Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton dies after prison attack

1 of 2 | Robert Pickton was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007 for the murder of six women, but confessed to police that he had killed 49 women. Photo by BCTV/EPA

He was in an induced coma and placed on a ventilator before succumbing to his injuries 12 days later, Correctional Service Canada said.

Pickton was found guilty of six counts of first-degree murder in 2007 and sentenced to life in prison with a maximum parole ineligibility period of 25 years.

He was charged with the murder of 26 women in British Columbia, but 20 of the charges were dropped.

Pickton was one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers. Although he was only convicted of six murders, he once boasted to police officers about killing 49 women.

He took the victims to his pig farm in Port Coquitlam and disposed of their remains by feeding them to the animals.

Before Pickton’s arrest, at least 65 women disappeared in nearby Vancouver between 1978 and 2001.

At Pickton’s farm, the largest crime scene in Canadian history, police found the remains of 33 women.

His confirmed victims, whose deaths ultimately earned Pickton a life sentence, were Georgina Papin, Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Ann Wolfe and Marnie Frey.

The CSC said Friday that Pickton’s next of kin and registered victims had been notified of his death. The victims’ families had mixed reactions to the news.

Papin’s sister Cynthia Cardinal told the Globe and Mail that she was “really happy” but felt sorry for the families of the victims who had not received justice.

Michele Pineault, the mother of 20-year-old Stephanie Lane, whose death Pickton was not charged with, said she was “delighted” by his death because there had been “no justice” for her daughter.

After Pickton’s conviction, the Missing Women’s Investigation Commission accused the police of numerous systemic failures that allowed Pickton to continue his killing spree.

Many of Pickton’s victims were indigenous women or sex workers, and activists said police did not take their cases seriously.

An investigation into Vancouver police’s handling of the case found that department leaders dismissed warnings about the killer as inaccurate and inflammatory more than four years before his arrest in 2002.

Following the investigation, the province’s missing persons policing standards were reformed to reflect “the important lessons learned from the Pickton case and other investigations into missing and murdered women.”