Zhou Fang sentenced to life in prison

Zhou Fang, an Ottawa man convicted of killing his abusive father with a crossbow at a Toronto library has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for a decade.

Fang was given an automatic life sentence for the murder plea, but the 10-year eligibility for parole is the minimum he could have been given.

Justice John McMahon said Fang had suffered terrible abuse from his father and has PTSD when he traveled from Ottawa before killing his 52-year-old father, Si William Cheng.

Still, it was a brutal murder. Cheng was shot in the back with a bolt from a crossbow in the winter of  2010. His skull was then smashed with a hammer at a Toronto library on Main Street, south of Gerrard Street East. The place was crowded with parents and children.

Fang pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.