A year to the day after serial killer Robert Pickton died following an assault by another inmate in a Quebec prison, there have been no charges against the alleged assailant and few answers about what happened.
Pickton died in hospital on May 31, 2024, after being assaulted at the Port-Cartier maximum security prison 12 days prior. The 74-year-old was convicted in 2007 of six counts of second-degree murder but was suspected of killing dozens more women at his pig farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C.
The Correctional Service of Canada first issued a release on May 20 last year about a “major assault” on an inmate, adding “the assailant has been identified and the appropriate actions have been taken.” The agency later confirmed the injured inmate was Pickton, and that he had died.
Quebec provincial police identified the suspect as a 51-year-old inmate, but did not release a name.
Robert Pickton had been in hospital since May 19 after being the target of what Correctional Service Canada called a “major assault” at the maximum-security Port-Cartier Institution in Quebec. The 74-year-old B.C. man had been found guilty of murdering six women in the Vancouver area, but had bragged about killing 49.
Earlier this week, the force said its investigation remained open.
“Some expert reports are still ongoing. As this is an active file, we will not comment further,” the Sûreté du Québec wrote in an email. By phone, a spokesperson said the police file had not yet been handed over to the Quebec Crown prosecutor’s office, who will decide whether charges will be laid.
Spokesperson Audrey-Anne Bilodeau added police sometimes take more time to investigate when a suspect is already behind bars because there is no risk to the public.
Correctional Service Canada said it expects to publish the results of investigations into the death “in the near future,” spokesperson Kevin Antonucci wrote in an email.
“Time was required to ensure that they were fully translated and vetted in accordance with the Privacy Act.”
Calls for public inquiry
Advocates for prisoners’ rights expressed concern about the lack of answers about what happened and said the death raises questions about inmate security.
“We’re concerned about a number of deaths have occurred at the hands of other prisoners without any clear answers,” Catherine Latimer of the John Howard Society said in a phone interview.
Latimer cited a fatality report published earlier this year by Alberta Justice Donna Groves into the death of a 21-year-old inmate who was knifed to death inside his cell by another inmate at the Edmonton Institution in 2011.
The report raised a number of questions, including why the two inmates were allowed out of their cells at the same time despite belonging to rival gangs and being under orders not to be around other inmates.
Groves called for a public inquiry into the death, saying it’s the only way to get to the bottom of three guards’ actions that day, including concerns they were running a prison “fight club.”
Latimer said the report shows there is a serious problem with “incompatible or vulnerable prisoners” being exposed to others who want to kill them. “Pickton really raises that,” she said.
Pickton, she added, would likely have been considered “vulnerable” because the nature of his offences would have made him a potential target.
Prison deaths tough to investigate
Howard Sapers, who spent 12 years as Correctional Investigator of Canada, said sudden prison deaths – particularly criminal ones – are often long and tough to investigate.
“There are difficulties in terms of accessing crime scenes, preserving crime scenes, obtaining witness statements, so all of those things tend to frustrate investigations,” he said.
He added such investigations are often not a priority – at least in terms of speed – due to a lack of generalized public safety risk.
He said federal investigators probing Pickton’s death will be looking at whether protocol and policy was followed in areas such as contraband and weapons, underground trade in weapons and drugs, gang conflicts and known threats against an individual.
Tom Engel, the former president of the Canadian Prison Law Association, agreed that Pickton’s reputation would have meant he was at high risk of being assaulted by other inmates.
“The question has to be asked, ‘Well, how could this happen when he’s at high risk?'” he said in a phone interview.
Breakaway12:59Is Canada’s federal prison system safe for all inmates?
The assault on serial killer Robert Pickton at the Port Cartier prison is raising questions about the safety of inmates within federal prisons. Alison speaks with Senator Kim Pate, who says she is very concerned about the lack of respect for human rights towards those who are sentences in our country.
Engel said he wasn’t surprised by the lack of charges so far. He said investigations can be lengthy, in part because correctional staff and inmates can be reluctant to fully co-operate with police.
The announcement of Pickton’s death last year was met with public expressions of satisfaction and joy rather than concern. Families of victims used words such as “healing,” “overjoyed” and “justice” to describe the death of a man who preyed upon vulnerable women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, many of them Indigenous.
But Engel believes the fate of prison inmates should be a concern.
“Members of the public who believe in human rights, who believe in the rule of law, who believe that the Criminal Code of Canada applies to everybody should care about this, because you can’t have this kind of lawlessness going on in a prison,” he said.
Sapers noted prisons can be dangerous for both inmates and correctional staff. And he said many of the solutions, which include more investment in staffing, training, prison infrastructure and programming to meaningfully occupy prisoners, benefit both groups.
“Often people don’t make the link to safe environments for people who are in custody are also safe environments for people who have to work there, and I think it’s a really important point to make,” he said.
