Serial killer Robert Pickton in critical condition after prison attack

Convicted British Columbia serial killer Robert Pickton is in critical condition and underwent surgery after being attacked by another inmate in a Quebec prison on Sunday.

Correctional Service Canada (CSC) confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that Pickton was the victim of a “serious assault” at the maximum security Port-Cartier prison and was hospitalized.

Two sources, including a police source, told Radio-Canada that Pickton, 74, was between life and death on Tuesday. Prison officials declined to provide any information about his current condition on Wednesday.

According to Hughes Beaulieu, a spokesman for the Quebec provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), which is investigating the incident, the attacker is in isolation.

Beaulieu said the attacker was a 51-year-old man, but added that he did not know the man’s identity.

He said Pickton was undergoing surgery shortly before 10:30 a.m. PT on Tuesday and that it would be several weeks before the SQ handed the case over to the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DCPC) to file charges.

No employees were involved in the incident at the Port-Cartier Institution, located about 850 kilometers northeast of Montreal, and “appropriate measures were taken” in relation to the attacker, an earlier statement from the CSC said.

“We cannot disclose any further details, including medical information,” the statement said. “The safety of the facilities is our highest priority and an investigation into what happened is currently underway.”

When CBC News contacted the CSC on Wednesday for an update on Pickton’s condition, a spokesperson again declined to comment. The spokesperson said the CSC is required to inform the public about deaths of people in its custody.

In February of this year, dozens of people gathered for a vigil on the grounds of Robert Pickton’s farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., to remember the serial killer’s victims and express their opposition to the idea that he might seek parole. (Rafferty Baker/CBC)

In 2007, Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of women who disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

These 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 the next 25 years.

In an interview with Radio-Canada’s All morning Federal Public Security Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Tuesday that an internal investigation was being conducted at the Port-Cartier prison to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the attack.

He did not confirm the identity of the prisoner who was attacked, citing privacy and prison security as reasons.

The victim’s sister expresses relief

The sister of one of Pickton’s victims told CBC News she was relieved and happy when she heard the serial killer had been attacked in prison.

“I said, ‘Good for him, he deserves it,'” Tammy Lynn Papin, Georgina Papin’s sister, said Tuesday. “I don’t wish anyone harm, but – karma, you know? I truly believe that the Creator acts in his own way.”

“You can’t be bad or mean to people and do things like that to people and think you’re going to get away with it, you know? What he did was… infamous and inexplicable.”

Papin said she wanted Pickton to suffer and not “just go away.”

She added that she wants to place a plaque on the grounds of his farm in Port Coquitlam to commemorate the women who were killed there.

Tammy Lynn Papin says she felt relief when it was announced that serial killer Robert Pickton, who murdered her sister Georgina Papin, was in critical condition after an attack in prison. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC)

Chief Marilyn Slett of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council in Bella Bella, BC, says the discussion of Pickton’s attack has revived painful memories for the Indigenous community.

“His profile is still being raised and people are talking about him,” Slett told the Canadian Press.

“Yet it is the women, the victims and families who are suffering today and are still seeking justice for their families and loved ones. And I can understand how people would feel about what happened to him.”

Slett, who is also secretary-treasurer at the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, says little has changed in terms of Indigenous women’s safety since Pickton’s crimes and that many still face systemic racism from police and have difficulty accessing the justice system as victims of crime.

Slett said governments could do more, noting it was “painful to see” $15 million in federal funding allocated to a three-year program to combat auto theft, compared to $1.3 million for the Red Dress pilot Alert”, which is intended in the event of the disappearance of indigenous women or girls.

“So progress is very slow,” Slett said. “The work will not be finished until things like the Red Dress Alert are no longer necessary in this country, and we are a long way from that.”