The notorious Canadian serial killer who lured women to his pig farm died Friday, almost two weeks after a fellow inmate viciously attacked him.
Robert Pickton, 74, had been clinging to life — but was not expected to survive — since he was speared in the head with a broken broom handle on May 19 while in a segregated intervention unit at the maximum-security Port-Cartier Institution.
A 51-year-old inmate is in custody for the assault on Pickton, police spokesman Hugues Beaulieu said earlier this month.
The sister of one of Pickton’s victims celebrated the brutal death, saying his slaying means she can finally move on.
“This is gonna bring healing for, I won’t say all families, I’ll just say most of the families,” Cynthia Cardinal, who lost her sister Georgina Papin to Pickton’s violence, said.
“I’m like — wow, finally. I can actually move on and heal, and I can put this behind me.”
It is not clear why the unnamed inmate targeted Pickton, but the attacker had done a stint in solitary confinement for previous assaults on other inmates.
The slaying is under investigation.
“The investigation will examine all of the facts and circumstances surrounding the assault, including whether policies and protocols were followed,” the service said in the statement.
“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. Our thoughts are with them.”
Pickton was convicted in 2007 of killing drug addicts and prostitutes and butchering their remains at his Port Coquitlam pig farm in the Pacific province of British Columbia.
Investigators found the partial remains of six women — Papin, Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Ann Wolfe and Marnie Frey — on his ramshackle property, with prosecutors believing the sicko killed them during a crime spree in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The remains or DNA of 33 other women were found on the farm, and Pickton once bragged to an undercover police officer that he killed a total of 49 women.
Pickton admitted to strangling his victims and feeding their remains to his pigs — prompting health officials to issue a tainted meat advisory to neighbors who might have bought pork from Pickton’s farm.
The serial killer was also charged with an additional 20 murders, but the charges were dropped after he was sentenced to life in prison.
With Post wires
