella murder trial

It was already the end of Teresa Di Cesare's third day of testimony at her daughter's murder trial, when a member of the jury slipped a note to the judge saying they did not think Di Cesare understood the questions she was being asked. 

Di Cesare was being cross-examined by the defence lawyer Pierre Poupart at the time. Poupart had spent hours Thursday painstakingly trying to establish what Di Cesare remembered from the day she found her granddaughters dead in 2009.

Adele Sorella, Di Cesare's daughter, is facing two charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of her own daughters: Amanda, 9, and Sabrina, 8. A cause of death has not been established before the court. 

The jury's note Thursday afternoon was a follow-up to a previous question that asked for Di Cesare to speak her native Italian through an interpreter for the remainder of her testimony.

Superior Court Justice Sophie Bourque responded to that question by asking the jury if they needed anything in particular to be clarified.

The response from the jury was no, but included the remark that it appeared Di Cesare was having trouble with the way Poupart was questioning her. 

The jury of six men and six women will only return Monday afternoon, which will be the trial's twelfth day. Bourque hasn't yet responded to the note in open court. 

Questioned about day of alleged murder  

It was Di Cesare and her two sons, Luigi and Enzo, who discovered the girls' bodies, lying side-by-side on the floor of their playroom in Laval on March 31, 2009.

During the first two days of her testimony — Monday and Wednesday — Di Cesare mainly faced questions from Crown prosecutor Simon Lapierre.

On Thursday, many of Poupart's questions related to Di Cesare's mental state after the discovery of the two bodies.

She sat in the witness box, leaning forward, peering at Poupart and listening intently to his slow questioning. She often replied by repeating "yes."

At times Di Cesare corrected the defence lawyer. At other times, she embarked on tangents about the daily lives of members of the Sorella family.

Both defence and prosecution lawyers have asked Di Cesare to wait until they finish their questions before answering.

'I didn't think they were dead'

The court has already heard that Di Cesare was taken to hospital for shock after police informed her of the girls' deaths. Police and paramedics had spent some time attempting to reanimate them.

Di Cesare recalled feeling the cold skin of her granddaughters' body, before adding: "I didn't think they were dead."

"It was a situation I have never found myself in in my life, so I can't describe it," she said in French. "There are no words."

She was given a handful of pills by a doctor at the hospital and couldn't remember how she got from there to the police station, Di Cesare told the jury Thursday.

On Wednesday, the jury was shown a video of Di Cesare's interview with police on the night of the alleged murder. 

In the video, she says her granddaughters told her earlier that morning they didn't have to go to school because they had doctor's appointments.

But Di Cesare made no mention of that appointment in her testimony on Monday.

The Crown asked her why her story had changed. Di Cesare said she was in such a state after finding the bodies that she wasn't herself in the police interview.

"I can't deny I said that because I see it [in the video]. But I put my hand on the Bible [today] and say I don't remember anything," she said Wednesday.

"The shock, I don't know how to explain it, but it wasn't me speaking that day."