“After a four-day manhunt, the police arrested Myles Sanderson, a suspect in a stabbing rampage that left 10 dead in the Canadian province. He was pronounced dead at a hospital after going into “medical distress,” the police said.
The second of two brothers sought by the police after a stabbing rampage in western Canada that killed 10 people died on Wednesday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police initially announced that the man, Myles Sanderson, had been captured on a highway near the town of Rosthern, Saskatchewan, at about 3:30 p.m.
But at a news conference about four and a half hours later, Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore said that Mr. Sanderson had gone into “medical distress” shortly after his arrest and was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Saskatoon, where he was pronounced dead.
Videos of the arrest made by passing motorists and posted on social media showed Mr. Sanderson being handcuffed by four officers as he stood against a Chevrolet pickup that appeared to have been run off the divided, four-lane road.
Assistant Commissioner Blackmore said the death of Mr. Sanderson meant the motive behind the rampage might remain a mystery.
“His motivation may at this time, and forever, only be known to Myles,” she said.The news of his arrest and then his death came on the same day that the authorities released the names of the victims killed on Sunday.
The list of the dead includes Earl Burns, 66, a school bus driver on an Indigenous community who, wounded in a stabbing rampage, managed to board his bus and head toward a village for help. He died along the way and the bus veered off a gravel road. It was there still Wednesday, sitting in a ditch with a police cruiser beside it, covered in road dust.
Mr. Burns was just one of six members of an extended family killed in the knife attacks Sunday.
Mr. Sanderson was family, too, according to court records.
The 32-year-old was the common-law husband of Mr. Burns’s daughter, and he told a parole board that granted his early release from prison this year that he intended to reunite with her. He and his brother, Damien, were both formally accused in the attacks.
Damien Sanderson, 31, was himself found stabbed to death — perhaps at the hand of his brother — on Monday.
At the James Smith Cree Nation, the reserve that bore the brunt of the attacks, residents on their porches rejoiced as word spread that the manhunt was over.
“They caught him, they caught him!” some said, hugging one another.
“There’s a real sense of relief,” said Shania Peters, 22, whose grandmother Gloria was killed in the attack. “A lot of people will sleep better tonight.”
On Wednesday, in addition to releasing the names of the dead, the authorities detailed the conditions of the 18 people who were wounded, among them Mr. Burns’s wife, Joyce. Ten remain in the hospital, with three in critical condition, according to the Saskatchewan Health Authority. All but one of the victims lived on the James Smith Cree Nation.
In January 2015, according to court records, Mr. Sanderson was charged with attempted murder after the police said he had repeatedly stabbed his father-in-law with a knife and wounded his mother-in-law. The records do not offer a reason for the assault.
Six of those killed on Sunday were members of the Burns family. Some were in their 20s, at the beginning of their adult lives. Others were older, enjoying their retirement.
Among them was Gloria Burns, 61, who counseled people dealing with drug, alcohol and gambling addiction, and who raised five adopted children as a single mother.
On Tuesday, a large white tent erected for a wake for Ms. Burns sat in front of her brother Ivor’s house. As it flapped in a fierce wind, members of her family sat inside recalling their lost sister, who was one of the Indigenous community’s cultural leaders.
Ms. Burns conducted sweat lodge ceremonies and was the holder of one of the reserve’s ceremonial pipes. Before her body was removed from the attack site on Sunday, her family held a healing circle and conducted traditional Cree ceremonies. The family said it was still unclear when her body would be released by the coroner.
A report of a break-in at about 2 p.m. on Wednesday set off a series of events that led to Mr. Sanderson’s arrest, Assistant Commissioner Blackmore said in the news conference Wednesday. He was seen carrying a knife and stealing a pickup truck from a house near a small town about an hour’s drive south of the James Smith Cree Nation, she said. As calls of sightings poured into emergency lines, an officer in an unmarked vehicle saw the stolen truck traveling at 150 kilometers an hour along a highway. Police officers from throughout the region were summoned, and forced the truck off the road.
The police recovered a knife from the truck, but there were no drugs found during an initial search, Assistant Commissioner Blackmore added.
Many residents of the James Smith Cree Nation had fled to hotels in nearby communities “As the hunt for It’s going to take a long time,” she said, “but we can start healing now.”
Credit The New York Times
