Toronto mother Vanessa Collias will spend life in prison after smothering her two sons, aged 4 and 5, to death and tried to take her own life after her her husband, 72, died from cancer
Vanessa Collias was charged with murder for killing her children(Image: Toronto Police)
A mother smothered her own young sons to death before leaping out of a window and trying to kill herself after her husband died from cancer.
Vanessa Collias, 27, was said to be “broken” after her 72-year-old passed away in December 2023 and wanted to be “reunited in heaven” with him, a court has heard.
In an attempt to be with her deceased husband again, Collias killed her sons Yiannis, 5, and Dimitri, 4, nine days after Costa Collias died from an aggressive form of leukemia.
She pleaded guilty in court to the killings, and it was revealed how the mother-of-two held her hands over their mouths and nose and sang “You Are My Sunshine” to them before jumping off the balcony of her Toronto apartment.
Police later discovered the youngsters’ bodies in front of a TV with children’s shows playing.
Clothes for their funerals had been laid out next to them by Collias, as well as a photo of their father and a cross, the NY Post reports.
Costa Collias, 72, with his two sons(Image: GoFundMe)
Collias was originally charged with first-degree murder, but the charges were downgraded to a less charge of second-degree murder. This was due to the spiral she went on while grieving her husband’s death.
The court was told how the killer mother told a psychiatrist she was “broken, absolutely alone, and unable to conceive of continuing a life without (her husband) and wanted all of them to be reunited in Heaven.”
