Pod Insights Canadian True Crime The Zaman Family About this episode It started with a shocking message in a private chat: “I’ve just slaughtered my entire family.” What was first thought of as a grim joke soon became a frantic race to uncover the truth… and prevent a real-life horror from getting worse.
The intention of this episode is to take a look back at a shocking crime, how it impacted the community, and how it might have been prevented. Some names have been changed to respect the privacy of those involved.
Recommended listening:
Casefile Case 50: Jennifer Pan https://casefilepodcast.com/case-50-jennifer-pan/
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2:05 Speaker 02 Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production funded mainly through advertising. You can listen to Canadian True Crime ad-free and early on Amazon Music included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast. The podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language. It's not for everyone. Please take care when listening.
2:25 Speaker 03 Hi there. I hope you're well and thank you so much for joining me. The year has flown by and we've reached the end of another season. It was supposed to be 10 episodes and today makes 11. It's your support that makes it possible to keep this podcast sustainable, even if that sometimes means a slightly longer gap between cases, which I know can be frustrating. It's important to us to tell these stories the way they deserve to be told. And with your support, we can hopefully keep making a meaningful impact. So whether you've been listening on the ad-supported feed or if you subscribe to a premium feed to listen without the ads, just thank you for listening.
3:07 Speaker 03 Stay tuned over the summer slowdown for our annual case updates episode and a special project or two. There's a big one coming down the line and we'll be back with the next season in early September. We've covered a diverse range of cases this year so far and I'd love to know which stood out to you the most. The murders of Alfred and Rosemary Pogges in New Jersey was our first series, which began with an invite to a Nova Scotian teenager under false pretenses. There was 15-year-old Dylan Lestage, who died a horrific death after being doused with turpentine and set on fire by his peers, leaving behind a younger sister who struggled to make sense of it.
3:51 Speaker 03 Then, two highly requested cases: The Shedden Massacre, which explored Canadian outlaw biker culture, and the Richardson Family Murders, a case of adolescent rebellion that became something unimaginably dark and tragic. And most recently was the heartbreaking murder of Minnie Callan in a coastal town in Newfoundland, and a constable's vow to keep her memory alive. Which case stuck with you the most? We'd love to hear your feedback at canadiantruecrime.ca or via Facebook or Instagram. It'll help us decide what to cover next. Today, we have the final episode of The Season.
4:33 Speaker 03 A haunting case about the devastating consequences of unchecked expectations and lies. This case has been pieced together from court documents and the news archives, most notably the journalism of Mac Lammerow for Vice and Catherine Laidlaw for Toronto Life. Some names have been changed to respect privacy. And with that, it's on with the show.
5:03 Speaker 03 Late one Saturday night, a man who we'll call Jack decides to message a friend to see if he's okay. They've never actually met in real life, but they're part of a group of online gamer friends that have known each other for years. Jack's friend goes by the handle Menhuz, and he's always active online, chatting, playing games, and frequently checking in with the group. But his account has gone quiet. So Jack sends Menhuz a private message to casually check in. There's no response at first. But then he receives a reply from the account that stops him in his tracks.
5:45 Speaker 03 "I've just slaughtered my entire family." Jack doesn't quite know what to say, but decides to assume it's a joke, a disturbing one, but not real. Everyone knows Menhuz as a bit of an online troll, an edgelord. He likes to say things for shock value to get a rise out of people. But still, this somehow feels different. Jack is uneasy. He asks Menhuz if he's going to turn himself in, likely hoping that this is where the joke will be revealed. But the account replies, "Yes, of course. I deserve punishment."
6:28 Speaker 03 Even then, Jack wants to believe it's not real. It can't be. He tells Menhas he's selfish. He should have talked to someone, anyone, before doing something like this. The Menhas account agrees, then types: "It's been my plan for three years." The account then posts a photo that appears to show two women lying lifeless on the ground, covered in blood. Jack is taken aback. This is deeply disturbing, but he has no idea what to do. So he reaches out to a group of mutual friends via Discord,
7:10 Speaker 03 a free online platform used by gamers to communicate with each other when they're not actually playing, a kind of green room away from the main event. And in these communities, typically composed of mostly young men, there's always someone online looking for a challenge. Jack posts the graphic photo of the two women covered in blood and asks if anyone can help with a reverse image search. It's a simple and very handy tool that scans the internet to find out where else a particular image might have appeared. It's through reverse image searches that catfishers are often identified,
7:52 Speaker 03 people who use someone else's photos to create fake online identities, usually to deceive others into emotional or romantic relationships. If the same photo shows up under a different name or on sketchy dating profiles, it's often a red flag that the person you're talking to isn't who they claim to be. But in this case, the goal is different. Jack hopes they can find the graphic photo elsewhere on the internet, because it'll mean that Menhas has stolen the photo and is just trolling again, that his family is safe and well. The group scrambles into action, confident they can find the photo.
8:37 Speaker 03 They upload it to Google Image Search and other apps that perform a reverse image search, but it all comes up blank. They can't find any evidence of the photo on the internet.
