Robert Pickton, also known as the ‘Vancouver ripper’, is hospitalized in serious condition after being attacked this Sunday in prison, where he is serving a life sentence. The events occurred at the Port-Cartier maximum security prison, about 700 kilometers northeast of Montreal, in the province of Quebec.
The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) confirmed this Tuesday in a statement that Pickton was attacked by another inmate at the Port-Cartier maximum security prison in Quebec. However, the prison service has refused to give further details due to privacy concerns, but has assured that “appropriate measures have been taken”.
“We cannot disclose any additional details, including medical information,” the statement read. “The security of the institutions is paramount and an investigation into what happened is currently being carried out.”
Quebec’s provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec, have taken over the investigation of the case. Likewise, the Canadian public radio television CBC has reported that Pickton’s situation is extremely serious and he is torn between life and death.
Pickton, a swineherd who had a farm near the city of Vancouver, was sentenced in 2007 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years for the murder of six women. However, authorities located DNA remains of a total of 34 women who were missing on his farm.
Pickton later confessed to having murdered around 50 women, mostly indigenous people who frequented one of the most marginal areas of Vancouver. Pickton disposed of the remains of murdered women by feeding the bodies of his victims to pigs.
Although investigators recovered traces of DNA from dozens of women and Pickton’s confession, Canadian authorities decided to only prosecute him for the murder of six women, arguing that the penalty would be the same even if his responsibility in dozens of deaths was proven. .
The prosecutor’s decision was criticized by indigenous women’s advocacy groups in the country, as it effectively halted investigations into the disappearance of dozens of alleged victims.
