{"id":7158,"date":"2025-11-06T21:13:33","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T00:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/06\/man-pleads-guilty-to-monstrous-2024-stabbing-attack-that-killed-6\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T21:13:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T00:13:33","slug":"man-pleads-guilty-to-monstrous-2024-stabbing-attack-that-killed-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/06\/man-pleads-guilty-to-monstrous-2024-stabbing-attack-that-killed-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads guilty to \u2018monstrous\u2019 2024 stabbing attack that killed 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Accused pleads guilty in 2024 mass killing in BarrhavenFebrio De Zoysa, 20, has pleaded guilty to murdering four children, their mother and a close family friend in a mass stabbing in Ottawa last year.WARNING: This story contains details of murder, including of children, and mentions thoughts of suicide.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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u2014 mother Darshani Ekanayake, 35, and her baby Kelly Wickramasinghe, just two months old \u2014 De Zoysa pleaded down to the lesser offence of second-degree murder. Pleading down is common in plea bargains.Dhanushka Wickramasinghe\u2019s four young children, wife and family friend were killed on March 6, 2024 inside their townhouse in Barrhaven. (Emma Weller\/CBC)The murders \u2014 described by Ottawa\u2019s mayor as one of the most shocking acts of violence the capital has ever seen \u2014 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.  Facts heard in courtIn an interview with a homicide investigator after his arrest, De Zoysa said the Wickramasinghe family had \u201cbeen nothing but good to me,\u201d but he decided to \u201cbash out\u201d and kill them because he had run out of money, he didn\u2019t want to return to Sri Lanka when his international student visa expired, and he \u201cwas too goddamn weak\u201d to take his own life.\u201dI\u2019m tired of all these rules and people and it\u2019s just stupid, like the entire world,\u201d De Zoysa told Ottawa police homicide Sgt. Chris O\u2019Brien.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.This family photo was taken the same day he hatched that plan, during a celebration for Ranaya Wickramasinghe\u2019s third birthday.The Wickramasinghe family at daughter Ranaya\u2019s third birthday party. From left: father Dhanushka Wickramasinghe; two-month-old daughter Kelly; daughters Ashwini, 4, and Ranaya, 3; son Inuka, 7; and mother Darshani Dilanthika Ekanayake, 35. (Facebook)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\u2019Brien.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.Began in the basementOn 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\u2019s 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 \u201ca small number of minutes,\u201d the Crown told court \u2014 recapping the findings of a forensic pathologist.Gamini Amarakoon, left, who boarded with the Wickramasinghes and was also murdered in the attack, is pictured here with his wife Dishani Asangika Fernando, their then 12-year-old daughter Asheri Hiyansa Amarakoon, and three-year-old daughter Kaylee Atarah Amarakoon back in Sri Lanka. (Ontario Superior Court of Justice exhibit)Seven-year-old Inuka heard Amarakoon\u2019s 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.Flowers sit at the scene the next day. (Sean Kilpatrick\/The Canadian Press)De Zoysa told O\u2019Brien 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.\u201dI was just watching TikToks, trying to waste time\u2026. Trying to calm myself down,\u201d 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.A chase and confessionAs 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\u2019s house for help as De Zoysa chased after him with a chef\u2019s 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. The level of violence in this case is stupefying, monstrous, even demonic.- Superior Court Justice Kevin PhillipsWhen they arrived, police found De Zoysa sitting on the front steps.\u201cI was going to be deported; I had no choice. I killed them all,\u201d 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.Forensic investigators and other Ottawa police officers stand outside the Barrhaven townhouse the morning after the killings. (Radio-Canada)Wickramasinghe, meanwhile, \u201cwas only concerned for his family\u201d despite his own serious wounds, the Crown said. \u201cHe tried to re-enter the home to get to his wife and children. He asked repeatedly for any information about them,\u201d but police kept him outside to be treated before he was eventually taken to hospital. He remained in hospital for days, undergoing multiple surgeries.Victim impact statementsThere were five victim impact statements Thursday: three from Amarakoon\u2019s family and two from Wickramasinghe\u2019s. Amarakoon\u2019s widow Dishani Asangika Fernando appeared in court via video from Sri Lanka, saying Amarakoon was a selfless provider for their family who \u201cgave everything to us \u2014 his time, his energy, his dreams.\u201d She still texts his number every day and her mind replays what happened to him \u201cover and over.\u201dAsheri Hiyansa Amarakoon, 13, wrote that she sometimes cries when she sees her father\u2019s photos or hears his favourite songs, and that her home feels different now: \u201cnothing feels normal anymore.\u201dShe worries her family might not be able to afford the higher education she needs to pursue her new dream, conceived after her father\u2019s death, to become a lawyer so that \u201cno one has to lose their dad like I did.\u201dThe family\u2019s third statement was written on behalf of three-year-old Kaylee Atarah Amarakoon, who may be young, \u201cbut feels her father\u2019s absence deeply.\u201d\u201cShe asks for him all the time \u2014 why he doesn\u2019t come home, why he doesn\u2019t call.