8:51 Speaker 03 Then the Menhaz account types a new message in the group Discord. I killed mum and granny so far, waiting for sister in five minutes and dad in one hour.
9:06 Speaker 03 This causes panic among the players. This isn't something that happened, it's an event that was still happening. They have to do something, but what? While they've known Menhaz as an online friend for the best part of five years, they have no idea what his real name is. They only have usernames and screen names, not real names or addresses. All they know is what he's told them: that he's Canadian, that he attends university, and loves gaming. But they all had gaming in common. They're super fans of a 3D role-playing game called Perfect World,
9:47 Speaker 03 with devoted players from all over the globe gathering together in online communities to play, chat about the game, and share details about their lives in general. That's how they met. Jack himself is from Minnesota in the US. He has no idea how to find a fellow gamer in Canada. Which police department would you even call, and what would you say?
10:16 Speaker 03 Then, the Menhaz account posts another graphic photo. It's similar to the last one, except this photo shows a third lifeless woman covered in blood.
10:30 Speaker 03 As the group is reeling in shock, a third photo comes through. This one is a family photo. There's a middle-aged couple happily cutting a cake together while two adult children look on. Jack recognizes the young man at the back as Menhaz. He's posted a couple of real pictures of himself before. The young woman next to him has to be his sister. If Menhaz is to be believed, he's already killed her. He's also killed their mother and grandmother, who isn't in the photo, and he says he's going to kill their father next.
11:10 Speaker 03 In a panic, Jack creates a separate, private Discord chat and adds a couple of gamers he knows are smart and trustworthy, several of them from Canada. Everything they know about Menhaz is made up of fragments of information collected over years of online gaming. But if they can work together, they might be able to track down his IP address, a unique string of numbers assigned to every device connected to the internet. They know it won't reveal Menhaz's exact address, but the IP address could help them narrow down his location in Canada to a specific city or region.
11:51 Speaker 03 And if they can do that, they'll know which local police service to contact and hopefully prevent anyone else from getting hurt.
12:02 Speaker 03 But then, the account posts another photo. This time, it's an older man, and it looks like his throat has been cut.
12:15 Speaker 03 At around the same time, the administrator for the Perfect World Discord server is waking up for the day. We'll call him Maroon, and he's living in Israel, where it's about 6am local time. When Maroon gets out of bed, he checks his messages. He's just received a new, private Discord message. It says: "I've just slaughtered my entire family and will most likely spend the rest of my life in jail if I manage to survive. I hope I made you laugh at one point or another. I hope you remember the good times. I will miss you all." The message is from Menhaz.
12:58 Speaker 03 He's known for sending inappropriate messages, but still. Maroon asks him if he's joking. Menhaz says no and offers to send photos. Maroon can't believe what he's seeing. He says: "That's not your family." The account replies: "It is." Maroon asks why he's sending the photos around like this. Menhaz says he wants the images to spread quickly, so he gets caught quickly. "So this purgatory I'm in ends faster."
13:34 Speaker 03 But more than that, it's a courtesy. Menhaz says he's formed some good bonds with his gamer friends, and he doesn't want them to think he'd suddenly disappeared. He wants them to know what happened. Maroon logs on to the main Discord server and is immediately contacted by Jack, who confirms that it's looking like Menhaz has committed murder. Jack adds Maroon to the separate Discord chat of other players trying to track down the Canadian university student's IP address. By now, Maroon is just one of several other players who have received the same message from Menhaz,
14:16 Speaker 03 saying he killed all four members of his family: his mother, his grandmother, his sister, and his father. One of the players asks Menhaz where he is now. The account replies: "I'm at home. Killed my dad last. The shaking has stopped." It's now after midnight, North American time, technically Sunday morning. Some of the players are still holding out hope that there's a remote possibility this isn't real. But Jack, Maroon, and others are convinced that four people are dead. And they're the only people who know,
14:57 Speaker 03 a handful of online friends who don't know each other in real life, scattered across the globe. One player decides to send Menhaz a private message and outright asks where he lives. The account responds: "Not yet." Another player asks Menhaz what he plans to do next. The reply says: "Eat junk food, visit my ex-girlfriend, drink, smoke. I've never drank alcohol or a cigarette." The mention of an ex-girlfriend stops the group cold. Maybe he isn't finished. Maybe he plans to hurt someone else.
15:44 Speaker 03 By this point, there are about 10 members in the private Discord chat, working hard to track down an IP address for Menhas. They have resigned themselves to the fact that it's probably too late to save his family members, but they're determined to prevent him from hurting anyone else. They try the usual options: email history, old forum posts. Tracing someone online isn't straightforward, and they know there are limits. If Menhas is using a VPN, or virtual private network, it would be masking his real IP address behind layers of encrypted servers.
