A mum has told of the agony of losing her four kids after her jilted ex suffocated them with a pillow and stabbed them to get revenge on her.
The children – aged three, six, eight and 11 – were found dead at their dad’s house in Alvorada, Brazil, on 13th December.
Sick David da Silva Lemos, 28, was seized in a hotel in nearby Porto Alegre early the next day.
During his arrest, he chillingly recounted how he had plied his kids with a ‘tea’ to pacify them before suffocating and stabbing them.
Now devastated Thays da Silva Antunes, 26, has spoken to local media for the first time since the shocking crime.
She said: “It hurts to lie in bed and not have them. I haven’t been able to sleep, I’m taking medication to be able to sleep because if I don’t I can’t sleep.
“I’m fine during the day, but if it starts to get dark, I can’t do it.”
Thays and Lemos were together for 11 years but separated three months before the killings over Lemos’s violent behaviour.
She reported an assault to police and got a restraining order taken out against him.
Police believe Lemos killed their children in revenge.
Thays said: “I can’t believe he did this to the kids because he couldn’t have done this to them.
“That he would take my life, that he would stick the knife in me, but not in the children, because the children were not to blame for anything. They were only four children.”
She went on: “It was with me. He never accepted the end of the relationship. I always ended the relationship and he always asked to return.”
Thays first learned her children had been killed through their grandmother.
She said that in the days leading up to the crime, Lemos had behaved normally and had not threatened her.
She recalled: “He was normal, he didn’t show anger, hate, he didn’t show that he might do something to the children. He didn’t show anything at any time.”
Thays told how after she was assaulted by Lemos, she wanted the restraining order to cover her kids as well, but her request was turned down.
She recalled the moment she was assaulted, telling local media: “When I got home, he was upset, he was drunk, then we argued and he came at me, he hit me.
“In all, it was 20 punches to the head, which were supposed to be in the face.
“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 ground, he would have done worse.”
The victims of the harrowing crime were named as – from eldest to youngest – Yasmin, Donavan, Giovanna, and Kimberlly Antunes Lemos.
Their alleged killer remains in custody awaiting trial.
Thays said: “I just want them back. I know that nothing I do will bring them back. But I just want my kids back, to be able to take them home.
“That’s all I want. For that idiot, that monster, to pay for everything he did to my children. Pay for everything.”
