Sylvie Guertin, a woman who lost her daughter and two grandsons when Mohamad Al Ballouz killed all three two years ago inside the family’s condo in Brossard, sobbed Wednesday as she described the pain she has suffered through since she first learned of the horrors carried out by her son-in-law.
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Guertin read from a statement Wednesday that she prepared for the sentencing stage in the case against Al Ballouz, 38, at the Longueuil courthouse. On Monday, a jury found Al Ballouz guilty of the second-degree murder of her wife, Synthia Bussières, and the first-degree murders of their two sons, Zac, 2, and Eliam, 5. The victims were killed the night of Sept. 24, 2022.
The jury heard no evidence of a motive behind the slayings. Bussières was stabbed 23 times and, although the pathologist who performed autopsies on all three bodies could not determine how the boys died, the Crown’s theory during the trial was that Al Ballouz suffocated both with a pillow stained with Al Ballouz’s blood.
Al Ballouz now identifies as a woman and referred to herself as Levana Ballouz throughout the trial. She acted as her own lawyer in the case.
Guertin, Bussières’s mother, told Superior Court Justice Éric Downs that learning the details of how her daughter died during the trial was especially difficult for her.
The evidence revealed Al Ballouz’s attack on her wife left Bussières with 11 defence wounds. There were also six wounds found at the back of her head.
“What I heard was unimaginable,” Guertin said. “He killed them, but that can’t erase the smiles on their faces that are in my heart and in my memories.”
Guertin also thanked all the people who took part in the trial and “saw that justice was done.”
When she was done, Downs thanked her for her statement.
“You are three times a victim and you went through a trial that was extremely difficult,” the judge said.
A close friend of Bussières also read a statement before the judge. Several other people, including firefighters and ambulance technicians who handled the bodies of the victims, prepared written statements detailing the impact Al Ballouz’s crimes had on them.
On Wednesday, prosecutor Éric Nadeau noted how Al Ballouz “displayed no remorse” for the victims throughout the trial and how Al Ballouz appeared to try to set Bussières’s body on fire after she died in an apparent effort to destroy evidence.
“She was defenceless and vulnerable when she was attacked by the accused,” Nadeau said.
Al Ballouz automatically received two life sentences, with no chance at full parole until she has served at least 25 years behind bars, for two counts of first-degree murder. She also automatically received a life sentence for the second-degree murder of Bussières. Downs will have to determine how much time Al Ballouz will serve before she becomes eligible for parole in Bussières’s case. The minimum is 10 years and the maximum is 25.
Nadeau asked that Al Ballouz’s period of ineligibility be set as high as 22 years for the second-degree murder conviction.
Al Ballouz will also be sentenced for her conviction on an arson charge.
This report will be updated.