An evil dad who drugged and murdered his four children to punish his wife for leaving him has been jailed for 175 years by judges.
Cold-blooded killer David da Silva Lemos stood stony-faced in the dock at the court in Brazil as senior judge Marcos Henrique Reichelt read out his sentence.
Earlier the trial had head how he had tricked his estranged wife into letting the youngsters visit his parents' home in Alvorada, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where he was waiting to kill them.
Prosecutors had named the helpless children as three-year-old Kimberlly, Yasmin, 11, eight-year-old Donavan and Giovanna, six.
As their grandmother left the house, Lemos first drugged the innocents with sedative-laced tea.
Then the three oldest children were hacked to death with a knife while youngest Kimberlly was smothered to death in the brutal slaughter in December 2022, the court heard.
Shocking forensic reports revealed at the Alvorada 1st Criminal Court showed that Lemos had stabbed the three children he killed with a knife a total of 40 times.
After a unanimous gulty verdict on 14th May, Judge Reichelt told Lemos he would never be released and would die in prison because of the danger he posed to society.
Lemos' defence team said they were "not surprised by the verdict" over what the judge branded "monstrous crimes" but added that they plan to appeal.
The children's mother Thays da Silva Antunes, 26, reportedly broke down in uncontrollable sobbing at the sentence.
Heartbreakingly, Lemos had already been served with a restraining order after repeated violent attacks on her, the court had heard.
In a TV interview before the trial, she said: "It hurts to lie in bed and not have them next to me. I haven't been able to sleep."
She added: "He could take my life, he could stick a knife in me, but not in the children, because the children were innocent.
"That monster has to pay for everything he did to my children. Pay for everything."
She also described the night she finally left him, saying: "He was drunk, then we argued and he came at me.
"He hit me – in all, it was 20 punches to the head. He tried to pull me down, he grabbed me by the back of the head, but I didn't let him put me on the ground.
"If he had taken me to the ground, he would have done worse."