Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the slain 32-year-old suspected killer of a Canadian Forces soldier near Parliament Hill, was a labourer and small-time criminal – a man who had had a religious awakening and seemed to have become mentally unstable. 
 
 Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau was born in 1982 and was the son of Bulgasem Zehaf, a Quebec businessman who appears to have fought in 2011 in Libya, and Susan Bibeau, the deputy chairperson of a division of Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board. The two were divorced in 1999. 
 
 Ms. Bibeau did not answer e-mails Wednesday, and staff at her offices declined to comment. No one answered the door at her Montreal townhouse. Mr. Zehaf also could not be reached. 
 
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 Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau grew up in Eastern Canada, including Ottawa and Montreal, and had spent time in Libya before moving to Western Canada to become a miner and labourer, according to friend Dave Bathurst. 
 
 Mr. Bathurst said he met Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau in a Burnaby, B.C., mosque about three years ago. He said his friend did not at first appear to have extremist views or inclinations toward violence – but at times exhibited a disturbing side. 
 
 "We were having a conversation in a kitchen, and I don't know how he worded it: He said the devil is after him," Mr. Bathurst said in an interview. He said his friend frequently talked about the presence of Shaytan in the world – an Arabic term for devils and demons. "I think he must have been mentally ill." 
 
 Mr. Bathurst last saw Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau praying in a Vancouver-area mosque six weeks ago. He spoke of wanting to go to the Middle East soon. 
 
 "He wanted to go back to Libya and study," Mr. Bathurst said. He urged his friend to make sure study was on his mind and "not something else." 
 
 Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau insisted he was only going abroad with the intent of learning about Islam and to study Arabic. 
 
 Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau was blocked from fulfilling those plans. Sources say he intended to travel abroad, but he had not been able to secure a valid travel document from federal officials, who have been taking measures to prevent Canadians from joining extremists overseas. 
 
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 His father's history offers a hint of what Mr. Bathurst was concerned about. In 2011, a Montrealer named "Belgasem Zahef" was quoted in a Washington Times dispatch from the front in Libya, where he had travelled to join the rebel fight. The man described being detained at the Zawiyah oil terminal, where he witnessed torture. 
 
 At the Burnaby mosque, Mr. Bathurst said his friend's "erratic" behaviour – he did not elaborate – caused frictions with the elders at the house of worship, who asked him to stop attending prayers. At that time, Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau was living in a barely furnished single-room apartment. 
 
 Mr. Bathurst said he recalls his friend being arrested at the mosque a few years ago after bizarrely calling police to tell them about a crime he had committed many years before. 
 
 Vancouver lawyer Brian Anderson defended Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau after he was charged for a 2011 robbery. 
 
 "He was charged with robbing somebody and he pled guilty to uttering a threat," he said. "It was something fairly minor and fairly bizarre." 
 
 Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau underwent a psychiatric assessment at Surrey Pretrial and was "found fit – not certifiable per overnight assessment." 
 
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 Mr. Anderson declined to discuss the case further or to describe Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau, who on Feb. 22, 2012, was sentenced to one day in jail. 
 
 Some of the facts of Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau's life bear broad parallels to another Canadian terrorist who surfaced this week – Martin Couture-Rouleau, another "high-risk traveller" who police shot dead in Quebec Monday after he ran down two soldiers. 
 
 But while Mr. Couture-Rouleau is not known to be connected to any other terrorism suspects, Mr. Bathurst said his friend knew Hasibullah Yusufzai, a Vancouver-area resident who was charged in July by the RCMP with travelling to Syria with the intent of joining a deadly terrorist group. 
 
 Authorities have issued an international warrant for Mr. Yusufzai, but he remains at large. 
 
 Mr. Bathurst said he believes the two cases are distinct. "I don't think they were linked," he said, explaining how the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had called him to ask about Mr. Yusufzai but not Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau. 
 
 With reporting from Tu Thanh Ha in Toronto and Andrea Woo and Mark Hume in Vancouver 

 In a photo snapped just four days ago, two soldiers stand tall and proud, arms at their sides, right hands grasping the barrels of their rifles. 
 
 Against the backdrop of Parliament, Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and Cpl. Branden Stevenson stand guard over the National War Memorial — a task deemed an honour, not a duty, for those serving with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. 
 
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 On Wednesday morning, the two soldiers, who were also best friends, returned to their post, flanking the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As is customary, their rifles were ceremonial and not loaded. 
 
 On this day, one would live and one would die. 
 
 Shortly before 10 a.m., gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau approached the memorial and shot Cirillo point-blank. Civilians in the vicinity desperately began CPR before paramedics arrived and rushed Cirillo to hospital, where he died. He was 24. 
 
 Cpl. Stevenson, remarkably, escaped unscathed. 
 
 Ottawa shooting 
 
 In the hours following, Cirillo’s comrades and friends and his social media postings painted a picture of a devoted father, a dog lover and a loyal and proud member of Hamilton’s Argylls regiment: the 91st Canadian Highlanders. 
 
