Mother in Canada drowned girls to ‘save’ them

On the day she killed her two daughters, Sivananthi Elango’s mind was flooded with visions of heaven, court was told.

“I hope they are in heaven and that God will take care of them,” Elango, who came to Canada from Sri Lanka at the age of 14, told a psychiatrist after drowning her daughters Renu, 2 1/2, and Movlika, 3 months, at suppertime on March 2, 2006, in the bathtub of their family home on Sophia Rd. in Markham.

“I hope they are in a better place.” Justice Michael Brown rules today in a Newmarket court on whether Elango, 33, is criminally responsible for killing her daughters.

The judge is trying the case alone, without a jury.

Four psychiatrists who examined Elango agreed that she suffers from a mental disorder but could still understand “the nature and quality of her acts,” according to an agreed statement of facts drawn up by the prosecution and defence.

“She smiled when she spoke of her daughters and said she thinks she did the right thing by `saving them’ from the evil of this world,” the agreed statement of fact states. The judge heard Elango described as a loving, sometimes overprotective mother, who has no criminal record or contact with the Children’s Aid Society.