Home invasion or mercy killing? Court hears final arguments in murder retrial of Toronto mother Cindy Ali

The prosecutor seeking to convict Toronto mother Cindy Ali in the 2011 death of her disabled teenage daughter said during final arguments Monday that the murder was carried out as an act of mercy to relieve the girl from suffering – a theory the defense said was “plucked from thin air” and based on stereotypes.

The prosecutor seeking to convict Toronto mother Cindy Ali in the 2011 death of her disabled teenage daughter said during final arguments Monday that the murder was carried out as an act of mercy to relieve the girl from suffering – a theory the defense said was “plucked from thin air” and based on stereotypes.

“This [theory] involves, to some degree, a bit of a stereotype towards the developmentally or the physically disabled, that their lives are a misery,” Cindy’s counsel, James Lockyer, suggested to Justice Jane Kelly at Toronto’s Superior Court of Justice on Monday. “It really is a full stereotype.”

Nearly eight years earlier, in the same downtown courthouse, Cindy was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life with no chance of parole in connection with her daughter Cynara’s death.

After appealing that conviction in 2021, Cindy was granted a new trial, which began in October, presided over by Justice Jane Kelly alone.

In both her first trial and the ongoing proceedings, Cindy has maintained that Cynara died in the aftermath of a break-and-enter carried out at their Scarborough townhouse on Feb. 19. On that day, Cindy called 911 just after 11 a.m. to report that two men dressed in all black had just broken into her home looking for a “package.”

She told police officers and, in 2016, a jury that one of the men took her from room to room, looking for the item, and that when she returned to the living room, Cynara was lifeless on the couch with the other man standing nearby, holding a pillow above her head. The two men left after claiming they'd gotten the wrong house, Cindy said. They were never found.

First responders found Cynara without vital signs in the home shortly after. She was resuscitated and brought to the hospital, where she died just over a day later.