The devastating mass killing at Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu Filipino festival on Saturday has shaken the nation and cast a shadow over today’s federal election, as new details emerge about the accused killer’s troubled past.

Thirty-year-old Vancouver man Kai-ji Adam Lo, who has now been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder, was known to police and mental health authorities well before the attack that turned a joyful cultural celebration into what Vancouver police are calling “the darkest day in our city's story.”

Lo is accused of driving his black SUV into a crowd of festivalgoers celebrating Filipino heritage in southeast Vancouver, killing at least 11 people, including a five-year-old girl. Police confirmed that Lo had “a significant history of interactions with police and healthcare professionals related to mental health.”

In the year leading up to the massacre, Lo endured personal tragedies.

His brother Alexander was murdered last year, an event that deeply shook him and his family. In a fundraising post at the time, Lo wrote, “It pains me deeply to put these words down, but my brother has been taken from us in a senseless act of violence, something we never saw coming.” He added: “I'm burdened with remorse for not spending more time with him. I implore you to keep his soul in your thoughts and prayers.”

Months later, Lo turned to the public again for help after claiming his mother attempted suicide, describing the compounding grief that had engulfed his family.

“She lost a son already and is on the verge of losing her home. This has driven her to attempt to take her own life,” he wrote, explaining that his mother had spent a month hospitalized.

Despite dozens of prior interactions with authorities, Lo had no criminal record.

Vancouver police executed a search warrant Sunday evening at the east Vancouver home Lo reportedly shared with his mother, carrying out boxes from what appeared to be both a basement suite and a laneway house. Authorities have confirmed that while the act was horrific, “the evidence in this case does not lead us to believe this was an act of terrorism.”

The tragedy unfolded just ahead of Monday’s federal election, where a rise in crime has been a key campaign issue. On Sunday morning, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida attended a Filipino church in Mississauga, Ontario, where they addressed the nation’s grief over what Poilievre described as a “senseless act of violence.”

“I hope that we can pray for those who have been lost and for those who have survived in mourning,” Poilievre said. “Their loved ones, their brothers, sisters, fathers, sons, mothers and daughters, all of them will have a deep hole in their hearts today and we will try and fill it with the love of the entire country.”

In a separate post on X, consistent with his campaign’s tough-on-crime messaging, Poilievre wrote, “A decade of Liberals brought crime, chaos, drugs and disorder to our once safe communities. On Monday, you can put an end to it all, by ending radical Liberal drug policies, bringing life sentences for fentanyl kingpins.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney, joined by B.C. Premier David Eby, also visited a Filipino church in Vancouver to attend a vigil for the victims. Carney shared a photo on X of himself lighting a candle with the caption, “In Vancouver tonight, we laid flowers in memory of the victims of the devastating Lapu Lapu festival attack.”

As the investigation continues, authorities have yet to reveal the full timeline or motives leading up to the horror. For now, a grieving community and a country heading into a pivotal election is left grappling with then tragic loss.

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