TORONTO — Canadian police have foiled a plot by three suspects who were planning to go to a mall in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and kill as many people as they could before committing suicide on Valentine’s Day, police said Saturday.
One of the suspects fatally shot himself as police moved in to arrest him, and an American suspect confessed to the plot when she was arrested at the Halifax airport, a senior police official told The Associated Press. Police and Canadian Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the plot was not terrorism-related.
“This appeared to be a group of murderous misfits that were … prepared to wreak havoc and mayhem on our community,” MacKay said Saturday. “The attack does not appear to have been culturally motivated, therefore not linked to terrorism.”
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that friends Lindsay Kantha Souvannarath, 23, of Geneva, Ill., and Randall Steven Shepherd, 20, of Nova Scotia, have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
Nova Scotia RCMP Commanding Officer Brian Brennan said the suspects planned to go to the Halifax Shopping Centre and kill as many people as they could Saturday, Valentine’s Day, before taking their own lives.
He said at a Halifax-area news conference that police found three long-barreled rifles in the home of a third suspect, a 19-year-old who died before he could be arrested. He did not elaborate on how the suspect died.
A senior police official said the 19-year-old male fatally shot himself early Friday after police surrounded his home in the suburb of Timberlea.
The suspects used a chat stream and were apparently obsessed with death and had many photos of mass killings, according to the official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Police acted after receiving information from the public on the Crime Stoppers tip line. The suspects are due in court Tuesday.
