EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) – 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 that 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 9 mm handgun used to kill Duong was a registered weapon that had been stolen in Surrey, British Columbia, in 2006.