16:26 Speaker 03 And even without a VPN, tracing a person's IP address only gives a rough idea of their location, usually just the city or region, not an exact home address. That's because IP addresses are tied to internet service providers, not specific people. And internet service providers will not give out private information about their clients, unless presented with a valid reason, like a court order. But if this group can get lucky and find Menhas's IP address, it might just be enough to narrow down his location, and the police can do the rest.
17:08 Speaker 03 One member locates an IP address linked to Menhas's Discord account, but it points to New Brunswick. From the bits and pieces Menhas has told them about his daily life, they're fairly certain he doesn't live in the Maritimes. It's slow-going, and there's a lot of troubleshooting involved, as the members check all other accounts Menhas is known to use to see if there's any information that can help identify him.
17:39 Speaker 03 And then, they find something promising. There's an IP address attached to his Skype account that strongly suggests Menhaz lives in the Greater Toronto Area. One of the gamers on the search actually lives in Toronto, a female player named Bianca. She knows how big the Greater Toronto Area is, how it encompasses the city of Toronto plus a number of other cities and municipalities, millions of people. They could contact the Toronto Police at least, but what would they say? "Hi, we're a group of gamers on Discord and one of our friends told us he killed his family. We don't know his real name or where he lives,
18:24 Speaker 03 but we think his IP address might be somewhere in the Greater Toronto Area. Go get him." It sounded ridiculous, like the setup to a bad joke. But for Bianca in Toronto, the knowledge that Menhaz was probably in or around her city is extra motivation to keep digging to see if she can find out anything else about him. As she and the smaller group continue their recon work, the larger Discord group tries to keep Menhaz talking, to keep him engaged in the conversation, to keep him at home where he can't hurt anyone else.
19:07 Speaker 03 Then, some members start receiving private messages from Menhaz. He tells them that because they're good friends, he wants to send them some money from his PayPal. Quote, "I won't need it where I'm going." This sparks a new idea. Bianca has received PayPal notifications from Menhaz before, so she digs into them to see if there was ever a home address attached to a transaction. And then, she sees a street address located in the Greater Toronto Area, specifically, the city of Markham, located northeast of Toronto.
19:49 Speaker 03 The international group of gamers trying to locate Menhaz had spent four hours going from vague suspicion to full-blown crisis mode, but finally, they have something real to pass on to the authorities.
20:07 Speaker 03 By this point, it's about 3:00 in the morning in Toronto, Sunday morning. Both Jack and Bianca contact the police and they pass on everything they know about Menhas. The messages and photos sent from his account, his IP address, and what they believed was his home address. The group hopes that the police believed them and take swift action. They feel helpless and wish there was more they could do, but it's out of their hands now. All they can do is wait nervously and hope that no one else gets hurt.
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22:42 Speaker 03 The gamer who went by Menhaz was actually using his real first name. His full name was Menhaz Zaman and he was 23 years old at the time. His parents were originally from Bangladesh. After they married in the late 1980s, they immigrated to Canada in search of a better life for themselves and the future children they planned to have.
23:09 Speaker 03 Moni Ruz Zaman was the quiet and reserved one, known as a man of few words but strong principles. He was also deeply devoted to his Muslim faith, according to a 2020 feature in Toronto Life by Catherine Laidlaw. Moni Ruz preferred to dress in traditional Bengali attire, which included long, loose-fitting shirts often made of cotton or silk, called panchabis. His wife, Mamataz Begum, was nine years younger, only about 20 years old when they arrived in Toronto. She was the friendly outgoing one.
23:50 Speaker 03 Mamataz had a warm and generous nature that came in very handy as the couple settled into their new country. At first, they lived in Scarborough, an area east of Toronto that had become a hub for newcomers, with established immigrant communities and more affordable housing. As Mamataz focused on making a home and integrating them socially into the community, Moni Ruz was the breadwinner, focused on earning money for them to save to set themselves up for the future.
24:26 Speaker 03 It wasn't easy. Canada was heading into a recession when they arrived. But by the mid 1990s, Toronto had rebounded and transformed itself into a bustling multicultural city with many opportunities on offer. Moniru had found steady work as a taxi driver and developed a reputation for reliability and a strong work ethic. He worked so much that he was awarded Driver of the Month many times. He also managed to save a lot of money. Through that and careful budgeting, the Zaman's had enough money in the bank for their first home in Scarborough.
25:10 Speaker 03 Then they were able to purchase two investment properties which they rented out. While Moniru continued to drive a taxi and save money, Mamataz took care of the property management.
25:26 Speaker 03 After about eight years in Canada, it was time to start a family. Their first child, Menhaz, was born in 1996, followed by a daughter named Melissa two years later. With Moniru continuing to work long hours as a cab driver and Mamataz managing the kids, the household and the rental properties, they realised they needed some help. So Mamataz convinced her mother, Farosa, to move over from Bangladesh to help with the children. They continued saving money and by 2006, the family had upgraded to a spacious four-bedroom detached home in Markham.
26:10 Speaker 03 They rented out the basement suite to tenants, another sacrifice they made on their journey towards long-term financial security, because soon, they would be paying for university.
