On the evening of April 5, a heated argument broke out between Robert and Brenda Rus in the couple’s Barrhaven home. Minutes later, Brenda lay strangled on the floor and Robert confessed in a text message to his son, then to a 911 operator, that he had just killed his wife.
Sixty-year-old Brenda became
Ottawa’s second femicide victim of the year
in the ninth homicide of 2025. Sixty-one-year-old Robert was sentenced to life in prison six months later after
he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in court
.
This was just one of the harrowing acts of violence to make headlines this year across the nation’s capital.
Nineteen homicides were recorded across the city in 2025. Charges were laid in 14 of those cases, while the remaining five killings were still unsolved, Ottawa police confirmed in a Dec. 30 statement.
Homicide numbers for 2025 represented a decrease from
the record-setting number from the previous year
. The 25 homicides in 2024 narrowly beat a record for most homicide victims in Ottawa in a single year, surpassing the previous record of 24 from both 1995 and 2016.
However, 2025’s total of 19 was still the second-highest in Ottawa in the past five years, according to police data.
The first of the year
It was just 10 days into the new year when Wilson Sabarros, 58, was
found dead inside a home in Barrhaven
.
One week later, Mia Tejada, 28, and Omar Assaad, 26,
were both charged with first-degree murder
in connection with Sabarros’ death. In June,
police charged a third person
, 20-year-old Michael Journal Prest, also with first-degree murder.
The killing took place on Pondhollow Way in the Stonebridge neighbourhood, near the intersection of Longfields Drive and Cambrian Road. Following the incident, residents expressed shock that a homicide had occurred in their neighbourhood, describing the street as quiet with many dog walkers.
Five killings in eight days
It was a busy spring for Ottawa police as they responded to five homicides in a little more than a week, increasing the total for the year to 10 by April 5.
On March 29, Paul Scott Landymore was found with life-threatening injuries on Primrose Avenue East in Chinatown. He died later in hospital. To date, police have not confirmed the cause of death and the case remains unsolved.
Renée Descary then became the first designated femicide victim of the year after she was stabbed to death on April 1 on Heney Street in Lowertown. Oliver Denai, 24, was charged with first-degree murder.
On April 4, Trevor Howard Needham was found dead in an east-end residence after
being assaulted with an “edged weapon.”
Jeremy Joseph Young, 38, was charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder of a second victim.
The next day, Rus was
found dead inside her home on Bentbrook Crescent
in Barrhaven.
Mahad Elmi, 20, was
shot dead on the 300 block of Craig Henry Drive
on April 6, marking the third homicide in three days. Another 21-year-old man was treated for serious, but non-life-threatening injuries. Osman Yare, 22, was
charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder
four days later.
The busy spring then turned into a nearly four-month period between June 4 and Oct. 2 when no homicides were reported by Ottawa police.
Femicides on the rise
Ottawa police identified four deaths as “femicides” in 2025,
exceeding the two reported in 2023
.
A femicide is generally defined as “the killing of women and girls because of their gender,” often driven by gender roles, discrimination towards women and girls or unequal power relations between women and men.
Descary, 51, and Rus, 60, became the first two femicide victims of the year in Ottawa after being killed within a four-day span at the beginning of April.
Rachelle Desrochers, 54,
was reported missing in April
after being last seen March 14 at a McDonald’s restaurant on Elgin Street. Police declared the death a femicide in May after stating investigators had reason to believe that Desrochers had been killed and that her body was in a local landfill. On
May 26, police charged Joshua Blair, 35,
with second-degree murder and indignity to a dead body. To date, police have not provided any updates indicating Desrochers’ remains have been located.
Tracy Duncan, 54, became known as Ottawa’s
fourth femicide victim of 2025
after she was found dead at her home on Carousel Crescent in Gloucester on June 3. Stephen Doane, 57, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
Ottawa Police Service Chief Eric Stubbs said in his
year-end interview with the Ottawa Citizen
that the response to the police force’s decision to start declaring deaths as femicides had been “very positive.” However, he noted that intimate partner violence numbers were up 8.6 per cent year over year.
Five cases still unsolved
Investigators are still seeking answers in five homicide cases from 2025, police confirmed.
The first is in the March 29 death of Paul Scott Landymore, 63, who was found with life-threatening injuries on Primrose Avenue East and later died in hospital. Nine months later, police have not released a cause of death, nor have they announced any arrest.
In the
Oct. 2 stabbing death of 55-year-old Justin James Weir
, police have said publicly that the leading thread in the investigation lies in
a dark-blue earbud case with only one earbud inside
reportedly found on St. Laurent Boulevard between Montreal Road and Brittany Drive. Police have also released
photos of a person of interest in connection with that homicide
, but no arrest has been announced.
Police have also
identified a person of interest
in the
stabbing death of Raphael Atende
, 21, but no arrest has been announced. Atende was reportedly stabbed shortly after midnight on Oct. 18 in the 1700 block of Russell Road.
Shock waves rippled through Ottawa’s culinary scene following the stabbing death Joshua Qiyuk, a 21-year-old aspiring chef. His body was found on Oct. 22 in the 400 block of Meadow Park Place, near the Aviation Parkway. While
members of Ottawa’s restaurant scene seek answers
, police have yet to announce any arrest.
The shooting death of Nelson Getson, 38, is the fifth homicide case from 2025 still under investigation. Getson was
found in a rooming house on Somerset Street West on Oct. 15
, and police announced just over a week later that
he had died from his injuries.
