‘The stuff of nightmares’: Judge hands man life sentence for murder of Ottawa family

OTTAWA — A man who pleaded guilty to killing a mother, her four children and a family friend in a gruesome mass stabbing in an Ottawa suburb in 2024 has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.

Febrio De-Zoysa pleaded guilty Thursday to four counts of first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

Darshani Ekanayake, 35, and four children, Inuka, 7, Ashwini, 4, Ranaya, 3, and Kelly, a baby just two months old, were all killed in the attack.

Gamini Amarakoon, 40, a family friend and tenant in their home, was also killed, while the children’s father, Dhanushka Wickramasinghe, was injured.

Justice Kevin Phillips called it one of the worst crimes in the city’s history, telling De-Zoysa he destroyed “two beautiful families” and shook the community “to its core.”

Phillips said De-Zoysa violated the trust of a family that took him into their home and that he used the knife to “grotesque effect.” He called the level of violence involved “stupefying, monstrous — even demonic.”

“You are the stuff of nightmares,” the judge said. “You have caused so much loss and grief. If I could give consecutive life sentences, I would.”

A 2022 Supreme Court of Canada ruling determined that issuing consecutive sentences for first-degree murder is unconstitutional.

Phillips sentenced De-Zoysa to life without parole for 25 years for the murder convictions, and to 25 years for the attempted murder charge, to run concurrently.

De-Zoysa’s defence attorney, Ewan Little, told media outside the courthouse that the plea was the product of a negotiated resolution.

Crown Attorney Dallas Mack said a conviction was inevitable due to the testimony of the brave father, who fended off the knife attack and attempted to save his family, though he did not know they were already dead.

The killings took place in Barrhaven, a fast-growing suburb about 20 kilometres south of Ottawa’s downtown.

All the victims, except the youngest child, were Sri Lankan nationals who arrived in the city within the past several years. The baby was born in Canada.

De-Zoysa was 19 years old and living in Canada as an international student at the time of the murders. He was staying in the basement of the family’s rented townhouse and attended Algonquin College in Ottawa.

The victims’ family members read out impact statements in the packed courtroom Thursday. Amarakoon’s wife sobbed as she read her statement by video.

“My whole world has been shattered,” she said. “I could not comprehend that my husband’s life had been taken so suddenly, so cruelly — and by someone he trusted and spoke with affection (toward, like) brothers.”

In his statement, Dhanushka Wickramasinghe called March 6, 2024 the “darkest day of my life.”

The court heard from a statement of fact that cites a police interview with De-Zoysa conducted the day after the murders.

De-Zoysa had stabbed Amarakoon to death in the basement and soon after told Dhanushka on the phone that the alarming sounds his family heard were from a horror film on television they were watching.

He managed to convince the family that everything was fine, then headed up stairs and stabbed all four children and Darshani to death. Darshani held her baby in her arms and failed to fend off the attacks.

The court heard De-Zoysa told police that he had watched TikTok videos trying to calm himself down before attacking the father when he came home many hours later.

Dhanushka came home late after working two jobs that day when De-Zoysa attacked him.

He told the court De-Zoysa struck him multiple times, stabbing his face and chest. He tried to escape to his family upstairs — who in fact were dead in the basement — but the doors were locked and he was stabbed again.

Dhanushka managed to fend off De-Zoysa’s attacks and overpower him, then ran outside, covered in blood and wailing. Police were called and De-Zoysa was arrested.

Dhanushka was stabbed six times in total, suffering extensive pain and nerve damage and losing multiple fingers. He told the court he lost his family, his home and livelihood in the “unbearable tragedy.”

“I wake up every day with their faces in my heart,” he said.

In a statement from Amarakoon’s 12-year-old daughter read out in court, the girl said she now wakes up crying and scared.

She said she struggles financially and academically, rarely sees her friends and feels like her “best teenage years are slipping away, filled with limitations and uncertainty instead of the experiences I once enjoyed.”

The court also heard about the impact on Amarakoon’s younger daughter, who is three years old. The court heard she is still too young to fully understand what happened but feels her father’s absence and still asks for him all the time.

The court heard from the Crown that De-Zoysa had told police he had stopped attending classes that year and feared failing would result in the revocation his student visa and the termination of financial support from his family.

His banking records and Amazon purchase history shows he ordered a 38-centimetre-long hunting knife in January of that year.

De-Zoysa told the court in his statement that he was not thinking rationally at the time and became “suicidal and depressed,” and now must live with his actions.

This did not move the judge, who said the evidence shows that “at all times,” he was “fully capable of appreciating the nature and quality” of his actions.

The court heard from Crown prosecutors that De-Zoysa told Ottawa police that he originally planned to take his own life with the knife but was “too weak to do it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2025.

Anja Karadeglija and Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press