\u201d She speaks to his photographs in the house, and gets upset seeing children with their fathers. Kaylee is also newly anxious; showing \u201csigns of insecure attachment that were never there before.\u201dSutcliffe, second from left, paid respects to the victims of a mass killing in Barrhaven at a vigil a few days afterward. He called the event \u2018one of the most shocking incidents of violence in our city\u2019s history.\u2019 (Camille Kasisi-Monet\/Radio-Canada)Dhanushka Wickramasinghe\u2019s brother couldn\u2019t bring himself to speak, so assistant Crown prosecutor Sophie Reynolds read for him.He wrote that he dropped everything to come to Canada and support his brother, leaving his wife and child back home in Sri Lanka. \u201cI cannot leave him alone in this unbearable sorrow,\u201d but every day he feels torn between his duties as a brother and his need for his family.He feels helpless, he wrote, \u201cwatching my family fall apart in two countries.\u201dVisitors\u2019 visas for his wife and daughter were denied, robbing their family of the \u201cwarmth and comfort\u201d they would bring. Permanent residency applications filed by both brothers and their father have been pending for over a year. \u201cThe waiting has become a torment,\u201d he added.\u2019By helping others, I can honour them\u2019  The last to speak was Dhanushka Wickramasinghe, hands on the podium, head bent, struggling sometimes to get the words out.He said he chose to bring his family to Canada because of all the \u201copportunities, kindness and beauty\u201d he\u2019d heard about and he worked hard every day to give his family the best life he could.Then he described the attack, but he spent far more time thanking everyone who\u2019s helped him since that night: the doctors and nurses at The Ottawa Hospital\u2019s Civic campus trauma centre who treated him like family, the first responders who saved his life, his friends at the monastery his family frequented who helped him find a new place to live, Ottawa\u2019s mayor, all the lawyers on the case, and more.And he mentioned his charity, which he hopes to continue \u201cfor the rest of my life,\u201d supporting school kids in Sri Lanka in need.WATCH | Dhanushka Wickramasinghe speaks earlier this year:Survivor reflects on Barrhaven killings, one year laterDhanushka Wickramasinghe lost his wife, four children and a family friends in the worst mass killing in Ottawa\u2019s recent history. A year later, he radiates resilience through heartbreak and suffering.\u201cThis tragedy destroyed my whole world, my wife, my children, my dreams, my peace. I wake up every day with their faces in my heart,\u201d and there can be \u201cno recovery.\u201d But he hopes that \u201cby helping others, I can honour them.\u201dDhanushka Wickramasinghe ended with a plea to others like him, coming to this \u201cbeautiful country\u201d in search of a better life: \u201cPlease do not destroy the peace and quiet of this land. Let us protect and respect it.\u201dThe judge addressed him afterward.\u201cThe fact that you so devote yourself to others after all that has been taken from you, sir, is awe-inspiring. I am humbled by your presence,\u201d he said.\u201cIt occurs to me that a family endowed with your value system would have enriched our community, and we are all accordingly diminished by the loss of Inuka, Ashwini, Ranaya, Kelly, and of course your life partner, Darshani.\u201dDe Zoysa apologizesDe 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, \u201cand I will spend the rest of my life acknowledging the truth of what I did.\u201d He again said the victims had been \u201cgood and kind to me\u201d and that he was \u201cnot well\u201d 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\u2019s parents are \u201cgood people\u201d 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 \u201cno question\u201d his client was struggling with mental illness.\u201cHe 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.\u201d\u2019The stuff of nightmares\u2019Assistant Crown prosecutor Louise Tansey argued that De Zoysa \u201cdisplayed immeasurable cruelty\u201d and \u201ccallousness\u201d when he committed mass murder \u201con some of our community\u2019s most vulnerable members.\u201d\u201cHis commitment to his plan to murder never wavered for a moment\u201d throughout that afternoon and evening and \u201cit was a slaughter,\u201d Tansey said.\u201cThe importance of separating this offender from society is vital,\u201d and \u201cshould be absolute and lifelong.\u201dPhillips, the judge, pulled no punches.\u201cYou have shocked the community and shaken it to its core,\u201d he said.As for De Zoysa\u2019s mental health, \u201ceven if I accept those mental health challenges to be true, they get nowhere close to excusing your behaviour. The evidence shows that at all times you were fully capable of appreciating nature and quality of your actions, and that you knew full well that they were wrong.\u201d\u201c[Dhanushka Wickramasinghe] was your friend. [The family] took you in. You breached their trust in the most wicked and depraved way that could be imagined,\u201d Phillips said.\u201cThe level of violence in this case is stupefying, monstrous, even demonic. You are the stuff of nightmares. If I could give you consecutive sentences, I would.\u201dHe imposed the joint position, and court concluded.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Accused pleads guilty in 2024 mass killing in BarrhavenFebrio De Zoysa, 20, has pleaded guilty to murdering four children, their mother and a close family friend in a mass stabbing in Ottawa last year.WARNING: This story contains details of murder, including of children, and mentions thoughts of suicide.A 20-year-old man has pleaded guilty to murdering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,1047,1],"tags":[116,1046],"class_list":["post-7158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-ontario","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-ontario"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}