The Canadian man who murdered eight people last week had previously threatened to kill his family over his wife’s child out of wedlock, but spared two infants, reports said on Saturday.
Police are still investigating the possible motive behind the killing spree in Edmonton by 53-year-old Phu Lam, a man of Vietnamese origin.
However, the new details shed some light on what might have prompted the killings that shocked the northern capital of the oil-rich province of Alberta at the end of last month.
On Sunday last week, Lam killed his wife, Tien Truong, 35, her eight-year-old son, her parents, her sister, her three-year-old niece and an acquaintance of Truong’s.
At a different location the next day, Lam killed a 37-year-old woman who police say was a friend of the family and likely was not Lam’s intended target.
Lam, who was believed to be depressed, later took his own life at a Vietnamese restaurant where he worked.
Two years ago, Pham had threatened to kill his family, according to a legal complaint filed by his wife.
Truong accused Lam of repeated violence over the years, according to court documents reported by local media.
Lam threatened to kill the whole family after learning through a DNA test that he was not the father of Elvis Pham, the eight-year-old victim, the complaint said.
Lam also had a record of sexual assault and drug use with Edmonton police.
During a news conference on Friday, police said there were two young children that Lam spared during his spree, leaving them at a relative’s house before killing again.
The two children were one year old and eight months old respectively and might have been related to Lam, local media reported.
“There is a very good possibility that those two young children were in the house, in the north end, when the homicides took place,” Deputy Police Chief Mark Neufeld said. “For whatever reason, the two children were spared.”
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