The remaining suspect in the series of fatal knife attacks in Canada is dead, according to police. The 32-year-old died of self-inflicted wounds after police forced his car off the road on Wednesday, an investigator said.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police initially announced that the man was arrested around 3:30 p.m. (local time) on a freeway near the city of Rosthern, Saskatchewan. A press conference about four and a half hours later said the suspect was in “medical distress” following his arrest and was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Saskatoon. There he was declared dead.
The suspect’s brother and alleged accomplice was found dead near the crime scene on Monday. The police are investigating whether the man who died on Wednesday may have killed his brother.
On Sunday, 10 people were killed and 18 injured in knife attacks on the James Smith Cree Nation reservation and in the village of Weldon. Saskatchewan Police Deputy Chief Rhonda Blackmore said some victims appeared to have been targeted while suspects killed others indiscriminately. The police spoke of a total of 13 crime scenes. The suspected brothers fled. The motive for the bloody crime is still unclear.
After one of the brothers was found dead, it was revealed that the man, who was arrested and then deceased, was a former convict with a long criminal record. He was sentenced to more than four years in prison for assault, robbery and other offenses, but was released on parole in February. The police had been looking for him since May because he had apparently violated his probation conditions. Court records also show that the 32-year-old stabbed one of the victims killed in last weekend’s knife attacks seven years ago.
The Sasketchwan attacks were among the deadliest bloody killings in Canada’s recent history. The worst act of violence to date occurred in 2020 when a man disguised as a police officer killed 22 people in a shooting spree in the province of Nova Scotia. A year earlier in Toronto, a man swerved his vehicle into passers-by, killing 10 people. In Canada, such violent crimes are relatively less common than in the neighboring United States.