An upscale neighbourhood near Victoria was in shock Tuesday after five people in one family died in an apparent murder-suicide, including a six-year-old boy who would have started school that day.
The normally quiet community of multimillion-dollar houses on King George Terrace in Oak Bay awoke to sirens shortly after 3 a.m., and it was five hours before police were able to secure the home. The bodies will remain in place until Wednesday, when blood-spatter experts from the Lower Mainland examine the scene.
The house at 310 King George Terrace, which was listed for sale, is registered in the name of Sunny Yong Sun Park, the property transferred to her by her husband, Peter Hyun Joon Lee. Neighbours identified the couple's child as a boy named Christian, and said grandparents from Korea had recently joined the family. Divorce proceedings between the couple were filed in court last month.
The couple had owned a Korean restaurant in Victoria and were injured in a car accident earlier in the summer.
CTV reported Tuesday night that police say that crash was related to the divorce proceedings. Mr. Lee was charged with aggravated assault and dangerous driving causing injury. A court ordered him not to carry a knife and not to go near his wife or the house.
Oak Bay Police Chief Ron Gaudet said his department responded to a 911 call just after 3 a.m. Tuesday. Officers evacuated six houses in the immediate area, which overlooks the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Police found two dead bodies in one part of the home and withdrew and called for backup from the Greater Victoria Emergency Response team. At 8 a.m., police moved in to the rest of the home and found the other three bodies. In total, there were two men, two women and a child.
"At this time, police investigators believe this was not a random attack and that all the people in the home were known to one another," the police chief said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. "The home is now a crime scene … this investigation is a criminal investigation."
He added that residents are not at risk.
Until Tuesday, Oak Bay, a suburb of Victoria roughly equivalent to Toronto's Rosedale community, has had only one murder in the past four decades.
"It's pretty shocking," said Robin June Hood, who lives several houses away from the Lee home. "I've been in Central America, and when I saw all this police activity, it felt like I was back in El Salvador."
She said she didn't know the family - "I'm sad to say people in this neighbourhood don't generally know each other."
Police blocked off traffic on the single road that snakes through the waterfront community of King George Terrace for nine hours, with more than 30 police on the scene as well as three regional coroners.
Throughout the day, forensic experts could be seen moving throughout the house and the surrounding yard. A mobile emergency command centre was parked out front, drawing stares from passengers of double-decker tour buses that passed by once the road was reopened to traffic.
Rose Stanton, regional coroner for Vancouver Island, said it was a gruesome scene inside the home. She would not say how the victims died but confirmed no guns were involved. "There's blood splatter; I've seen homicides with more," she said.
The coroner said the police were delayed in entering the home because it appeared someone inside had attempted to set fire to it.
"There was some flammable material involved, which is why the scene needed to be made safe before the safe responders could go in … there may have been an attempt to set fire to the residence."
She said it does appear to be a murder-suicide, although police would not confirm that, saying they are still working on identifying the dead and contacting family.
Police would not confirm that the victims were members of the same family, but said the five were known to each other.
Christabel Padmore, who bought the bakery-restaurant next door to the couple's restaurant last February, was shocked by the news of the deaths.
"They seemed to get along just fine at a professional level, and Peter was a really happy, easygoing guy," said Ms. Padmore, who saw him fairly often until the car accident a month ago.
"They closed their business at that point," she said. "Sunny had a fairly badly broken arm and Peter had a head injury. He had a severe concussion and was having some problems with his memory.
"He really wasn't happy about being in the accident, but didn't seem like a changed man or anything."
The home, one of the more modest in the area, was listed for sale for $1,019,000. A simple two-storey, white stucco structure set well back from the road, its windows on the upper floor were blown out after police arrived, apparently as a result of the efforts to secure the scene.
With a report from Canadian Press
Justine Hunter