Nine dead at 3 sites in Canada killings

EDMONTON, Alberta – A man with a lengthy criminal record killed six adults and two young children before taking his own life in Edmonton, Alberta, in what the police chief on Tuesday called the city’s worst mass murder.

Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht told a news conference late Tuesday night there was no suggestion of gang involvement and said the motive for the “senseless mass murder” appears to have been “planned and deliberate” domestic violence.

Knecht did not release the name of the suspect, but said the man was well-known to police and had a criminal record dating back to September 1987.

Cindy Duong, 37, was fatally shot in a home in south Edmonton on Monday, while two men and three women between the ages of 25 and 50, and a girl and a boy – both under the age of 10 – were found dead a few hours later at a home in the northeast.

Investigators have determined the 9mm handgun used to kill Duong was a registered weapon that had been stolen in Surrey, British Columbia, in 2006.

The suspect was found dead by his own hand in a restaurant in the Edmonton bedroom community of Fort Saskatchewan on Tuesday morning.

Autopsies will be conducted Thursday.

Duong’s body was found about 7 p.m. Monday when police responded to a report of a man entering the south-side home, opening fire and fleeing, Knecht said.

An hour and a half later, officers responded to reports of a suicidal man at a northeast residence in a quiet cul de sac, the same home where the suspect had been arrested in November 2012 and charged with domestic and sexual assault.

When officers arrived, no one answered the door, Knecht said. They searched the exterior of the home but found nothing overtly suspicious and did not go inside.

Hours later police were contacted by a second person and returned to the residence. When they went inside, they found a scene of carnage with seven bodies.