26:25 Speaker 03 Moni Ruze and Mamataz Zaman were ambitious and driven, immensely proud of the life they'd built so far. And they were especially proud of their eldest child, Menhaz, who was described as a dutiful kid with a boyish, bespectacled face. At school, he was a solid student, someone who showed up, listened, and did what he was supposed to. Menhaz spoke quietly and often avoided eye contact. And socially, he kept a low profile. He was shy, reserved, and introverted like his father, a massive homebody. He never went out with friends and was never seen dating anyone.
27:10 Speaker 03 His mother doted on him. Mamataz often went out of her way to care for her eldest child, reportedly picking him up for lunch each day and making sure she was at his beck and call. Menhaz never caused trouble for his parents and lived up to every expectation. The Zaman's were deeply invested in their children's future and had high expectations for them. They believed in hard work, discipline, and the power of education to secure a stable career and happy life. It's a common focus in immigrant households. When parents effectively leave everything behind to start over in a new country,
27:56 Speaker 03 often with a new culture, the stakes feel impossibly high. As a taxi driver, Moni Ruze was part of a workforce made up largely of overworked immigrants, doing the jobs that others thought were undesirable. It's a necessary sacrifice they hope will pay off in the future.
28:17 Speaker 03 But with that, there is often some pressure, the weight of unfulfilled dreams projected on to the next generation. For many families, that pressure often helps fuel success, but it can also create quiet strains that build up at home. Father Moniruze had high hopes for his son to become an engineer, so when Menhas was accepted into York University's LaSonde School of Engineering, he was thrilled. His wife Mamataz proudly regaled everyone she knew with stories of her son's good grades and future plans. Friends would say they started feeling inadequate about their own children.
29:02 Speaker 03 But while Menhas was the golden child, his younger sister, Melissa, rebelled. She was bright and ambitious, but also headstrong, and far less willing to conform than her brother. Melissa often found herself caught between her family's traditional cultural values while also trying to navigate the realities of teenage life in a more modern western country. Her antics sparked regular tension at home. She was once suspended from high school for flipping off a teacher. She was caught drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis as a minor before cannabis was even legal.
29:45 Speaker 03 She also dated people her parents wouldn't approve of behind their back. Melissa fought with her mother about the clothes she wore and her curfew. If she came home late, her father Moniruze sometimes hit her, according to Toronto Life. On a couple of occasions, he actually locked her out of the house to teach her a lesson. Occasionally, older brother Menhas would step in to try and diffuse fights with their mother, but if their father was involved, Menhas stayed right out of it, retreating to his room and disappearing into his computer. Then, Melissa started going out with another boyfriend
30:29 Speaker 03 that Moniruze and Mamataz didn't approve of, and they certainly didn't approve when she moved out to live with him. But it was temporary. Melissa was soon back under the family roof. Her grades had been excellent all along, and the family celebrated once again when she was accepted into a science programme at York University. She dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon. Moni Ruze and Mamataz were so proud of their children. Melissa had a part-time job at a grocery store and was going to become a doctor, and Menhaz was getting excellent grades in his engineering programme.
31:12 Speaker 03 All their efforts and hard work were surely paying off.
31:20 Speaker 03 The summer of 2019 was a season of celebration for the Zaman family. In late June, Moni Ruze and Mamataz marked their 25th wedding anniversary and hosted two events to celebrate: a casual backyard party and a larger, more formal reception at a local convention centre. They beamed as their eldest child, Menhaz, gave a speech to commemorate the occasion. As a slideshow of family photos played on a screen, Menhaz told the crowd that he was lucky to have been raised by such kind and wonderful parents. It was a symbol of all the Zaman family had accomplished,
32:05 Speaker 03 proof that they had made the right decision in moving to Canada. But perhaps the biggest celebration was coming up next. Menhaz was preparing to graduate from York University's LaSonde School of Engineering with his degree, and he'd even been talking about returning to school to get his master's degree after that. Moni Ruze and Mamataz were, of course, thrilled, but they weren't looking that far ahead. There was one specific moment they were greatly anticipating: seeing their eldest child cross the stage wearing his academic regalia to receive his diploma. It was something they'd always dreamed about.
32:51 Speaker 03 They had noticed Menhaz had become a bit more withdrawn in recent months. He didn't have a part-time job or a bustling social life like his younger sister, Melissa. It was totally normal for him to be at home when he wasn't on campus. But Menhaz had gradually stopped eating meals with his family as well. He no longer joined them when they hosted social events. He preferred to stay in his bedroom all the time with his computer and his video games. It's just how he liked to relax. Menhaz's grandmother, Ferroza, shook her head when family friends asked what was going on with him, according to Toronto Life.
33:36 Speaker 03 But Moniruz and Mamataz gave their son some grace. He still attended the mosque with his father, and he was in the very final stages of an engineering degree after all. They could see light at the end of the tunnel. Menhaz's official graduation ceremony was scheduled for Sunday, July 28th of 2019.