 Cirillo called his fellow soldiers “brothers,” his young son “little man” and his dog “baby girl.” 
 
 His last online posting was on Monday: a photo showing him and Stevenson in their regimental kilts, tasselled sporrans and polished black boots, smiling at the camera. His comment reads: “Just another day at work.” 
 
 By Wednesday evening, this photo had attracted nearly 2,000 comments, many hailing Cirillo, who was from Hamilton and joined the cadets when he was 13, as a national hero. 
 
 Teri Whittemore, a friend for the past three years, told the Star that Cirillo had been proud of his work and “loved being in the military.” Cirillo, she said, decorated his bedroom walls with military paraphernalia. 
 
 She recalled Cirillo recounting how he was “grazed in the neck” by a bullet during a training exercise. 
 
 “He played it off like nothing,” Whittemore said. “He would always tell me how much fun he was having and how he was so happy he was in the military and couldn’t have asked for a better job.” 
 
 She said she had never seen a person love another person so much like Cirillo did his little boy. 
 
 A photo posted by Cirillo in September shows his son smiling and holding up a sign that reads: “My first day in Senior Kindergarten.” 
 
 “He was the most fun, goofiest and compassionate guy I’ve ever met,” Whittemore said. 
 
 Cousin David Cirillo expressed his grief on Facebook: “To the gun man that shot my cousin point blank in front of the parliament hill this morning for no reason!! You will get what’s coming to you. You destroyed my whole family for life.” 
 
 Hours after Cirillo’s identity was revealed, strangers took to social media in an outpouring of grief and anger over the shocking death. 
 
 Richard Halsall, on a page created to honour the fallen soldier, said Cirillo was the first friend he made when he joined the military. 
 
 “We stood next to one another the night we were sworn into the Argylls. He was a great dad who always busted his a—for his lil man. Truly lost too soon,” Halsall wrote. 
 
 Friend Olivia Mancini recalled playing hide-and-seek with Cirillo and his son. 
 
 “He was so excited to pop out and scare you. It was actually so adorable. All we have are memories now, but at least they were amazing ones,” Mancini wrote. 
 
 Reached by the Star, James Stevenson, father of Cpl. Stevenson, said the shooting has been “very traumatic” for his son. 
 
 “Nathan was a very, very big part of my son’s life and he’ll be dearly missed by my son and everybody in their unit,” he said Wednesday night. “It’s a terrible thing that happened.” 
 
 Stevenson said his son would be returning to Hamilton soon. 
 
 Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina said he had a “very tearful and emotional” visit to Cirillo’s family home Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 “For me, it was experiencing a family that obviously loved Nathan — loved their son, loved their brother — that are completely shocked, as I still am,” Bratina said, noting the home is decorated with pictures of Nathan and his two sisters. “These are ordinary folks in an extraordinary situation trying to cope.” 
 
 MP Wayne Marston (Hamilton East-Stoney Creek) said he witnessed people performing CPR on Cirillo after escaping the Parliament buildings when shots began ringing out there. 
 
 “All I saw was the boot,” Marston said, adding he instantly recognized the Argyll regalia. “Your heart just sinks when these things happen.” 
 
 “The man was given a very important honour within the military, guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The tragedy of course is the rifle would (have) no ammunition, and the coward walked up to him and shot him . . . It is tragic.”
– The man who stunned Canada with an armed attack on Parliament yesterday was no stranger to Canadian authorities, who had reportedly designated him a high-risk traveler and either seized his passport or refused to issue him a new one. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, was the son of a Quebec businessman who apparently fought with rebels in Libya in 2011, according to the Globe and Mail. A friend who last saw Zehaf-Bibeau in a British Columbia mosque six weeks ago says he had spoken of going to the Middle East soon, supposedly only to study Islam. More: The friend says Zehaf-Bibeau seemed disturbed and often spoke of the presence of demons in the world. "We were having a conversation in a kitchen, and I don't know how he worded it: He said the devil is after him," he says. "I think he must have been mentally ill." Zehaf-Bibeau, who was shot dead inside Parliament, had a criminal record, including charges of drug possession and robbery, the CBC reports. He served 60 days in prison for drug possession in Quebec in 2004, and after being charged with robbery and uttering threats in BC in 2011, he served 67 days after pleading guilty to the latter charge. Zehaf-Bibeau is far from the first home-grown terror suspect in Canada, but unlike most others, he doesn't appear to have had a significant Internet presence; no Twitter or Facebook accounts belonging to him have been found, reports the National Post. Nathan Cirillo, the soldier Zehaf-Bibeau shot dead at point-blank range at Canada's National War Memorial, is being mourned as a compassionate man who loved being in the military, reports the Toronto Star. The 24-year-old from Hamilton, Ontario, "was a great dad who always busted his ass for his lil man. Truly lost too soon," a friend wrote on a memorial page. Cirillo was shot as he stood next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier carrying a ceremonial rifle that wasn't loaded.