He told the court he had met the deceased once before the night of the attack. Kovaleff said after he stabbed the surviving girl and saw her lying on the floor he “realised it wasn’t what I wanted to do”.

The court heard Kovaleff had feigned mental illness symptoms in custody for 12 to 18 months in an attempt to gain an advantage in court proceedings.

Under cross-examination by the Crown prosecutor,he admitted to being preoccupied with notorious American killer Ted Bundy since he was a teenager.

Kovaleff said he was sorry for the many lives he had ruined and that he should be punished.

The deceased’s sisters read victim impact statements from the family,in which they said they were “forever heartbroken”.

“[Her] heartless murder will burn in our minds and souls for the rest of our lives,” one sister said.

She said when police knocked on the door,it “was the beginning of the end of our happy family”.

The court heard the teenager’s father carried his daughter’s ashes everywhere he went,would sing sad songs,cry and pace around all night,while her mother would lie on her daughter’s bed and cover herself with the blanket.

“My dear baby. You left the house happily to celebrate a birthday. You did nothing wrong and out of nowhere you suffered a tragedy,” the mother’s statement read. “We can’t imagine what happened in the room. Why did you have to suffer all of this?”

She said she cries if she sees a knife,and the “family will never celebrate birthdays again”.

One sister said the 17-year-old had wanted “to experience something nice”,staying with her friend,but was killed in “an extreme and mindless act of violence”.

“What happened to her ... was horrifying. She didn’t even get to use the money my dad gave her to pay for her dinner that night,” she said. “She didn’t make it out of that hotel.”

Kovaleff’s sentence hearing will resume at a later date.

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