by Robert Freeman
Black Press
Four Kent prisoners serving time for violent crimes are now facing a murder charge in connection with a rumble in the maximum security prison’s gymnasium in 2008 that left one inmate dead of stab wounds.
Ironically, on Friday when the charges were announced, another Kent inmate suffered multiple stab wounds to the head and neck. He was airlifted to hospital.
Charged with first-degree murder in the 2008 stabbing death are Terence Robert Bolton, 26, Franjo (Frank) Perovic, 31, Scott Edward Sanderson, 33 and Nicholas Adam St. Hilaire, 29.
All except St. Hilaire were still in prison when charged. St. Hilaire had been been released several months earlier. He was arrested Tuesday without incident by members of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team and the Lower Mainland emergency response team.
IHIT spokesman Cpl. Dale Carr said the charges show that even while in prison, people are held accountable for their actions.
He said the motive for the fight is unclear, but it appears “a whole bunch of guys in for violent crimes decided to go after a guy for one reason or another that will come out at trial.”
At the time of the Nov. 28, 2008 stabbing, Bolton was serving a five-year sentence for manslaughter, Perovic was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, Sanderson was serving a six-year sentence for aggravated assault and St. Hilaire was serving a five-year sentence for manslaughter and conspiracy to commit murder.
The dead man, 27-year-old Andrew Robert Craig, had started a 10-year sentence in January, 2004 for robbing two banks in Chilliwack, a Royal Bank and an HSBC branch.
Two other prisoners were stabbed in the 2008 melee that started in the prison’s gym at about 7:50 p.m.
Prison staff fired warning shots and gas to break up the fight, but Craig and the other two prisoners were stabbed before the inmates could be separated. Craig died in the prison’s health unit.
An investigation by the correctional officers’ union found there were “errors made in two groups being together” in the gym at the same time, UCCO president Gord Robertson said Friday.
A prison official at the time of the 2008 incident said it was not related to a fight a week earlier in the gym, which also required guards to use gas to restore order. Six inmates refused to return to their living unit after that fight, and were later caught trying to escape over a fence.
The two fights so close together had sparked union concerns and an investigation was launched.