A notorious Canadian serial killer who allegedly fed his victims to his pigs was fatally assaulted by a fellow inmate at the maximum-security prison where he was serving a life sentence.
Robert "Willie" Pickton, 74, died of injuries inflicted on May 19 in the Port-Cartier Institution in Quebec, the Correctional Service of Canada said in a statement Friday.
An unidentified 51-year-old inmate is reportedly suspected in the attack.
Pickton was convicted in 2007 of murdering six women and butchering their remains at his pig farm in the western province of British Columbia, according to Reuters.
He was also charged with killing 20 other women but prosecutors dropped those cases after he was sentenced in those cases following his 2007 conviction.
During his trial, star prosecution witness Andrew Bellwood testified that Pickton described strangling his victims and feeding their remains to the pigs on his farm in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam, according to the Associated Press.
The allegation led health officials to warn neighbors who might have bought pork from Pickton's farm to avoid eating the potentially tainted meat.
Pickton's victims were among more than 60 women who disappeared from Vancouver's drug-infested Downtown Eastside neighborhood during more than a decade before Pickton was arrested in early 2002.
Authorities said they found the remains or DNA of 33 women on his farm and he allegedly bragged to an undercover police officer that he killed 49 women.
A 2016 book reportedly written by Pickton claimed he was innocent and had been framed by the police.
It was briefly available for sale on Amazon until the publisher asked that it be removed and apologized to the victims' families, Reuters said.