34:03 Speaker 03 While Menhaz Zaman appeared to be an introverted homebody devoted to his university studies, he actually did have an active social life and a whole personality. It was just online where his family couldn't see. Over the years, Menhaz had become especially active in a 3D multiplayer role-playing game called Perfect World that had built up a cult following online. Players from all over the globe gathered together, and when they weren't playing the game, they were hanging out on the game's discussion forums and Discord groups. That's where all Menhaz's friends were.
34:44 Speaker 03 His in-game character was an elf priest, and he had a decent reputation as a player. But in chat, he was quite divisive, often dropping hot takes and inappropriate comments to get a rise out of people. It wasn't uncommon in that crowd. The Discord group Menhas was part of reflected a certain kind of online culture. Mostly young men, often anonymous, often pushing boundaries. Dark jokes, edgy memes, and offensive language were part of the environment. Menhas fit right in. In his forum bio, he described himself as "the most famous autist in the game",
35:29 Speaker 03 autist being a niche term for a person with autism. There's no evidence he was ever formally diagnosed, but obviously thought it was an appropriate label for himself. Menhas had been a member of the Perfect World online community since before he finished high school, and for the most part, his trolling had been playful, mostly harmless, more annoying than actually offensive. But in 2019, during his final year of university, his online friends had noticed that his jokes became darker. He suddenly announced that he was no longer a practicing Muslim, and declared himself to be an atheist.
36:13 Speaker 03 He changed his screen name to Allah, another trolling move. He started ranting about his former religion, complaining that it was not modern enough, and arguing with fellow players about it. Eventually, he was told to stop with the disparaging religious talk. He was offending too many people.
36:35 Speaker 03 That spring, Menhas messaged one friend to say he was thinking about leaving the game Perfect World. His friend was surprised. "Menhas was the one who gamed the most. He was always online. Where would he go instead?" Menhas told him: "Perfect World jail. Gonna kill my parents and go to jail, y'all."
37:00 Speaker 03 It seemed like just another weird, dark joke. The 23-year-old started to mention suicide as well, but always in a slightly humorous way. As his personality continued to take a darker turn, his online friends were unsure whether to laugh or be concerned.
37:22 Speaker 03 Manhaz changed his online handle from Allah to Subhuman, and then he changed it again. His latest handle was Don't Deserve Life. More gallows humour, his friends decided. Clearly, he was just putting more effort into finding more and more shocking things to say to troll them. But when Manhaz started to throw around racial and homophobic slurs, the Discord mods put their foot down. He was temporarily suspended from Discord for violating the platform's content policies.
38:03 Speaker 03 His account went quiet for longer than it should have, and a fellow Perfect World player, Jack, noticed. So the evening of Saturday, July 27th of 2019, Jack sent Manhaz that message to check in. Then the reply came that he'd just slaughtered his family, followed by the graphic photos. As Jack, Maroon, Bianca and the others in the smaller group tried to track down Manhaz's IP address, the larger Discord group kept him talking so he wouldn't hurt anyone else. They asked him questions about why he did it, why he didn't confide in anyone,
38:47 Speaker 03 why he felt like murder was the only way out. The reply was so casual. Manhaz said he'd been planning to kill his family for three years. He couldn't have delayed it any longer. Because Manhaz Zaman had been living a double life, and his lies were about to be exposed.
39:14 Speaker 03 The Zaman family believed Menhaz was close to graduating from York University with his engineering degree, but he'd been living a lie. He never attended York, he never studied engineering. He'd been accepted to a much less prestigious career college to study electronics, and he couldn't cope with that. By the end of his first semester, Menhaz had started skipping classes. By second semester, he was spiraling. As Menhaz explained to his online friends that night, "It is here, in the second semester, I started getting depressed, became an atheist, and ultimately created this plan."
39:59 Speaker 03 He dropped out of college before he finished the first year. Now, he had nothing going on in his life: no education, no job, no future prospects, and the weight of his family's expectations for him. Menhaz had no idea what to do, but he knew he couldn't face his family's disappointment, so he just decided not to tell them. Every morning, he would leave the house like any other university student, boarding the bus to campus. But once he arrived at York, he didn't attend lectures like the others. He wasn't an enrolled
40:39 Speaker 03 student, so he would wander around campus aimlessly for hours, and in the afternoons, he would head to a nearby gym before catching the bus home again. He allowed his parents to believe he was one day closer to getting his engineering degree.
40:58 Speaker 03 Menhaz's family also had no idea that his core beliefs had shifted. While he continued to attend the mosque with his father, he had been questioning his faith for quite a while. During this time, he told his friends that he'd started dating someone and he longed for a more independent life. But he couldn't bring himself to tell his parents that not only was he not going to university, but he'd now wasted extra time lying to them about it. They would never forgive him.
41:35 Speaker 03 As time went on, Menhaza's daily routine shifted. He stopped catching the bus all the way to campus. What was the point? The bus route also went past the mall, so he got off there instead. He would sit in the food court or on a bench, open his laptop, and log on to the Perfect World Universe.
