OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Police in Ottawa on Thursday were investigating a suspected multiple homicide following the deaths of two adults and four children at a house in the southern part of the Canadian capital.
A seventh person was in hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening, injuries. It was not immediately announced how the victims died Wednesday, but the Ottawa mayor referred to the case as a “multiple homicide,” and police said a suspect had been arrested.
Sri Lanka’s high commission in Ottawa said the victims were a family of Sri Lankan nationals. The high commission said the father survived but his wife and children died, adding that it is in touch with relatives in the country’s capital of Colombo.
Canadian authorities have not confirmed the identities of the deceased, their ages or the identity of the person in hospital.
Police were called to the home in the Barrhaven area at around 11 p.m. Wednesday night. A suspect was arrested quickly after that, and police said there was not continuing threat to public safety.
Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs told local radio stations that police do not believe the deaths were the result of domestic or intimate partner violence, but that they’re also still trying to determine the relationship between the suspect and the victims.
Stubbs said it was a “very tragic scene.”
Don Perera, a neighbor, said he met the family that lived in the home last fall at a Halloween party at the nearby Catholic elementary school. He said the father was from Sri Lanka.
Shanti Ramesh, who lives across the street, was alerted to a commotion late Wednesday. From her balcony, she saw a man sitting on the driveway of the home and yelling before two police officers arrived and carried him away.
On Thursday morning, five marked police cars were parked on the street and in driveways near the home, which is a middle unit of a row of brick townhouses.
Several people in white jumpsuits were going in and out of the home throughout the early morning, while parents and kids walked and biked by on their way to a nearby elementary school.
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe called the news distressing for all the city’s residents.
“I was devastated to learn of the multiple homicide in Barrhaven, one of the most shocking incidents of violence in our city’s history,” Sutcliffe said in a post on X.
Police said a media update would be provided later Thursday.
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