Her lover wanted her without family encumbrances

A Southern California woman has been sentenced to death for smothering her two young sons with a pillow and killing her husband  with a sword.

Prosecutors say 32-year-old Manling Tsang Williams killed her family so she could be with a lover who wanted her to divorce.

City News Service reports Williams was sentenced  on three counts of first-degree murder for the August 2007 killings at  her home in Rowland Heights.

Authorities say Williams smothered her sleeping boys, ages 3 and 7, then scanned her lover’s MySpace page on her computer and went out with friends before returning home and hacking her sleeping husband to death.

Twenty-seven-year-old Neal Williams was cut more than 90 times.

Defence attorney Thomas Althaus had try to argue that the killings were unplanned.