Firefighters who thought they were dealing with a simple fire alarm in a condo instead discovered a real horror scene in September 2022: a woman had been stabbed to death and two children killed.
• Also read: Triple murder trial begins in Brossard: accused father now identifies as a woman
“I was thinking of a cooking fire, that’s often what it is. I didn’t have time to go to the kitchen, I heard my colleague shout ”Victim! Victim! Victim!” said firefighter Benoit Laramée.
He was describing to the jury the intervention that he and his colleagues made on the night of September 24 to 25, 2022. He is testifying in the trial for the murders of Synthia Bussières and her two children, Zac and Éliam, aged 2 and 5 years old, in their condo in Brossard.
Synthia Bussières, one of the victims. COURTESY family
Photo Courtesy (victims’ family)
He remembered that when he joined his colleague in the bathroom of the accommodation, he saw the woman lying on the ground in a pool of blood.
At the time, the victims’ spouse and father, Mohamad Al Ballouz, was also in the home.
23 plagues
Furthermore, although at the time of the alleged acts, the accused was male, she now identifies as a woman.
As part of this trial which opens at the Longueuil courthouse, the Crown intends to prove that the woman who presents herself under the name of Levana Ballouz violently killed her partner before taking the lives of her two children.
The woman had 23 wounds on her body, made with a sharp and pricking weapon.
The two children were found lying next to their father in bed. Their bodies were not covered, they only wore a diaper with a picture of Spider-Man.
Pascal Girard/AGENCE QMI
The little ones were unconscious. They showed no signs of violence, but despite the maneuvers, they were pronounced dead at the hospital.
The accused would then have “ingested windshield washer fluid to try to take her own life,” said Me Laurence Lamoureux, Crown prosecutor in the case.
MARIO BEAUREGARD/AGENCE QMI
A fire was also started at the foot of the bed among a pile of objects, including the couple’s personal items and bloodstained fabrics. The residential smoke detectors, all of which had been removed, were also there.
More details to come…
