ROSTRON, Saskatchewan, Sept. 8 (BUS): The latest suspect in a horrific stabbing attack that killed 10 and wounded 18 in western Canada has died after being captured, and police hope for a stunning end to a manhunt that stretched into the fourth day. It will bring some peace to the families of the victims.
Miles Sanderson, 32, died of self-inflicted injuries Wednesday after police forced the stolen car he was driving onto the Saskatchewan highway, an official said, the Associated Press reported.
Other officials declined to discuss how he died, but expressed relief that the latest suspected killer is no longer at large.
“This evening, our province is breathing a collective sigh of relief,” Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore, commander of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Saskatchewan, said at a news conference Wednesday night.
The other suspect, Sanderson’s 30-year-old brother, Damian Sanderson, was found dead Monday near the site of the deadly knife attacks in and around the James Smith Cree First Nation Preserve early Sunday. Both men were residents of the Aboriginal Reserve.
Blackmore said Miles Sanderson was trapped when police units responded to a report of a stolen car driven by a man armed with a knife. She said officers forced Sanderson’s car off the road and into a ditch. She said he was arrested and a knife was found inside the car.
Blackmore said Sanderson experienced a medical ordeal while in detention. She said CPR was tried before an ambulance arrived, and then emergency medical staff took him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“All the measures we could take to save lives were taken at that time,” she said.
Blackmore did not give details of the cause of death. “I can’t talk about the exact method of death,” she said.
But an official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier that Sanderson died of self-inflicted injuries, without giving further details.
Videos and photos from the scene showed a white SUV on the side of the road with police cars all over the place. Airbags are common in SUVs. Some photos and videos taken from a distance appear to show Sanderson being searched.
An independent investigation by members of the Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team has gone to the site of the arrest and will review Sanderson’s death and police behaviour.
The Federal Public Safety Minister, Marco Mendicino, also stressed that the events would be investigated.
“You have questions. We have questions. There will be two levels of police that will investigate the circumstances of Miles Sanderson’s death,” he told reporters during a cabinet meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia.
His death came two days after Damien Sanderson’s body was found in a field near the scene of the knife attack. Police are investigating whether Miles Sanderson killed his brother.
With the two men killed, Blackmore said, authorities will find it difficult to see what caused the rampage.
“Now that Miles is dead, we may never understand this motive,” she said.
But she said she hoped the families of the stabbing victims would find some relief that none of the Sandersons remained a threat.
“I hope this shuts them down. I hope they rest easy knowing that Miles Sanderson is no longer a threat to them.”
Some family members of the victims arrived at the scene on Wednesday, including Brian Burns, whose wife and son were killed.
“Now we can begin to heal. Healing begins today, now,” he said.
The stabbings have raised questions about why Miles Sanderson took to the streets in the first place, an ex-con with 59 convictions and a long history of traumatic violence.
He was released by the parole board in February while serving a sentence of more than four years on charges including assault and robbery. But he has been wanted by police since May for apparently violating the terms of his release, although details were not immediately clear.
The tall and ruthless Rap newspaper showed that seven years ago, he attacked and stabbed one of the victims killed in Sunday’s stabbings, according to court records.
Mendicino, the public safety minister, said there will be an investigation into the Parole Board’s evaluation of Sanderson.
“I want to know the reasons for the decision” to release him, Mendicino said. “I am very concerned about what happened here. It has left the community reeling.”
The Saskatchewan Coroner Service said nine of the dead were from the Nation of James Smith Cree: Thomas Burns, 23; Carol Burns, 46 years old; Gregory Burns, 28; Lydia Gloria Burns, 61; Bonnie Burns, 48; Earl Burns, 66; Lana Head, 49; Christian Head, 54; and Robert Sanderson, 49. The other victim was Weldon Wesley Patterson, 78.
The authorities did not disclose whether the victims were related.
Mark Arcand said his half-sister Bonnie and her son Gregory were killed.
“Her son was lying there and he was already dead. My sister went out and tried to help her son, she was stabbed twice, and she died right next to him,” he said. “Outside her home she was killed with senseless actions. She was protecting her son. She was protecting three young children. That’s why she is a hero.”
Arcand rushed to the reserve on the morning of the rampage. After that, he said, “I woke up in the middle of the night screaming and screaming. What I saw that day I can’t get out of my head.”
On why the violence erupted, Arcand said: “We’re all looking for the same answers. We don’t know what happened. We probably will never know. That’s the hardest part of this.”
Court documents said Sanderson attacked his in-laws Earl Burns and Joyce Burns in 2015, repeatedly stabbing Earl Burns and wounding Joyce Burns. Later, he pleaded guilty to assaulting and threatening Earl Burns.
Many of Sanderson’s crimes were committed while he was intoxicated, according to court records. He told parole officials at one point that drug use made him lose his mind. Records showed that he repeatedly violated court orders prohibiting him from drinking or using drugs.
Many Aboriginal communities in Canada suffer from drugs and alcohol.
Court records show that Miles Sanderson’s childhood was marked by violence, neglect, and drug abuse. Sanderson, an Aboriginal and raised on the Keri Reservation, population 1,900, began drinking and smoking marijuana at about 12 years old, and cocaine followed soon after.
In 2017, he broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home, punched a hole in the bathroom door while his two children were hiding in the bathtub and threw a cement block at a car parked outside, according to parole documents.
The documents said he got into a fight a few days later in a store and threatened to kill an employee and burn down his parents’ house.
In November of that year, a partner threatened to rob a fast food restaurant by hitting him with a pistol and stepping on the head. Then stop watching while stopping.
In 2018, he stabbed two men with a fork while drinking and knocked an unconscious person.