Forensics officers gather their equipment from a home where seven people, including two children, were murdered in Edmonton, Alberta on Wednesday, December 31, 2014.AMBER BRACKEN
Tam Nguyen knelt in front of six pine caskets on Tuesday afternoon, each a simple box of unvarnished wood and threaded rope that held a victim of the mass murder that shook Alberta and the country the weekend before the new year.
As Chief Abbot Phap Hoa led a small Edmonton funeral home in chants, Mr. Tam stole glances at the portraits of the four adults and two children on the caskets – of them, one was of his wife, Thanh Ha Thi Truong, another of his three-year-old daughter, Valentina Nguyen.
A close friend of Ms. Thanh's father also knelt alongside Mr. Tam. Van Dang Truong was killed on Dec. 28, along with his estranged wife, Thi Dau Le, his two daughters, Ms. Thanh and Thuy Tien Truong, his eight-year-old grandson, Elvis Lam, and his granddaughter.
"I've never witnessed sadness like this. I have often done funerals, but it's one by one. I've never done a ceremony like this," said Mr. Phap.
At a typical Buddhist funeral, the ceremony would end with the casket being led into the crematorium as the family stood witness. However, in this case, the caskets were left in the main hall until 6 p.m., allowing well-wishers to come after work to pay their respects.
With simple pews that seat up to 200, the nondescript chapel was left with only standing room on Tuesday afternoon. Throughout the morning, members of Edmonton's Vietnamese community arrived, one by one. Some wore the grey robes of practitioners, while others were bundled against the cold.
Among them was Cuong Cao, who only knew some of the victims through the city's Vietnamese community. "Our community is small, so we knew each other. This is just so sad. I just had to come today to give my condolences," said Mr. Cuong.
The same question was repeated over and over as friends and other Edmontonians arrived – "Why did this happen?"
Inside the chapel on Tuesday, the six caskets were laid side by side behind an altar where a final meal was prepared for the victims. Alongside each photograph was a burning candle. Mounds of oranges and apples were also left for the victims. A purple banner was hung above the casket with the words: "Reborn in a happier place."
According to Buddhist rites, the congregants prayed to the dead as though they were in the room.
"We pray with them. We invite them to listen to that prayer and release their attachments," said Mr. Phap. "They now need to focus on a better place; they are on a different journey."
Clad in a saffron robe, Mr. Phap led the congregation in chants for more than an hour as members of Edmonton's Buddhist community prayed for the six victims. While he appeared calm, the chief abbot said he struggled with the weight of the loss.
"I couldn't imagine standing there and conducting this ceremony, but in that moment I had to come back to myself and reflect so that I was stable enough to run the ceremony," he said Tuesday afternoon, after the service.
Police have so far revealed little of what drove the man behind the worst mass murder in Alberta's history. Phu Lam, 53, was a troubled father of two with large gambling debts and a violent past. He moved to Edmonton in 1979, fleeing the misery that followed the end of the Vietnam War.
In the years since, he married twice, but had trouble keeping a job and suffered from bouts of depression. In 2012, Mr. Phu threatened to kill his wife Thuy Tien Truong and her entire family. In court records, his wife said he couldn't carry through with the threat because he didn't have a weapon.
On Dec. 28, Mr. Phu entered the north Edmonton home he had once shared with his estranged wife, Ms. Thuy, and killed her, their son, and four other members of his wife's family – all the people he threatened to kill in 2012. An acquaintance of the family was at the home at the time and was killed. The following day, he killed Cyndi Duong in a home in south Edmonton. A hockey mom with three sons, Ms. Duong was not his intended target, according to police.
Several hours later, Mr. Phu killed himself in Fort Saskatchewan, a city north of Edmonton.
Ms. Duong's funeral was held on Monday by a Christian congregation in west Edmonton. More than 700 people were at the church to give their final respects, including her eldest son's hockey team who attended wearing their jerseys.
A week after Edmonton police Chief Rod Knecht called the murders an "extreme case of domestic violence gone awry," the head of the force's Domestic Offender Crimes Section called for more public discussion on domestic violence.
"This tragedy underlines the need to raise public awareness of domestic violence, which continues to be prevalent in communities across Canada," said Staff Sergeant Sean Armstrong.
On the weekend after the murders, Edmonton police officers responded to 15 domestic-violence calls – two involved very serious injuries. In all, police received 7,601 domestic violence calls in 2014.
Mr. Armstrong said Tuesday that he was worried by a clear escalation in the "severity of violence," over the past few years. Part of the reason for the increase is a hesitation for victims to come forward until assailants cause physical harm. He told victims to not "wait until there are bruises and broken bones to reach out."
After Tuesday's funeral, the cremations of the six victims will continue over the week and should be finished by the weekend. Funerals have yet to be announced for Viet Nguyen, a family friend caught up in the shooting rampage, or for Mr. Phu.
On Saturday, a final ceremony is planned for the square in front of Edmonton's City Hall. While the Vietnamese community's Christian and Buddhist halves have so far mourned in separate ceremonies, all will join in a vigil for the eight victims nearly two weeks after the murders.
Justin Giovannetti