Edmonton grapples with city’s worst-ever mass murder

Edmonton, Alberta is reeling from the worst mass murder in the city’s history and one of the worst ever in Canada.

Four female adults, two male adults and two children, a boy and a girl both under 10, were killed in a rampage Monday by a man who later committed suicide.

Edmonton’s police chief, Rod Knecht, says the murders in two homes are a case of “planned and deliberate” domestic violence.

The first body, now identified as Cyndi Duong, 37, was found by police responding to a weapons complaint in south Edmonton around 6:53 p.m. local time Monday. A man had entered the home and shot the woman, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

A few hours later, two men and three woman between the ages of 25 and 50, and the girl and a boy were found dead at a home in the northeast.

Investigators say the nine-millimetre handgun used in the killings was a registered weapon that had been stolen in Surrey, B.C. in 2006.

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

Police have not described the relationships between the victims and the man who committed suicide. Chief Knecht said Monday’s events were the biggest mass murder in Edmonton since six people were slain in 1956.

The suspect was known to Edmonton police. Chief Knecht said officers had gone to the north Edmonton home twice: once this year, and once in November 2012, where a man was charged with domestic violence, sexual assault and uttering threats.