A Toronto man admitted to killing his mother and two of his brothers with a crossbow out of fear of losing his fiancée three weeks before their wedding.
Brett Ryan, 36, appeared in court on Friday and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder of his oldest brother, Christopher, and two counts of second-degree murder of his mother, Susan, and his younger brother Alexander.
He also pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of his older brother Leigh, according to the Toronto Star.
The family members were discovered at the home on August 25, 2016 suffering from serious wounds with a crossbow lying nearby. All three died at the scene.
Ryan planned his 66-year-old mother’s death because he feared she would expose the lies he had told to his fiancée, but according to the statement of facts in court, he only intended to persuade her not to mention his financial situation.
He believed his fiancée would call off the wedding if she found out that he lost his job because of his past criminal record.
Ryan was arrested in 2008 in relation to 14 bank robberies committed throughout Toronto and Durham Region, according to CP24 Go.
At the time he wore a fake beard as a disguise and was called the ‘fake beard bandit’ by officials.
In 2009, he pleaded guilty to committing eight of the bank robberies and was sentenced to five years in prison.
However, due to pretrial custody, he only served three years and nine months, according to the Star.
Two months before the murders, Ryan got a job at an IT company, but before he started, he was fired after his employer found out he had a criminal record.
Just a few days before the shocking killings, he admitted to his mother that he didn’t have a job and that he was lying to his fiancée about it.
According to the Star, he was telling his fiancée that he was working from home while he stayed at their condo.
When Susan told her son to admit the truth, he was worried his fiancée would break off their engagement, despite his mother telling him that she would continue to support him financially, according to the statement of facts.
Before he left his apartment that he shared with his fiancée on that tragic day, Ryan set up a laptop, an iPad and iPhone, that were supposed to be activated in order to create an internet footprint that would serve as an alibi.
He then arrived at his mother’s Scarborough home to confront her shortly after 12pm.
When the confrontation became heated, his mother called his older brother, Christopher, 42, to the home.
But during the argument, Ryan slipped away to retrieve the crossbow from the garage.
Ryan then stabbed his mother with a crossbow bolt and strangled her to death using a yellow nylon rope.
When Christopher arrived to the home, Ryan shot him in the back of his neck using the crossbow, according to the Star.
He moved their bodies into the garage and hid them under a tarp.
But as Ryan was leaving the garage, his 29-year-old brother Alexander showed up.
The brothers fought and Ryan got the upper hand long enough to fatally stab Alexander with a crossbow bolt.
Leigh, 38, who was in his room at the home, came outside after hearing all of the commotion.
When he saw the bodies, he ran inside and called for help. Ryan assaulted Leigh, who somehow escaped and ran to a neighbor’s home to call 911.
During the police investigation, Ryan was found to be living at the address of the crime scene when he filed for bankruptcy in 2010.
A police source told CTV News that two bodies were discovered in the garage at the Scarborough home and the third was found in a driveway.
Ryan was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 25 years on Friday.
RUMOR BUS 