A 27-year-old mother has admitted to k!lling her two young sons just days after her 72-year-old husband di3d of cancer.
A grieving mother k!lled her two young sons just days after her much older husband di3d of cancer, then tried to take her own life so they could all be “reunited in Heaven.”
Vanessa Collias, 27, wept in court on Monday, Nov. 17, as she pleaded guilty to the December 2023 k!llings of her sons, Yiannis, 5, and Dimitri, 4 just nine days after their 72-year-old father, Costa, passed away from an aggressive form of leukemia, the Toronto Star reported.
According to court documents, Collias suffocated the boys by covering their mouths and noses while softly singing “You Are My Sunshine.” She then jumped from the balcony of their Toronto apartment in an attempted su!cide.
Police discovered the children lying in front of a television playing a kids’ show. Next to them were clothes prepared for their funeral, a cross, and a photograph of their recently deceased father.
The k!ller mom survived her jump, but was left paralyzed from the waist down.
She was initially charged with first-degree murd3r, but the charges were downgraded to second-degree murd3r because of the grief she was suffering from her husband’s de@th after a painful spiral. She had 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.”
“A part of me will always question why I never said I need help,” Collias said during an emotional virtual court appearance from jail.
“I stand before you, still that broken person who needs help putting herself back together,” she said.
“To my babies, I love you more than anything,” she sobbed. “Thank you for showing me what true love is. You guys will forever be my favorite part of me. I am so grateful I got to be your mom. The hardest thing I will ever have to do is to learn to be OK being here without you.”
Despite the lesser charge, Collias was still sentenced to life in prison without parole for at least 18 years. Collias said she knew what she did was wrong, but hoped “others would understand that her intent was to save her sons and to be with her husband so that they could all be together,” according to court documents.
Collias’ husband di3d on Dec. 1, 2023, and she k!lled the boys on Dec. 10. She told the court she was already exhausted from being her husband’s 24/7 caretaker and “watching him slowly deteriorate before my eyes.”
When she became a single mother after he di3d, she said: “I broke. I couldn’t push no more.”
