Convicted Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton, who brought female victims to his pig farm during a crime spree near Vancouver in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has died after being assaulted in prison, authorities said Wednesday. He was 74.
The Correctional Service Canada said in a statement that Pickton, an inmate from Port-Cartier Institution in Quebec, died in hospital following injuries resulting from an assault involving another inmate on May 19.
A 51-year-old inmate was in custody for the assault on Pickton Sunday at a prison in Quebec, police spokesman Hugues Beaulieu said earlier this month.
Robert “Willie” Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2007, with the maximum parole ineligibility period of 25 years, after being charged with the murders of 26 women.
Police began searching the Pickton farm in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam more than 22 years ago in what would be a years-long investigation into the disappearances of dozens of women.
The remains or DNA of 33 women, many picked up from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, were found on Pickton’s pig farm in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. He once bragged to an undercover police officer that he killed a total of 49 women.
Families of some of the victims have campaigned against a police application seeking to destroy evidence related to cases against Pickton, the Vancouver Sun reported, claiming that they could be useful someday if DNA technology can eventually tie him to the murders of the other women.
Pickton released a self-published memoir in 2016, but it was quickly removed by Amazon.
AP contributed to this report.