42:00 Speaker 03 That night in July of 2019, he explained to his online game of Friends: "So for three years I've been telling my parents I go to university when I was actually hanging out at the mall four days a week."
42:17 Speaker 03 But there was a problem approaching, a big one. The lies Menhaza had told his family about earning an engineering degree had bought him three years, but his story came with an expiration date. There was no avoiding the high-profile graduation ceremony, scheduled for July 28. Menhaza told his family he was thriving at York, earning top marks at engineering school on a full scholarship. And because he'd always met his parents' expectations and had never caused them any problems, they believed him without question.
42:57 Speaker 03 But the approaching graduation ceremony marked a hard deadline, the day when Menhaza's entire web of lies and deception would come crashing down. And the fact that his parents were so looking forward to it as a symbol of everything they'd worked and sacrificed for made it exponentially worse. Menhaza knew the truth: there would be no degree, no stage, no future. What was supposed to be a joyful day of celebration his parents had been dreaming about for years would certainly unravel into a nightmare of shame and humiliation, for him and them. And he couldn't let that happen.
43:40 Speaker 03 Menhaza explained that he didn't want his parents to feel the shame of having a son like him, and coming clean was not an option, so he began to fantasize about how he would eliminate the problem. As Manhaz continued to speak to his gamer friends, he had no idea that a small group of them had been communicating separately, tracking his IP address by going through all his various accounts. When they found what they believed to be his physical address, they contacted the Toronto Police. It was around sunrise and they'd been up all night by this point.
44:21 Speaker 03 As they waited and hoped for the police to take action, they continued to keep Manhaz engaged in conversations so that he couldn't leave, asking him questions about his family and why he did what he did. He told them, "I chose to kill them instead out of cowardice. I believe this is the only life we get. I'm sorry if this makes you upset. Please try to remember the good times." To another friend, he admitted, "I'm a pathetic coward and a subhuman. I was scared to die. And I wanted them to die so that they didn't suffer knowing how much of a pathetic subhuman I was.
45:04 Speaker 03 It's all very selfish, I'm just pathetic."
45:14 Speaker 03 As the hours passed and Sunday morning became Sunday lunchtime, the tired gamers started to wonder if anything was going to happen. Was what they reported even taken seriously? Would the police do anything about it? Manhaz was still active online, talking occasionally. At one point, he spoke about taking one last group picture of his family. Manhaz mentioned moving the dead bodies of his family members around the house so he could take better photos of them, according to later reporting by Mac Lamro for Vice. The whole conversation was disturbing. Then, he sent a final message.
46:00 Speaker 03 "Police are here. Goodbye."
46:07 Speaker 03 The small Discord group had tracked down what they believed was Menhaz’s address through his past PayPal transactions. The Toronto Police had certainly taken the call seriously. But they had to try and independently verify the information before they showed up at the house. The Toronto Cybercrime Unit swiftly linked the IP address to Menhaz’s internet service provider, who confirmed his physical address. The gamers had gotten it right. Because Markham is in the York region, the Toronto Police contacted the York Police,
46:47 Speaker 03 telling them they had received credible information that someone at that address claimed to have killed their family. That Sunday, July 28, York Police arrived at the Zaman home at around 3pm. Ironically, at almost the exact same time a short drive away, York University’s graduation ceremony for engineering students was about to begin. The same ceremony Menhaz had told his family he’d be part of. But he wouldn’t be crossing the stage. He was upstairs in his bedroom, watching out the window as police officers approached the house.
47:29 Speaker 03 And they saw him too. Menhaz came down and opened the front door, and was immediately detained while police conducted an initial search of the house. They found a disturbing scene. Inside the house were the bloodied bodies of two older females, one younger female and one older male. Everything Menhaz had told his online friends was true. Later that day, the news broke that four people had been found dead in a home in Markham, and that a 23-year-old had been arrested at the scene and charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
48:14 Speaker 03 Bianca, the Toronto gamer who had the idea to check the PayPal transactions, caught the news and felt relieved. A few days later, the Discord group would send screenshots of all the messages they had received from Menhaz that night to Vice magazine.
48:34 Speaker 03 But those who knew the Zaman family personally felt anything but relief. As headlines and information spread quickly and photos flashed across TV screens, they tried desperately to reach the family. Calls to Moniru's and Mamata's went unanswered. So concerned relatives and family friends began to arrive in Markham, some driving from locations over an hour away to check in for themselves. They found the home surrounded by yellow police tape and police combing the scene for evidence. They gathered outside the house.
49:16 Speaker 03 It was only a matter of time before they would learn the true horror of what happened inside it.
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51:48 Speaker 03 Almost a year later, in September of 2020, Menhaz Zaman pleaded guilty to murdering his parents, sister, and grandmother in their home on July 27, 2019. The court heard that Menhaz had no prior criminal record, and according to an agreed statement of facts, he began thinking about killing his family three years before he followed through. The reason was simple. The graduation ceremony was going to expose his double life. On July 28 of 2019, his family would discover there was no engineering degree and no university,
52:32 Speaker 03 just lies and wasted years. And Menhaz couldn't bear the thought of his parents discovering that they'd raised a failure.
