WATCH: It turns out their daughter’s migraines weren’t the only health issue facing the family at the centre of a tragic murder-suicide. Rumina Daya reports.
VANCOUVER – Homicide investigators who pulled three “badly burned” bodies from a charred home east of Vancouver say they believe the people were family members linked with a horrifying Facebook confession.
Detectives also discovered a fourth body in another home, matching the social media post apparently written by Randy Janzen last Thursday.
“We believe them to be the family — the three members of the Janzen family — as stated in the Facebook posting by Randy Janzen,” said Sgt. Stephanie Ashton of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) on Monday.
Janzen’s post says he shot his daughter Emily to relieve her of excruciating migraines, and then turned the gun on his wife Laurel and sister Shelly.
Friend Rocky Riobo said Emily was not only dealing with debilitating migraines, she was also dealing with her mother’s depression.
Riobo said father Randy was there through it all.
“I know how much it hurt him to see his daughter that way and his wife that way,” said Riobo. “They were going to leave. He and Emily were going to move out, but he said, ‘I can’t leave your mom, for better or for worse.'”
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According to a friend of Randy’s, he was fed up with the lack of treatment and care. In a chilling Facebook post, he apparently confessed to shooting his daughter in the head to relieve her of her headaches. His wife Laurel and sister Shelly were also allegedly shot to death.
Fraser Health confirmed that it did treat Emily, but a spokesperson refused to provide details citing patient confidentiality. There was no comment on Emily’s mother Laurel.
Ashton said IHIT are waiting for the B.C. Coroner’s Service to confirm identities. Coroner Barb McLintock couldn’t say how long the analysis will take.
Ashton asked members of the public to help officers as they build a timeline of the deaths.
“Any kind of contact — even a small Facebook posting or social message — we’re interested in hearing from people that communicated with anyone from the Janzen family from about mid-April to May 7,” said Ashton.
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READ MORE: ‘Randy’s not a monster,’ say friends of man suspected of killing his family
Police were first alerted to a potential triple homicide by information received from social media last Thursday afternoon.
Officers were dispatched to a home in Langley, B.C., where they found the first body. A long-time friend has said the home belonged to Shelly Janzen.
They were then led to a second location in the Rosedale Popkum neighbourhood of Chilliwack, east of Vancouver.
A four-hour standoff ensued with a man, before the home caught fire and was quickly engulfed in flames.
-With files from Rumina Daya and Canadian Press
CORRECTION: An earlier post incorrectly stated the names of Janzen’s wife Laurel and sister Shelly.
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