A 47-year-old woman is dead after a suspected femicide inside a home in Ottawa's west end on Sunday evening. Police say they were called to an address on Lady Slipper Way, a rural area just north of Highway 7 at about 6:40 p.m.
Police identified the victim as Jennifer Zabarylo, 47, of Ottawa. The Department of National Defence confirmed Zabarylo was a civilian employee and a longtime member of the Royal Canadian Navy Headquarters team.
Michael Zabarylo, 55, of Ottawa, has been charged with second-degree murder. Neighbours in the area told CTV News the victim and the suspect were married.
In a news release on Monday, Ottawa Police said, "In the context of police investigations, we consider this death to be a femicide as it occurred in the context of intimate partner violence, which is one of the many forms of misogynist killings."
"A femicide is generally defined as 'the killing of women and girls because of their gender' often driven by stereotyped gender roles, discrimination towards women and girls or unequal power relations between women and men."
Michael Zabarylo is scheduled to appear in court on Monday.
This is the first time the Ottawa police have used the term “femicide” to describe a homicide. The force defined femicide as “the killing of women and girls because of their gender,” often driven by stereotyped gender roles, discrimination towards women or unequal power relations between women and men.
“The Ottawa Police Service also builds on the definition recommended by our VAW (violence against women) community partners as ‘the misogynist killing of women and girls because of their gender, overwhelmingly committed by men,’ ” Ottawa police said in a statement.
The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability defines femicide as “the killing of all women and girls primarily by, but not exclusively, men.”
The observatory, a feminist-led initiative at the University of Guelph, began documenting killings of women and girls in Canada in 2018. So far, more than 850 women and girls have lost their lives, mostly at the hands of men, according to the observatory’s statistics.
The observatory’s 2023 statistics showed 187 femicides in Canada in 2023, compared to 184 femicides in 2022, 173 in 2021 and 160 in 2020. The 2024 numbers have not yet been released.
The term “femicide” has been used for decades. Advocates have argued that having a common understanding of the term will permit data collection by police and Statistics Canada.
The Ottawa Police Service started using the term “femicide” in its public statements in 2022.
However, discussions continue globally as to how femicide should be defined, why and how it is distinct from other homicides, and how these differences can be measured to better identify sex/gender-related killings of women and girls,” the Canadian Femicide Observatory said.
On June 2022, an inquest probing the 2015 murders of Carol Culleton, 66, Anastasia Kuzyk, 36, and Nathalie Warmerdam, 48, at the hands of Basil Borutski made 86 recommendations aimed at preventing intimate partner violence, including asking Ontario to formally declare intimate partner violence (IPV) as an epidemic.
Lanark became the first municipality to make the declaration in December 2022. In March 2023, Ottawa city council declared intimate partner violence to be an epidemic. Ottawa police made a statement in support of council’s decision.
However, the province has declined to call IPV an epidemic.
In a 53-page response, released in June 2023, the province rejected the idea of formally declaring IPV an epidemic, the first recommendation made by the inquest jury. At the time, Ottawa was one of 32 Ontario municipalities, to do so.
The term “epidemic” is used for the spread of disease, specifically an outbreak of infection that spreads rapidly and affects many individuals in a given area or population at the same time, the province’s response said.
“In this regard, intimate partner violence (IPV) would not be considered an epidemic as it is not an infectious or communicable disease.”
Harmony House Women’s Shelter also offered its sympathies, saying in a statement that “we are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Jennifer, another woman who has fallen victim to femicide.”
“What we see on the outside often hides the painful realities happening behind closed doors,” the statement continued. “Harmony House is committed to helping close those doors on violence and opening them to a brighter, safer future for women and children.”
The Ottawa Police Service is investigating the death of a longtime employee with the Royal Canadian Navy in what the police force on Monday called a “femicide” — the first time it has used the term.
The Ottawa Police Service is investigating the death of a longtime employee with the Royal Canadian Navy in what the police force on Monday called a “femicide” — the first time it has used the term.
A police statement identified the victim as 47-year-old Jennifer Zabarylo of Ottawa. The Department of National Defence confirmed the woman, who a spokesperson referred to as Jennifer Edmonds-Zabarylo, was a civilian employee of the department and “a longtime member of the Royal Canadian Navy headquarters team.”
“We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn of her tragic death, and we are offering support to her family and colleagues,” the statement said. In a statement to Global News, the Department of National Defence confirmed the woman, who a spokesperson referred to as Jennifer Edmonds-Zabarylo, was a civilian employee of the department and “a longtime member of the Royal Canadian Navy headquarters team.”
“We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn of her tragic death, and we are offering support to her family and colleagues,” the statement said.
A Linkedin page for Zabarylo said she worked as a business planner and comptroller for the navy, beginning in 2018. Michael Zabarylo, 55, has been charged with second-degree murder and appeared in court Monday, police said.
The case is being considered a “femicide” — a term generally defined as the killing of a woman or girl based on their gender — as it “occurred in the context of intimate partner violence,” police said. The exact nature of the relationship was not disclosed.
An OPS spokesperson told Global News the case marks the first time the force has used the term “femicide” to describe a homicide investigation. The spokesperson said the term’s use stems from ongoing input from violence against women workers and advocates who regularly collaborate with police on their approach. In 2022, while announcing the renaming of its partner assault unit to the intimate partner violence unit, then-interim police chief Steve Bell said the force would begin incorporating “the use of terms like femicide” in how it speaks about violence against women. “We have learned that language matters, particularly when it comes to education and support,” Bell said in a statement. No further information was provided on the circumstances of Jennifer Zabarylo’s death, as the case is now before the courts.
Femicide is a relatively new term to describe gender-based killings that is not legally defined in Canada’s Criminal Code. Advocates for reducing gender-based and intimate partner violence have called on the government to pursue the Criminal Code definition. Femicide laws have been enacted in Latin American countries like Brazil, Argentina and Peru in recent years. Mexico, which has one of the highest rates of female homicides in the world, began documenting femicides in 2012 and has pursued measures to reduce the killings.
There is little data on gender as a motivating factor in homicides in Canada, though the number of homicide cases with female victims has been on the rise. Statistics Canada’s latest annual report on police-reported crime, released last month, shows that the number of female homicide victims last year was nearly identical compared with 2022 — 205 women killed — despite a 14 per cent drop in total homicide victims over the same period. Homicides where women were the victims are up 31 per cent from 2019, compared with a 12 per cent increase for all other genders.
The federal government and Statistics Canada are currently undertaking a three-year data collection project, the Femicide Information System, “to better understand gender-related homicides and improve decision- and policy-making in this area,” a spokesperson for Women and Gender Equality Canada told Global News in a statement. The project, which is set to conclude in 2025, is aimed at “developing a comprehensive national picture of the state of gender-related homicides in Canada.” A 2023 Statistics Canada report on gender-related killings was only able to use data on solved homicides of women or girls by a male accused of intimate partner violence, where sexual violence was part of the killing, or where an identified sex worker was killed. Using those parameters, the agency found that while gender-related killings had generally declined since 2001, there was a 14 per cent increase between 2020 and 2021, “marking the highest rate recorded since 2017.”
The United Nations has called gender-based violence and femicide a problem that requires global action, warning in a report last year that while overall homicides are falling worldwide, the number of female homicides is not.
