One of Canada's most notorious killers has died following a prison attack.
Robert Pickton, 74, convicted in 2007 of killing six women, was serving a life sentence in Quebec. His cellmate lashed out at him. Once rescued, he was transferred to hospital but the injuries proved fatal, Correctional Service Canada said.
The serial killer's victims were killed between 1997 and 2001. Vancouver police were criticized at the time for not taking the women's disappearances seriously because many were prostitutes, drug addicts or indigenous. Pickton was arrested in 2002.
During the 18-month trial, the court heard gruesome tales of how police found the heads and hands of women hidden in buckets on the man's dilapidated farm, and bones in the pig barn. DNA and personal items from six women were found at Pickton's home. In total, the remains or DNA of 33 women were found on his farm in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. Pickton had also bragged to an undercover police officer that he had killed 49 women.
(Unioneonline/ss)