‘This was a woman that loved:’ Son honours mother’s memory after Barrhaven femicide

A grieving son is remembering his mother who was fatally stabbed inside her Barrhaven home last week. CTV's Leah Larocque reports.

A grieving Ottawa man is speaking publicly about the loss of his mother after she was fatally stabbed in what police are investigating as a femicide in Barrhaven.

“How can you be okay? My mom just got taken away from me,” said 34-year-old Arya Farahani.

“It’s not anything that I would hope on anybody. This is literally the worst-case scenario.”

• Police identify suspect charged in Barrhaven femicide
• Son charged in death of mother, injuries to grandmother at Ottawa home

Ottawa police have charged 30-year-old Party Shah, Farahani’s younger brother, with second-degree murder and attempted murder following the attack on Ashbourne Crescent on April 23rd.

Investigators allege Shah stabbed his mother Farnaz Farahani to death and seriously injured his grandmother Nezhat Lashgari.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

In an emotional interview, the victim’s eldest son described the moment he learned what had happened.

Farahani was on his way to an appointment when he received calls from police detectives asking to speak in person. But it was a friend who shared the news, telling him to pull his car over to the side of the road.

“Just tell me what’s going on, is my grandmother okay?” Farahani said he asked the friend.

He says she replied, “Your grandma is going to be okay, there’s an elderly lady that’s been attacked. But there was another lady in the same household that will not be okay,” Farahani said through tears.

He recalled the shock of learning his grandmother had survived the attack, while his mother had not.

“I didn’t even need to talk to them to know who did it,” he said. “There’s only one person on this planet that could have done it.”

Arya describes his younger brother as “manipulative” and suffering from multiple mental health illnesses, being diagnosed with several disorders. Farahani says he was estranged from his brother for years and that put a strain on his relationship with his mother. He said his mother never stopped trying to keep her family together.

“My mom was always wanting us to reconcile,” he said. “She always wanted us to be friends, brothers.”

He described warning his mother in the past that he feared for her safety, urging her to distance herself from her youngest son.

“I asked her many times, ‘Please distance yourself from him. He’s not safe,’” he said. “And she would say, ‘I can’t do that. That’s my son. I’ll never abandon him.’”

“Loud, vibrant and loving”

Farahani said his mother’s compassion extended far beyond her own family.

“She loved everybody,” he said. “She was unapologetically loud, vibrant and loving. She didn’t care if you had anything or everything. She just loved you.”

Since her death, he said he has been overwhelmed by messages from people sharing memories of her kindness.

“My phone hasn’t stopped,” he said. “People are telling stories about how my mom cared for them, or how she was the bright hello in their day.”

For him, speaking publicly is about making sure his mother is remembered for the life she lived.

“I want people to stop thinking about her as just a victim,” he said. “This was a woman that loved. This was a woman that always would forgive.”

He believes that even now, his mother would still open her heart to the son accused of killing her.

“If she could still tell him he’s welcome in her heart and her house, she would,” he said. “Without a second thought.”

Meanwhile, Farahani says his grandmother remains in hospital. He says she also suffers from dementia, cancer and diabetes.

Fighting back tears, he ended his message with words he hopes his mother can still hear.

“I love you, Mom.”

The family now plans to hold a celebration of life in her honour — something her son says reflects exactly who she was.

“She’s not the person that would want sadness around,” he said. “So, a celebration of life is exactly what we’re going to do.”

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