The East Haven mother found guilty on two counts of murder in the May 2015 deaths of her two children was sentenced to the maximum allowed: 120 years.

Superior Court Judge Elpedio Vitale, the presiding judge in the three-judge panel that convicted LeRoya Moore in March, called her actions “selfish and monstrous.”

The judges at the trial, who also included Jon Blue and Brian Fischer, had rejected the claims by Moore’s defense team that at the time of the killings she was in a psychotic state and so lacked the capacity to understand the wrongfulness of her conduct and the ability to control herself.

LeRoya Moore, now 40, had acknowledged to psychiatrists hired by the state and the defense team that she killed her daughter, 6-year-old Aleisha Moore, and her son, 7-year-old Daaron Moore, four years ago in their house on Strong Street.

The judges in their unanimous ruling imposed a sentence of 60 years for each child’s death. Vitale said, “These were two distinct murders, each deliberately planned. She poisoned her children separately. Each life deserves a separate punishment.”

Vitale noted Moore will not be eligible for parole.

Although she was stoic when the sentence was announced, Moore earlier had delivered a rambling 35-minute statement that began with her stating: “I loved my children. I loved my children.”

She added, “I did my best to be a good mother.”

Moore, who has been held in lieu of $2 million bail at York Correctional Institution after her kids’ decomposing bodies were found in the home by East Haven police June 2, 2015, came to the sentencing hearing wearing a red dress. This marked a departure from the drab gray sweatshirt and sweatpants she wore during her previous court appearances.

Sometimes crying as she spoke, Moore recalled holding her kids, “their curious brown eyes looking into mine” as she nursed them.

But Moore said, “I suffered from extreme paranoia and anxiety.” She added, “I was in a depressed state.”

Moore attributed her mental problems to “the trauma of my childhood, the physical abuse” at the hands of her father. She recalled that while he beat her, he told her to “take it like a man.” She also said she was sexually abused.

Recalling her apparent attempt to kill herself after she had killed her children, Moore said, “I took every pill in the house. I still have the scars on my arm and wrist.”

“I love and miss my children dearly,” she told the judges. “I wish I could have gone to heaven with them.” She said they are now happy there.

She asked the judges “to understand the deaths of my children was not an intentional, crazy, rageful incident. It was not a thought-out plan. It was something I felt compelled to do to save them from the fate I had suffered as a child.”

She concluded by saying: “No matter where I go, I will go forward in their name.”

But Vitale said: “These killings were premeditated, carefully planned and intentional.” He said she had thoroughly researched over the internet the medication that would kill the children and the dosages needed.

During the trial, Dr. Gregory Vincent of the office of the state’s chief medical examiner, testified Aleisha died from acute intoxication of diphenhydramine, an antihistamine , mixed with alcohol. Vincent said Daaron died from acute intoxication of diphenhydramine.

Vitale noted during the sentencing announcement Aleisha was given so much alcohol that she was legally intoxicated. “What were they thinking as their mother poisoned them with this amount of drugs and in the girl’s case with alcohol?”

The judges had said in their March ruling they did not believe Moore’s claim she had drowned her children in a bathtub as a “baptism” so they could get to Heaven.

Vitale noted in the sentencing hearing that after Moore killed her kids, “she wrote an alleged suicide note criticizing the father and blaming him for her actions.”

Vitale was referring to Michael Moore, who had divorced Moore before the kids’ deaths. She had claimed he “abandoned” her and the children.

But Moore’s sister, Ursula Love, told the judges during the hearing: “Contrary to her distortion of the truth, LeRoya was not abandoned by my brother. She chose to divorce him because she decided she no longer wanted to be with him. She nonchalantly told me she didn’t want him anymore, thereby making the choice that the children would be raised between the two households.”

She added, “LeRoya has chosen to portray herself as a single parent, even though she received ample monetary support and the children spent a great deal of time with their father and the rest of the family. When she realized that the grass wasn’t actually greener without Michael, she did the single most horrific thing she could do to hurt him: she killed his babies.”

Love noted “the choices that were taken away from Darron and Aleisha. Daaron will never get to choose what sport he wants to play, or if he wants to learn to deejay like his dad. He won’t be able to choose which classes to take in high school or decide whether he is an Eagles or Patriots fan. Aleisha won’t get to choose a prom or a wedding dress. They can’t choose a career to pursue, an instrument to play, or a college to attend. With her unthinkably selfish and evil choice, LeRoya took away any choices those babies could have made.”

Love described them as “sweet, spirited children.” She added, “There is no punishment, no matter how severe, that can account for or ever equal the enduring pain that my brother or our entire family are left to feel for the remaining years of our lives.”

She asked the judges to impose the maximum sentence.

Michael Moore hugged his sister after she read her statement. Then he stood beside Victim Services Advocate Christie Ciancola as she read his statement. He said the murders of his kids “have made me more withdrawn as far as interacting with children or people that have young children, just the thought of becoming close with any child or forming any type of bond with kids.”

Moore recalled his kids and their “young, vibrant lives, cut oh so short by a person (LeRoya Moore) that they were born to trust. How could she call herself a parent, let alone a mother, and commit such a heinous act against her own flesh and blood?”

Moore noted “there were plenty of options if she felt she couldn’t or didn’t want to care for them anymore: sisters, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Instead she chose the most selfish option, as she always does.”

Moore said he now has “to learn to live without the smiles, love and company of my children.” He concluded by saying: “It has left two holes in my heart that can never be filled: one the size of an 8-year-old and the other the size of a 6-year-old.”

The judges also heard from Marlon Graham, the father of LeRoya Moore’s oldest son, now 21. “My son was devastated” by the two deaths, Graham said. “But he’s not mad at her. He forgives his mother. He wants her to get the help she needs.”

New Haven State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin, who prosecuted Moore with Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Stacey Miranda, told the judges Moore had committed “an unmitigated act of savagery.” He said the children “were the victims of a monumental act of betrayal.”

Griffin said Moore, angry at her ex-husband, “used her own children as pawns to seek revenge.”

Citing trial testimony, Griffin said Moore has “a history of repetitive acts of aggression and violence.”

Griffin asked the judges to impose the maximum sentence, “to ensure she will never again injure a child.”

But Senior Assistant Public Defender Scott M. Jones, who defended Moore along with Supervisory Assistant Public Defender Jennifer Bourn, told the judges Moore has been “plagued by life-long mental health challenges. She suffered and continues to suffer from mental illness.”

Jones said Moore thus “lacked the mental capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct.” He added, “These acts were an aberration caused by mental illness.”

“After her children died,” Jones noted, “she remained in the house, bleeding from her wrists. She lay there with her children. This speaks to her mental illness.”

“LeRoya is grieving the loss of her children,” Jones said. “She will have to live with the consequences of this for the rest of her life. She has to learn now to forgive herself and devote herself to helping others.”

Bourn told the judges that Moore’s actions against her children were “out of character. She is not a bad person. This is somebody with a troubled history.”

But Vitale said Moore’s crime was “not an ‘aberration.’” He cited Moore’s previous arrests and convictions, including for leaving her then 4-year-old child home alone and another time engaging police in a pursuit while her 5-year-old child was in the car. Moore lost custody of two of her children because she had physically abused them, Vitale said.

“Not every mental deficiency leaves a person without the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct,” Vitale said. He agreed with Love that Moore had made “a selfish, evil choice.”

Griffin and Miranda had no comment on the sentence after court adjourned. But Jones, standing outside the courthouse, said, “We’re disappointed. Mental health is so misunderstood.”

Jones refrained from further comment, saying, “We’d like to rely on LeRoya Moore’s eloquent statement.”