The 23-year-old man who shared pictures of his deceased family members on an online platform has been formally charged with four counts of murder on Monday, July 29.
Menhaz Zaman of Markham, Ontario—just 20 Miles North of Toronto—appeared in court Monday morning and was charged with four counts of first-degree murder. The victims appeared to be his mother, father, grandmother, and his sister all of whom lived together with him, a source confirmed to CTV News.
“At this point in time, until we have the identification done with the coroner we are not providing any information on any sort of relationships,” Const. Andy Pattenden told reporters on a press briefing on Monday.
Charges laid in Quadruple Homicide in #Markham 23 year old Menhaz Zaman was taken into custody at the scene when police arrived yesterday. pic.twitter.com/w7ssgIDaHv
— Alfredo Colangelo (@CityAlfredo) July 29, 2019
It’s unclear how the killings were executed or when the event took place. Messages that Zaman posted on an online gamers’ forum “Perfect World Void” indicate that it must have been over the weekend.
Zaman, who goes by his first name “Menhaz” on the forum, posted several messages to the chat forum. Zaman said he led his parents to believe he went to university, when he was instead hanging out in the shopping mall or the gym.
Zaman claimed on Sunday in the forum that he had killed his family members. Fellow forum members asked for proof, and he reportedly showed very graphic pictures. Several members alerted the police, according to CTV.
The pictures were forwarded to Global News. The outlet decided not to publish the images due to their disturbing content.
The four family members allegedly murdered inside the Castlemore Ave home where they lived in #Markham. One of the victims, the father of the accused Moniruz Zaman, @globalnewsto has learned was a @BeckTaxi driver. pic.twitter.com/sF2XTC2Q9I
— Catherine McDonald (@cmcdonaldglobal) July 29, 2019
It turns out that Zaman had been planning his alleged crimes for at least four years. He reportedly finished only his first year at university, while he became increasingly depressed, devoid and cynical with life, and also became an atheist.
“I choose to kill them instead of my out of cowardess [sic] due to me being an atheist. I believe that this is the only life we get,” he wrote.
He wanted to kill his parents, so they needn’t “feel the shame of having a son like me.”
He later said, “what’s done is done and what had been planned has been concluded.”
The PW Void website administrator and friend of Zaman, going by the name “Maroon.” posted a public statement on the bulletin board about the “Markham massacre.”
“Menhaz has been a part of the Nexus-Void journey since it’s beginning. The Void staff is very shocked by his recent actions, as are the majority of the players who know,” the statement read.
“None of us expected him to go that far; none of us had any idea of his plans. Menhaz has been known as the “troll” for long, joking about the little and the extreme but has never shown any sign or intention of committing a homicide.”
Maroon wrote that Menhaz was banned earlier this month because he was “more offensive than the usual.” and used “self-devaluing” screen names, such as “sub-human” and “don’t deserve life.”
Details about the arrest of Zaman were already reported yesterday by our sister media, The Epoch Times:
Man in Custody After Police Find Four Bodies Inside Ontario Home
MARKHAM—A lot of questions remain to be answered after four bodies were found inside a home in Markham, Ontario, just north of Toronto.
York Regional Police said officers discovered the bodies on Sunday afternoon, July 28, while responding to a 911 call about possible injuries at the home.
They said the officers were met at the door by a 23-year-old man who was later taken into custody and identified as Menhaz Zaman, but there was still no word as of Sunday night whether he’d been charged with anything.
Charges laid in Quadruple Homicide in #Markham 23 year old Menhaz Zaman was taken into custody at the scene when police arrived yesterday. pic.twitter.com/w7ssgIDaHv
— Alfredo Colangelo (@CityAlfredo) July 29, 2019
No information was immediately released about the identities of the deceased, their ages, genders, relationship to each other, or how they died.
“The identification process for the deceased is going to take quite some time as post-mortems need to be done by the coroner,” Const. Andy Pattenden told reporters during an update on Monday, CP24 reported.
Pattenden said he didn’t have any information about whether there could be other suspects, but asked anyone who may have seen or heard anything of note to come forward.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report
