Man confesses to murdering his own sons, staging the bodies in a twisted attempt at deception

The mother of two boys, who were suffocated to death by their father, informed a Brampton (Ontatario Canada) court how her life completely changed when she found her eldest son dead in her own bed, put there by her husband.

During a sentencing hearing on Wednesday, Edwin Bastidas, 55, admitted guilt for two charges of second-degree murder for murdering Jonathan Bastidas, 12, and Nicolas Bastidas, 9.

He confessed to smothering the boys the morning of November 6, 2019, before setting up a plan to conceal their deaths from their mother until much later that evening.

The mother of the boys told the court while wiping away her tears, “I will never be able to fill the gap that has been left.”

The victim impact statement given shed light to Jonathan’s positivity and Nicholas’ wise soul.

Both defense and Crown lawyers proposed that Bastidas should serve life in prison with no parole the final decision is with Justice Bruce Durno.

During his hearing, Bastidas was wearing a grey t-shirt, blue jeans, and had unkempt grey hair. He stayed silent until asked by Justice Durno if he had anything to say. Bastidas uttered an apology for his actions and wished he could reverse what he had done.

When asked about Bastidas’ motive, his lawyer Robert Karrass stated that they would never know the true explanation.

The court heard that when Bastidas and his wife met for lunch that day, little did she know that their two young sons had already been killed earlier that morning.

Furthermore, he even called their school to inform them of their absence. When the couple returned to their Brampton residence on Hiberton Crescent, the mother was unaware of the events that had transpired before and nothing seemed unusual, especially after Bastidas told her he was going to pick up their sons from after-school care.

The mother began to make pasta for dinner as she was expecting her sons to come home. When she asked Bastidas where they were, he lied and said they were in the car looking for a game card, then pretended to check on them and claimed they needed 10 more minutes.

She went upstairs to take a shower as she had plans to meet a friend for coffee. When she went downstairs, she saw Bastidas washing the plates, pretending that the boys had already obeyed their mother’s orders to have dinner.

Bastidas then said they were in the basement playing video games. Before she left, the mother noticed both beds were empty.

While she was out having coffee, Bastidas staged the children’s bodies in their beds to make it look like they were sleeping. Jonathan was placed in his mother’s bed since he had spent some time in the Hospital for Sick Children when he was young. Nicholas was put in his own room.

When she returned from her coffee date around 9:30 p.m., she began to prepare lunch for the boys the next day before going to bed.

As Bastidas trailed the mother up to her sons’ room, she noticed he was concealing a wooden mallet behind his back claiming he was intending to repair the hinges on Jonathan’s door. She instructed him to put the Mallet away so as to not wake the boys, Holmes narrated from the listed facts. When she got nearer to the bed, it was clear Jonathan “did not appear to be normal,” he said. “She went to him and saw that he was dead when she touched him.”

With Bastidas still near her with the mallet, she yelled, “move away from me,” and rushed out of the house to call for help. The mother was unaware Nicholas was also deceased until the firefighters informed her they had found his body.

The police apprehended both parents, but Bastidas said to the police: “it’s my fault, they’ve been like this since this morning.” The mother was allowed to go without charges.

Bastidas was at first charged with two accounts of first-degree murder before consenting to the lesser charge of second-degree murder.