Ottawa: Police in Quebec have reported that Robert Pickton, a convicted serial killer from British Columbia, is in a medically induced coma and on life support after being attacked by another inmate four days ago. The assault happened at the Port-Cartier Institution, a maximum-security prison located 450 kilometers northeast of Quebec City.
Pickton, who is 74 years old, is in critical condition. The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) has identified the attacker and taken “appropriate actions.” The 51-year-old attacker is currently in isolation, and police are investigating but have not yet spoken to him.
Canada’s Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc announced an investigation into the attack earlier this week. Pickton was originally charged with the murders of 26 women and was convicted in 2007 for the second-degree murders of six women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The victims were Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Marnie Frey, Georgina Papin, and Brenda Wolfe. Remains or DNA of 33 women, many of whom were Indigenous, were discovered on Pickton’s pig farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C.