Serial Killer Robert Pickton Dies After Prison Assault

UPDATE May 31, 2024 4:05 PM CDT

Days after being attacked in a Quebec prison, a serial killer has died, Canadian authorities said Friday. Correctional Service Canada said Robert Pickton's family and victims have been notified, the Abbotsford News reports. "We are mindful that this offender's case has had a devastating impact on communities in British Columbia and across the country, including Indigenous peoples, victims and their families," officials said. "Our thoughts are with them." The corrections agency said the assault is being investigated.

May 21, 2024 12:45 PM CDT

Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton—who boasted of killing nearly 50 women—is hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after an assault at a Quebec prison, authorities said Tuesday. The Correctional Service Canada said the 74-year-old Pickton was assaulted Sunday at the maximum security Port-Cartier Institution, about 300 miles northeast of Quebec City. The suspected assailant is another inmate, 51-year-old Hugues Beaulieu, reports the AP and the CBC. Authorities have not speculated about a motive in the attack or released more details about it.

Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2007 after being charged with the murders of 26 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. Vancouver police were criticized for not taking the cases seriously because many of the missing were sex workers or drug users.

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Pickton's confirmed victims were six: Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Ann Wolfe, Georgina Papin, and Marnie Frey. 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. (More Robert 'Willie' Pickton stories.)