Sri Lankan Man Sentenced To Life For 'Monstrous' 2024 Murders In Ottawa

(CBC) A 20-year-old man has pleaded guilty to murdering four children, their mother and a close family friend in a mass stabbing in Ottawa last year.

Febrio De Zoysa has also pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder for his attack on the father of the family, Dhanushka Wickramasinghe, who was seriously injured.

At the time of the stabbings on March 6, 2024, De Zoysa was a 19-year-old international student living with the Wickramasinghes in their basement in Ottawa's Barrhaven suburb.

He was arrested at the scene without incident and charged with six counts of first-degree murder the following day.

De Zoysa stood with his lawyer Ewan Lyttle in Superior Court in Ottawa Thursday morning and pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder of the following victims:

Ranaya Wickramasinghe, the family's three-year-old daughter.

Ashwini Wickramasinghe, their four-year-old daughter.

Inuka Wickramasinghe, their seven-year-old son.

Gamini Amarakoon, 40, a close family friend and one of the family's two tenants.

The sentences for those murders are automatic: life in prison with no ability to apply for parole for 25 years.

For the remaining two victims — mother Darshani Ekanayake, 35, and her baby Kelly Wickramasinghe, just two months old — De Zoysa pleaded down to the lesser offence of second-degree murder. Pleading down is common in plea bargains.

The murders — described by Ottawa's mayor as one of the most shocking acts of violence the capital has ever seen — generated headlines across Canada and also gripped Sri Lankan media.

With the exception of the baby, the Wickramasinghes were newcomers to Canada from Sri Lanka. So was Amarakoon, who was working to support his family back home.

De Zoysa is a Sri Lankan national.

In an interview with a homicide investigator after his arrest, De Zoysa said the Wickramasinghe family had "been nothing but good to me," but he decided to "bash out" and kill them because he had run out of money, he didn't want to return to Sri Lanka when his international student visa expired, and he "was too ** weak" to take his own life.

"I'm tired of all these rules and people and it's just stupid, like the entire world," De Zoysa told Ottawa police homicide Sgt. Chris O'Brien.

On March 1, five days before the slayings, he made the decision to do it, Crown attorney Dallas Mack told court Thursday. Afterward, his plan was to keep living in the house for a few days until he was arrested.

On Jan. 31, 2024, De Zoysa had ordered a 38-centimetre hunting knife online that he had planned to use to kill himself, he told O'Brien.

Around the same time he had stopped attending classes and completing assignments, and was spending a lot of time playing video games and a lot of money on takeout orders, the Crown said.

De Zoysa thought his failing grades would result in the cancellation of his student visa, ending the flow of financial support he was receiving from his family in Sri Lanka.

On March 6, 2024, Dhanushka Wickramasinghe was working two jobs: at his cleaning business, starting at 3:30 a.m., and driving for Uber in chunks throughout the rest of the day.

He took breaks to drop his two eldest children off at school and to eat breakfast with his wife and their two youngest children. Later, he took another break to pick his kids up from school and they stopped for a box of doughnuts on the way home. Wickramasinghe dropped them off at the house and headed back to work.

Later that afternoon, De Zoysa invited the family's other tenant into his basement bedroom to watch a movie.

When Amarakoon walked in De Zoysa stabbed him multiple times, killing him within seconds or at most within "a small number of minutes," the Crown told court — recapping the findings of a forensic pathologist.

Seven-year-old Inuka heard Amarakoon's screams from upstairs and told his mother, who was with the baby.

Darshani Ekanayake then called her husband, who was still out working. After speaking to his wife, Dhanushka Wickramasinghe called De Zoysa to ask what was going on.

De Zoysa said he lied to Wickramasinghe and his wife, telling them that the screams had come from the movie he was watching in the basement with Amarakoon.

After he managed to convince the couple everything was fine, De Zoysa headed upstairs.

On the main level and upper floor of the house, he stabbed all four children and Ekanayake to death. He outlined for police, in detail too graphic to publish here, where and how it happened, and what he did immediately afterward.

A forensic pathologist found that Ekanayake and the children each died within seconds of being attacked.

De Zoysa told O'Brien that around 5:20 p.m., he called Dhanushka Wickramasinghe to ask when he would be home, and he spent the intervening hours waiting for him.

"I was just watching TikToks, trying to waste time.... Trying to calm myself down," De Zoysa said.

Wickramasinghe arrived home just before 11 p.m., after finishing work and going to the gym, the Crown told court. The lights inside the house were off and he assumed everyone was sleeping.

For about 10 minutes he sat in his car in the garage, using social media to catch up with friends and family. Then he got out and entered his home through a door in the garage.

As soon as he walked in he saw De Zoysa, who was standing with the hunting knife hidden behind his back. Wickramasinghe greeted him and De Zoysa immediately started attacking him, the Crown said.

Wickramasinghe eventually managed to overpower De Zoysa and wrench the knife from his hands. He then ran to a neighbour's house for help as De Zoysa chased after him with a chef's knife he had grabbed from the kitchen.

The neighbours heard Wickramasinghe outside, screaming that someone had killed his children. They called 911, and Wickramasinghe called 911 as well.

When they arrived, police found De Zoysa sitting on the front steps.

"I was going to be deported; I had no choice. I killed them all," De Zoysa told the arresting officer.

After he was read his rights, he repeated that he had killed them. First responders found all the victims inside.

Wickramasinghe, meanwhile, "was only concerned for his family" despite his own serious wounds, the Crown said.

"He tried to re-enter the home to get to his wife and children. He asked repeatedly for any information about them," but police kept him outside to be treated before he was eventually taken to hospital.

He remained in hospital for days, undergoing multiple surgeries.

There were five victim impact statements Thursday: three from Amarakoon’s family and two from Wickramasinghe’s.

Amarakoon’s widow Dishani Asangika Fernando appeared in court via video from Sri Lanka, saying Amarakoon was a selfless provider for their family who “gave everything to us — his time, his energy, his dreams.”

De Zoysa sat still and quiet through the proceedings, his head facing straight. His eyes darted back and forth between the floor, the lawyers speaking and occasionally the gallery, and he showed no emotion.

When the judge asked if he had anything to say, De Zoysa said he was deeply sorry for what he had done, “and I will spend the rest of my life acknowledging the truth of what I did.”

He again said the victims had been “good and kind to me” and that he was “not well” at the time.

Sentencing was brief. The Crown and defence offered a joint position: the automatic life sentence with no ability to apply for parole for 25 years for all six of the murders, and a 25-year sentence for the attempted murder to be served at the same time.

His defence lawyer Ewan Lyttle said De Zoysa was 19 at the time, far away from home and had little life experience and skills.

He stressed that De Zoysa’s parents are “good people” who had no idea something like this would happen when they sent their son to study in Canada.

Lyttle said he was not advancing a mental health-related defence, but that there was “no question” his client was struggling with mental illness.

“He has done the unthinkable, but today he is doing what is right and what is expected of him, and Your Honour knows that not many people in his situation do that.”