An Ontario woman accused of drowning her two infant daughters broke down Friday as the court viewed photos of the girls' bodies.

Frances Elaine Campione wept at the sight of the dead girls, shown laid out on a bed in her apartment.

She is facing a pair of first-degree murder charges in the girls' deaths.

Prosecutors accuse Campione of drowning three-year-old Serena and one-year-old Sophia in October 2006 to keep her estranged husband from winning custody.

"She's not insane," Crown lawyer Enno Meijers told the Barrie, Ont. court on Thursday. "She did this to keep those children from her husband."

Campione and her husband had a troubled relationship and were working through an emotional divorce. The 35-year-old father, Leo, moved out of the home he had previously shared with his wife and children in Bradford, Ont.

The defence is disputing whether Campione was capable of forming criminal intent due to her mental state at the time.

"There are two sides to every story," defence lawyer Mary Cremer said in court. "In law, a person convicted of a criminal act must have the criminal intent to commit that act."

Prosecutors told the jury that the 35-year-old had attempted suicide in the past and tried again after the girls' deaths.

Campione broke down and cried in court as witnesses described the crime scene.

A police officer testified that the girls' two small bodies were discovered on their mother's bed holding hands, wearing pyjamas and jewelry.

"There were no signs of life in either of the children," Barrie police Const. Greg Brickell testified. "Both of them were cold and clammy to the touch and they had greyish, bluish skin."

Police discovered a videotape in the bedroom, the court heard.

"There, are you happy?" Campione asks on the video, according to Meijers. "God's taking care of them now."

The trial is expected to last eight weeks.

With files from The Canadian Press