Convicted child killer back home
Allyson McConnell arrives in Sydney after serving 10 months in a Canadian jail for drowning her two children in 2010.
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Convicted child killer Allyson McConnell has touched down in Sydney after spending 10 months in jail in Canada.
McConnell arrived at Sydney Airport around 9am and declined to comment to awaiting media.
Supported by three female family members, an ashen-faced McConnell walked calmly to an awaiting car through a media scrum. She was silent and withdrawn as she pushed her luggage, ignoring media questions.
Back in Sydney: Allyson McConnell looked ashen-faced as she walked through the airport. Photo: Nick Moir
McConnell is expected to return to her family home on the NSW central coast.
Ms McConnell, 34, originally from Gosford, admitted to drowning her sons, two-year-old Connor and 10-month-old Jayden, in the bathtub of her family home in Millet, Alberta, in 2010.
McConnell was sentenced to six years but completed her sentence last Friday after just 10 months, due to time served in custody before the trial.
Allyson McConnell arrives in Sydney after leaving Canada where she was convicted of drowning her two children. Photo: Nick Moir
The light sentencing has caused a furore in Canada, with calls for a retrial.
Ms McConnell was travelling in 2006 when she met Canadian Curtis McConnell while working at a ski resort in British Columbia.
They married, moved to Alberta, and by 2009 they had had their sons.
Curtis and Allyson McConnell with their children, Jayden and Connor, in Australia. Photo: Courtesy of The Edmonton Journal
By the end of that year the couple had filed for divorce, and Ms McConnell was blocked from returning to Australia with her two children by a judge.
In February 2010, Mr McConnell received a phone call from an Edmonton police officer informing him his wife had fallen off a bridge and onto a road. She had survived, but was in hospital.
Mr McConnell found his two sons dead in the locked bathroom of the family home.
On April 20 last year, Justice Crighton found Ms McConnell guilty of manslaughter, but not guilty of second-degree murder because there was enough "reasonable doubt that she had the specific intent to kill her children".
Mr McConnell filed a $C940,000 ($903,000) civil suit against his former wife and, along with prosecutors, was furious with the 15-month sentence.
Prosecutors lodged an appeal against the murder dismissal and the length of sentence, and last Thursday Ms McConnell, after serving 10 months in an Alberta psychiatric hospital, was made eligible for release.
Mr McConnell fears his former wife could kill again in Australia.
"Will anyone there know about the murders she committed here?" he asked. "Being only 34 years old, will she start a new family and have another child in her care?"
With AAP
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