Police laid murder charges Friday against a Calgary father a day after he phoned them from a parked SUV to announce he had killed his five-year-old boy and three-year-old girl.
“The accused contacted 911 and stated that he had killed his children and gave his location,” Staff Sgt. Mark Rahn told reporters.
“He was directed on the call to place the keys for his vehicle on the hood of his car, and that’s where our officers found him.”
He said the 37-year-old man was co-operative as he was taken into custody, and the bodies of the children were taken out of the back of the black SUV in the northwest neighbourhood.
The father was later charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
Rahn said he couldn’t explain a possible motive for the killings.
“I don’t think any of you would be satisfied with any kind of answer I could potentially give.”
The accused appeared in court Friday and is set to be back before a judge Monday for a bail hearing. A publication ban prevents identifying the victims.
The arrest appears to be a final, sad chapter in a saga between two estranged parents.
Rahn said the mother frantically called police Wednesday night to report that the children were missing only to get the tragic news the next day.
“This is a devastating and unimaginable loss,” Rahn said.
He said the couple had been in a secure, common-law relationship but were separated for about a year. They lived apart and shared custody of the children.
“It was not out of the ordinary for him to come and retrieve his kids for a few hours,” Rahn said.
But there had been domestic problems. Police had previously been called to the home four times, Rahn said, although there was no prior violence toward the children.
The father picked up the children around dinnertime Wednesday and was going to take them out for a few hours, Rahn said.
But they didn’t return.
After the mother called police, officers arrived and phoned the accused but he didn’t answer, said Rahn.
Legally, he said, there was little the officers could do, as there was no formal custody order that had been breached. The officers urged the mother seek a court order that could give them power to return the children.
Rahn said investigators learned that the father had driven west — outside the city — and it’s believed the children were killed just before midnight.
The man returned to the city around 8 a.m. and called police at 10 a.m., said Rahn.
On Friday, the mother went to her place of comfort, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo St. Michael Church in central Calgary, where she and her husband were parishioners.
Inside the church, the woman wept in waves as others embraced and tried to comfort her.
She had been brought down the stairs and into the basement of the church with tear-streaked cheeks, hanging limply off the shoulder of someone who walked her in. She chanted in Tigrinya, a language spoken mainly in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia.
Her grief was palpable in the basement of the church.
Women who sat in foldable chairs had already began weeping with her before she had entered, having heard her cries as she walked through the church doors. Some men buried their faces in white scarves wrapped around their necks.
At the front of the room was bread, bottled water and a bowl of dabo kolo, an Ethiopian and Eritrean finger food. Those grieving were expected to remain there into the night and return over the weekend.
The mother was sat on a blanketed area near the corner of the church and constantly surrounded by women. Seemingly exhausted, they held her upright or laid her head on their shoulders.
When she began to cry again, others would join her.
Speaking in Tigrinya, Father Goitom Mengesha said a prayer for the children.
Later, speaking outside the church, Mengesha said he went to the mother’s home to support her as soon as he learned about the deaths.
“She was shocked, she wasn’t able to speak, she was unable to cry,” said Mengesha, speaking through an interpreter in Tigrinya.
“But then we brought her here today; this is where we always gather with any funeral or anything happens, so this is where we support each other.”
Adanech Sahilie, executive director for the Immigrant Outreach Society, called it a “nightmare for the community.”
“No one expected such a horrible news, and it’s really hard for the mom,” said Sahilie.
“She doesn’t have any family members in Canada. She raised them alone and (is now) having this nightmare.
“I don’t know how she’s going to bear it.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2026.
By Dayne Patterson and Bill Graveland | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.