Video Of Mom Who Drowned Daughters Released: Girls’ Dad ‘Haunted’
Posted November 17, 2010 12:03 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The father of two little girls who were drowned in a bathtub by their mother says he will forever be haunted by that image.
Leo Campione was not in court for the sentencing of his ex-wife on Wednesday, but a Crown attorney read his victim impact statement.
Elaine Campione was found guilty on Monday of two counts of first-degree murder for killing her daughters Serena, 3, and Sophia, 19 months.
The 35-year-old woman drowned her daughters in 2006 in the midst of a custody battle with her ex-husband.
Leo Campione and his family were given time to write statements to the court before Elaine Campione was formally sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
In his statement, Leo Campione said the image of his daughters’ last moments “will haunt me forever in ways I can’t began to describe.”
“Serena and Sophia were my life and they still are,” Leo Campione wrote. “I found my place in life and my peace was with them.
“I will carry them in my heart until we meet again.”
Leo Campione’s family also submitted a victim impact statement, which a Crown attorney also read.
“We miss their laughter, their smile and their love for life,” the Campiones wrote. “Their mere presence lit up a room.”
The defence had conceded that Campione drowned her children in October 2006, just days before a family court appearance at which her ex-husband was to fight for custody. But lawyer Mary Cremer had urged the jury to find Campione not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder.
The jury, which heard seven weeks of testimony and deliberated for nearly a week, was tasked with sifting through evidence of Campione’s suicide attempts and mental illness.
They heard doctors had diagnosed her as having unspecified psychosis with borderline personality traits, post-traumatic stress disorder from spousal abuse, depression and an eating disorder when she was younger.
Court heard Campione spent time in psychiatric wards, attempted suicide, had delusions that people were trying to kill her and steal the girls and exhibited bizarre behaviour including not letting one of her daughters touch anything red and claiming she saw aliens.
During their deliberations the jury asked the judge three questions, including asking him to clarify the phrase “morally wrong.”
The Crown didn’t deny Campione was mentally unwell, but lawyer Enno Meijers argued it did not prevent her from knowing right from wrong. He had argued Campione killed the girls out of spite so her allegedly abusive ex-husband couldn’t get custody.
While assault charges against Leo Campione were stayed after his wife was charged with killing their children, the trial heard evidence that he hit his wife and eldest daughter.