52:42 Speaker 03 The court heard that on Saturday, July 27, Menhaz was at home in his bedroom as usual. His father, Moniruz, and sister, Melissa, were both working that day and wouldn't be home until much later that night. His mother, Mommetaz, was at home, and grandmother, Farosa, was there as well. By this point, Farosa had long since moved into her own apartment in Toronto, but she was visiting the family that weekend. After all, it was supposed to be her grandson's graduation on Sunday. When the two women decided to take a nap that Saturday afternoon,
53:24 Speaker 03 Menhaz waited for them to fall asleep and then grabbed a crowbar. It was time to put the plan he'd been thinking about for three years into action. At about 3pm, he attacked his mother, Mommetaz, first by striking her on the head with a crowbar. When the 50-year-old fell to the floor, he slit her throat. He then waited for an hour before returning to his 70-year-old grandmother, Farosa. He killed her in the exact same way. It was now about 4pm, and Menhaz knew he had a long stretch of time before his father and sister arrived home.
54:07 Speaker 03 Melissa would be finishing her shift at the grocery store at 11pm, and Moniruz was driving his taxi on a long shift that wasn't scheduled to finish until about midnight. So, Menhaz spent all those hours playing video games and napping with the bodies of his mother and grandmother lying in the house. That evening, he received the private Discord message from his gamer friend, Jack, checking in. Menhaz replied that he'd killed his mother and grandmother, then showed a photo of their bodies lying on the floor, covered in blood, a photo that couldn't be found anywhere else on the internet. Shortly after that,
54:52 Speaker 03 Menhaz ambushed his 21-year-old sister, Melissa, as she arrived home from work shortly after 11pm. He also hit her with a crowbar and then slit her throat. He returned to his laptop and posted a new photo showing Mylesse's lifeless body, followed by the happy family photo from his parents' 25th wedding anniversary celebration. As panic ensued among his online gamer friends, Menhas waited for the final member of his family to return home: his father, Moni Ruz, the one who held high hopes for his eldest child to become an engineer
55:36 Speaker 03 to get the education he never got. When Moni Ruz arrived home, Menhas attacked him with the same crowbar and slit his throat in the same way he did to his other family members. Then he returned to his computer and posted a final photo into the Discord chat of his father's dead body. "I just slaughtered my entire family."
56:05 Speaker 03 In the aftermath of the murders of the Zaman family, Vice reported that some of the people who had tried to alert police were still reeling in shock days after the murders, unable to eat and having trouble sleeping. Even those who had only exchanged messages with Menhas during the night and saw the photos he posted were haunted by what they'd seen and by the thought that maybe they could have done more. Members of the Perfect World Discord group rarely spoke about what had happened after that. The server administrator, Maroon, told the Toronto Star that they only wanted Menhas captured so he couldn't hurt anyone else,
56:49 Speaker 03 and that's what happened. Maroon added: "Let's not forget that Menhas truly believed that his family dying is better than them meeting his reality, which only existed in his head."
57:05 Speaker 03 At sentencing, Justice Michelle Furst said that the word slaughter was accurate, and noted the betrayal ran deep. These were people who trusted Menhas, loved him and supported him. The murders had left a deep scar on everyone who knew the Zaman family, as well as the wider community. Words like brutal, cruel and callous don’t even begin to convey the enormity of his violence, the judge said. It wasn’t just that Menhas had killed four members of his family, it was also how
57:43 Speaker 03 he did it, methodically, over a span of nine hours, slitting each of their throats in turn. And how, while his mother and grandmother lay dead upstairs, Menhas spent hours playing video games and napping, apparently untroubled, the judge noted, as he waited for his sister and father to return home from work. Then he killed them in the same way. Because Menhas pleaded guilty, he wasn’t required to provide detailed information about what he did or why he did it, why he chose to kill his grandmother and sister
58:22 Speaker 03 as well, or what he planned to do afterwards. The judge cited a victim impact statement submitted by members of the extended Zaman family, who described the murdered family members as loving, vibrant and ambitious. They spoke with admiration about how Moniruza and Mamataz came from Bangladesh and endured many hardships to build a new life in Canada for themselves, and a good future for their children. How Faruza moved over to help out, and did whatever she could to keep her grandchildren happy.
59:01 Speaker 03 And how Melissa, at just 21 years old, was a shooting star with high aspirations to become a neurosurgeon. The family members spoke of being traumatised, betrayed and haunted by what had happened.
59:19 Speaker 03 Before sentencing, the judge asked Menhaz Zaman, by this point 24 years old, if he had anything to say. He did. Quote, "I would like to just apologize to anyone I have impacted negatively with my actions, and especially to the people who knew my family and friends and loved ones, who I know could never have seen something like this happening. I'm sorry."
