Menhaz Zaman showed no reaction as he listened to the judge from a video remand room at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont. In September, the 24-year-old pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder for the July 2019 killings of his parents, sister and grandmother. Each of those murder convictions carries a mandatory life sentence.

TORONTO - A South Asian man who slaughtered four unsuspecting family members to prevent them from learning about his double life received four life sentences Friday by a Newmarket judge who set his parole ineligibility period at forty years.

“Words such as brutal, cruel, cold and callous do not begin to convey the enormity of this violence,” Superior Court Justice Michelle Fuerst said Friday reading her reasons for sentence, reported CBC News.

“It is difficult to imagine a more horrific way to take a human life than by slitting the victim’s throat. Mr. Zaman did so four separate times over a span of hours. It is entirely apt to refer to what occurred in that house as a slaughter.”

Menhaz Zaman showed no reaction as he listened to the judge from a video remand room at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont.

In September, the 24-year-old pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder for the July 2019 killings of his parents, sister and grandmother. Each of those murder convictions carries a mandatory life sentence.

Zaman confessed to the killings saying he did it because they were about to learn he was not attending university but had dropped out due to failing grades and was spending his days at the mall, gym and playing video games.

Crown and defence had proposed the 40-year parole ineligibility period.

Zaman cut the throats of his victims: his mother, Momotaz Begum, 50, his grandmother, Firoza Begum, 70, his sister Malesa Zaman, 21, and his father, Moniruz Zaman, 59.

Zaman confessed to online contacts who alerted police after he confessed to what he had done in a text message.