OTTAWA — The man accused of killing a mother, her four children and a family friend in a mass stabbing in Ottawa in 2024 pleaded guilty Thursday.

A trial for Febrio De-Zoysa was to begin later this month. He instead appeared in an Ottawa courtroom Thursday morning, where he pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and one charge of attempted murder.

Thirty-five-year-old Darshani Ekanayake and her four children, Inuka, 7, Ashwini, 4, Ranaya, 3, and Kelly, two months, were all killed in the attack.

Forty-year-old Gamini Amarakoon, a family friend, was also killed.

The children’s father, Dhanushka Wickramasinghe, was injured in the attack.

Ottawa Police described the case at the time as possibly the worst mass killing the city had ever seen

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