OTTAWA — The man accused of killing a mother, her four children and a family friend in a mass stabbing in Ottawa in 2024 pleaded guilty Thursday.
A trial for Febrio De-Zoysa was to begin later this month. He instead appeared in an Ottawa courtroom Thursday morning, where he pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and one charge of attempted murder.
Thirty-five-year-old Darshani Ekanayake and her four children, Inuka, 7, Ashwini, 4, Ranaya, 3, and Kelly, two months, were all killed in the attack.
Forty-year-old Gamini Amarakoon, a family friend, was also killed.
The children’s father, Dhanushka Wickramasinghe, was injured in the attack.
Ottawa Police described the case at the time as possibly the worst mass killing the city had ever seen.
The victims’ family members read out impact statements to the packed courtroom Thursday. Amarakoon’s wife sobbed as she read her statement via video link.
A statement from his teenage daughter was read out in court. The court also heard about the impact on his younger daughter, who is three years old.
The killings took place in Barrhaven, a fast-growing suburb about 20 kilometres south of Ottawa’s downtown.
De-Zoysa was in Canada as an international student and was 19 years old and living at the family’s rented townhouse at the time of the murders. He attended Algonquin College in Ottawa before the murders took place.
All the victims, except the youngest child, were Sri Lankan nationals who arrived in the city within the past several years.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2025.
Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press
