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Convicted B.C. serial killer Robert Pickton is in critical condition and undergoing surgery after he was assaulted by another inmate in a Quebec prison on Sunday.
The Correctional Service Canada (CSC) confirmed in a statement Tuesday that Pickton was the victim of a “major assault” at the maximum-security Port-Cartier Institution.
Two sources, including one police source, told Radio-Canada that Pickton is between life and death.
Pickton was taken to a hospital for treatment and the assailant is in isolation, according to Hughes Beaulieu, a spokesperson for the Quebec provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), which is investigating.
Beaulieu said the assailant is a 51-year-old man but added that he does not know the man’s identity.
He said Pickton was undergoing surgery shortly before 10:30 a.m. PT and it will take a few weeks before the SQ transfers the case to the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DCPC) to press charges.
The incident at the Port-Cartier Institution, located around 850 kilometres northeast of Montreal, did not involve staff and “appropriate actions have been taken” with regard to the assailant, the CSC said in an earlier statement.
“We are not able to disclose any additional details, including medical information,” the statement reads. “The safety and security of institutions is paramount and an investigation into what occurred is currently underway.”
In 2007, Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of women who disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
They were Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Marnie Frey, Georgina Papin and Brenda Wolfe.
The remains or DNA of 33 women, many of whom were Indigenous, were found on Pickton’s pig farm in Port Coquitlam, about 25 kilometres east of downtown Vancouver.
Pickton was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of full parole for 25 years.
Victim’s sister expresses relief
The sister of one of Pickton’s victims told CBC News that she felt relieved and happy when she heard that the serial killer had been attacked in prison.
“I said, ‘Good for him, he deserved it,'” Tammy Cardinal said on Tuesday. “I don’t wish any harm on anybody but — karma, you know? I truly believe, you know, [the] Creator works in his ways.
“You can’t be bad or mean to people and do stuff like that to people and think you can get away with it, you know? What he did was … notorious and unexplainable.”
Cardinal, the sister of Georgina Papin, said she wanted Pickton to suffer and not “go just like that,” and added that she wants a plaque to go up at the site of his pig farm to commemorate the women who had been killed there.
In an interview with Radio-Canda’s Tout un matin Tuesday, federal Public Security Minister Dominic LeBlanc said an internal investigation will be carried out at the Port-Cartier prison to shed light on the circumstances of the attack.
He did not confirm the identity of the inmate who was assaulted, citing reasons related to the protection of privacy and security in prisons.
