Guilty pleas for 1st-degree murder rare, legal experts say after sentencing of Ottawa family’s killer
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A 20-year-old man pleading guilty to four counts of first-degree murder is an extremely rare event that highlights the horrific nature of the mass stabbing he perpetrated in Ottawa last year, legal experts have told CBC.
Sri Lankan international student Febrio De Zoysa killed six people including four children in their Barrhaven home last March.
Last week he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder of Inuka Wickramasinghe, 7; Ashwini Wickramasinghe, 4; Ranaya Wickramasinghe, 3; and Gamini Amarakoon, 40, a close family friend and one of the family’s two tenants.
De Zoysa pleaded down two counts to the lesser offence of second-degree murder of mother Darshani Ekanayake, 35, and her two-month-old baby Kelly Wickramasinghe. He pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Dhanushka Wickramasinghe, the father and sole survivor.
The fact that De Zoysa pleaded guilty to first-degree murder was notable, according to Mark Ertel, a criminal lawyer not involved with the case.
“The most common reaction to a first-degree murder charge, even when there’s a strong Crown case, would be to defend the case unless some lesser plea was offered,” said Ertel, a partner at Ottawa law firm Bayne Sellar Ertel Macrae.
“It looks like it was an overwhelming case,” Ertel told CBC.
“The role of defence counsel is always to attempt to get the best possible outcome for their client,” he said. “In this case, the best possible outcome was probably to not put everyone through a trial and to just take the penalty which was inevitably going to be given, which is a life sentence.”
First-degree murder carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years.
While about 90 per cent of all criminal cases are resolved by negotiated agreement without going to trial, it is unusual for a defendant to plead guilty to the most serious charge, according to University of Ottawa professor Jennifer Quaid.
“In this case, it may just be that, that there really wasn’t any other conclusion you could come to based on the evidence,” she said. “The crimes are horrific — I think there’s no other way to describe them.”
The Wickramasinghe family celebrates daughter Ranaya’s third birthday. From left, father Dhanushka Wickramasinghe, two-month-old daughter Kelly, daughters Ashwini, 4, and Ranaya, 3, son Inuka, 7, and mother Darshani Dilanthika Ekanayake, 35. (Facebook)
De Zoysa, who had been boarding with the family, told the court he planned to kill everyone in the household because he had run out of money and didn’t want to return to Sri Lanka when his international student visa expired.
The Wickramasinghe family had “been nothing but good to [him],” he told investigators.
Speaking outside court on Thursday, Crown prosecutor Dallas Mack said De Zoysa’s plea “recognizes his acceptance of the inevitable: his guilt.”
Had De Zoysa not pleaded guilty, the prosecution had “prepared a powerful case, which would have secured the convictions received today,” Mack said, declining to answer further questions.
Earlier in court, defence lawyer Ewan Lyttle agreed that De Zoysa had “done the unthinkable.”
“But today he is doing what is right and what is expected of him, and Your Honour knows that not many people in his situation do that,” Lyttle said during his sentencing submissions.
Lyttle said he would not attempt a defence of mental illness, though there was “no question” his client was mentally unwell.
Speaking outside court after sentencing, Lyttle said the trial’s outcome was the result of “a negotiated resolution.”
“It could not have happened without the Crown and defence, and offender, co-operating and listening to each other. And through that co-operation, the victims and the community will be spared the further pain of a trial,” he said.
Lyttle declined to comment further when contacted on Friday.
Justice Kevin Phillips acknowledged both the Crown and defence at the conclusion of the case.
“I wish to end this matter by thanking counsel for their very professional conduct. You have distinguished yourselves in the eyes of the court,” he said.