59:47 Speaker 03 In sentencing, Justice Michelle Furist rejected the idea that Menhaz's fear of his lies being exposed could ever explain why he chose to kill his parents, sister, and grandmother. There was no justification, no explanation that made sense. And the fact that he saw murder as a reasonable solution in the first place, and then acted on it, was described as cold, calculating, and deeply disturbing. It seemed Menhaz agreed. He had instructed his defense lawyer to agree with the Crown's suggestion that he be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 40 years. And that's exactly what he got.
1:00:34 Speaker 03 Menhaz Zaman was originally charged with four counts of first-degree murder, but as part of his guilty plea, one of those charges was reduced to second-degree murder, which means it was intentional murder, but not necessarily planned in advance. That was the charge related to his mother, Mommetaz, the first person he killed that day. The Crown explained that if the case had gone to trial, there would have been a legitimate legal question about whether the first murder met the threshold of being deliberate and planned. But there was no question after that. For killing his mother Mommetaz, Menhaz was sentenced to life in prison with no
1:01:18 Speaker 03 chance of parole for 15 years. This would be served consecutively with his sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years for the first degree murder of his grandmother, Farosa. With those two sentences added together, Menhaz would serve life in prison with no chance of parole for 40 years. He also received life sentences for the first degree murders of his sister, Melissa, and father, Moniru's, but they would be served concurrently, or at the same time, as the first two sentences. Menhaz Zaman won't be eligible for parole until the year 2059.
1:02:03 Speaker 03 He will be 64 years old. Two years later, in 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada released a landmark decision that consecutive parole ineligibility periods were a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canada's top court found that life sentences without a realistic possibility of parole leaves offenders with no incentive to rehabilitate themselves. Since this decision, several convicted murderers have appealed their sentences and had their parole ineligibility periods reduced, including the Quebec mosque shooter, the perpetrator
1:02:46 Speaker 03 of the Toronto van attack, and Jason Klaus and Joshua Frank in Alberta. There has been no announcement about whether Menhaz Zaman will appeal his own sentence. The case of Menhaz Zaman was eerily similar to another Canadian tragedy that happened in the exact same suburb of Markham, but nine years earlier. It's the Jennifer Pan case. Like Menhaz, Jennifer Pan grew up in an immigrant family under the weight of intense expectations.
1:03:26 Speaker 03 She lied to her parents about school, about her future, about who she really was. And when the truth threatened to come out, she turned on the very people who had sacrificed everything for her future. A final, irreversible act of violence carried out within the walls of her family home. If you're not familiar with the case, there's a link in the show notes to listen to Case File True Crime's excellent episode. Sorry about the spoilers. While Jennifer Pan tried to cover her tracks and hide her involvement, Menhaz Zaman confessed almost immediately.
1:04:08 Speaker 03 To some, that's evidence that he wanted to be caught, that he couldn't bear the shame of being exposed, but also could not live with what he'd done. But the end result was the same. Two families who believed they were on the brink of celebrating their children's success were instead blindsided by lies that had been quietly building for years. Two families left in ruins because their children believed murdering them was a better option than facing their disappointment. But if there's any small piece of meaning to be salvaged in these cases, is that they might serve as a wake-up call.
1:04:52 Speaker 03 As parents, we try our best to raise confident, independent kids while carrying the financial and mental load of setting them up for the future. Most of us are juggling full-time work, paying the bills, managing a household, and doing it all while trying to be present and emotionally available. There's no clear rulebook. We're just expected to get parenting right in a world that's quick to point fingers but slow to offer real support. And sometimes, without realising it, our expectations can turn into a monster for our children. A standard so high it leaves little room for mistakes, or for a young person to admit they're struggling.
1:05:37 Speaker 03 And in that daily struggle, we can miss what they actually need most: connection, understanding, and the space to be honest. Cases like these are a reminder to stay truly connected, to ask questions, to check in about how the kids are really doing. What Menhas Zaman did to his family was on his shoulders alone, but it didn't come out of nowhere. It was years in the making, quietly growing in the cracks that no one wanted to look at too closely. And maybe if someone had known what Menhas was really going through, things might have been different.
1:06:26 Speaker 03 Thanks for listening. And once again, thank you so much for your support and for your kind messages and comments. I read them all and wish I could reply to more. Please send any feedback you have about which case this year has stuck with you the most to canadiantruecrime.ca or via Facebook or Instagram. We'll be slowing down for the summer, but look out for case updates, episodes and some other projects I have in the works. If you found this episode compelling, we'd love for you to tell a friend, post on social media or leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Word of mouth really helps. For the full list of resources and anything else you want to know about the podcast,
1:07:11 Speaker 03 visit canadiantruecrime.ca. Canadian True Crime donates monthly to those facing injustice. This month, we have donated to the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime. Learn more at crcvc.ca. Audio editing was by Crosby Audio and Eric Crosby voiced the disclaimer. Our senior producer is Lindsay Eldridge and Carol Weinberg is our script consultant. Research, writing, narration and sound design was by me and the theme songs were composed by We Talk of Dreams. I'll be back later with another Canadian true crime story. See you then.
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