“Shortly after his arrest, he ran into a medical problem,” Rhonda Blackmore, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Saskatchewan, said at a news conference Wednesday night. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Blackmore said. Cause of death not given.
An official told The Associated Press that Sanderson died of self-inflicted wounds. The official did not explain when or how those injuries were sustained.
Sanderson’s brother, 30-year-old Damien Sanderson, who is also a suspect in the attacks, was found dead on Monday. His injuries did not appear to be self-inflicted, police said.
Prior to his arrest, police received a report that Sanderson was armed with a knife and outside a residence, from which he stole a white SUV. The owner of the vehicle was not injured, Blackmore said. After the SUV was spotted speeding down the highway, the vehicle was “directed off the road and into a nearby ditch” by police, Blackmore said. Sanderson was the only occupant of the vehicle, according to Blackmore.
An official familiar with the matter said officers rammed Sanderson’s vehicle and he surrendered. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Video and photos from the scene showed a white SUV pulled to the side of the road with police cars surrounding it.
“Miles Sanderson was located and arrested by police near Rostern, Sweden at approximately 3:30 p.m. today,” the province of Saskatchewan said in an emergency alert Wednesday afternoon. “There is no longer a risk to public safety related to this investigation.”
Miles Sanderson, 32, was facing three counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and one count of breaking and entering.
Shortly before police said Miles Sanderson had been arrested, a person reported to be armed with a knife was spotted in the town of Wakau and Prince Albert, RCMP said. Wakaw is about 40 miles south of Prince Albert. Both are located in Saskatchewan.
The subject was located in a white 2008 Chevrolet Avalanche with Saskatchewan license plate no. 953 LPL. The vehicle was reported stolen at 2:10 p.m. local time, according to police.
Some family members of the victims arrived at the scene and thanked the police, including Brian Burns, whose wife and son were killed.
“Now we can begin to heal. The healing begins today, now,” he said.
Another of Burns’ sons was injured and “I hope he can sleep at night knowing he’s behind bars,” Burns said.
Sunday’s stabbing spree occurred at 13 different locations across the James Smith Cree Nation and in Weldon, authorities said. Police said the death of Sanderson’s brother, 30-year-old Damien Sanderson, did not appear to be self-inflicted.
Along with the 10 dead, 19 other people were injured in the knife attack.
The stabbing raised questions about why Miles Sanderson – an ex-con with 59 convictions and a long history of shocking violence – took to the streets in the first place.
He was released by a parole board in February while serving more than four years in prison on charges that included assault and robbery. But he had been wanted by police since May, apparently for violating the terms of his release, although the details were not immediately clear.
The long and rambunctious rap sheet also revealed that seven years ago, he attacked and stabbed one of the victims killed in the weekend atrocity, according to court records.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Medicino said there will be an inquiry into Sanderson’s evaluation by the parole board.
“I want to know the reasons behind the decision” to release him, Medicino said. “I’m extremely concerned about what happened here. A community has been left in turmoil.”
Investigators have not provided a motive for the bloodshed.
The Saskatchewan coroner’s office said nine of the dead were from the James Smith Cree Nation: Thomas Burns, 23; Carol Burns, 46; Gregory Burns, 28; Lydia Gloria Burns, 61; Bonnie Burns, 48; Earl Burns, 66; Lana Head, 49; Christian Head, 54; and Robert Sanderson, 49. One was from Weldon, 78-year-old Wesley Patterson.
Authorities have not said how the victims may be related.
Mark Arcand said his half-sister Bonnie and her son Gregory were killed.
“Her son was there already dead. My sister went out and tried to help her son, and she was stabbed twice and died right next to him,” she said. “She was killed right outside her home by senseless acts. She was protecting her son. She was protecting three little boys. That’s why she’s a hero.”
Arcand rushed to the reserve on the morning of the rampage. After that, she said, “I woke up in the middle of the night just screaming and yelling. What I saw that day I can’t get out of my head.”
As for what sparked the violence, Arcand said, “We’re all looking for the same answers. We don’t know what happened. Maybe we’ll never know. That’s the hardest part of this.”
Court documents say Sanderson attacked his in-laws, Earl Burns and Joyce Burns in 2015, repeatedly stabbing Earl Jones and injuring Joyce Burns. He later pleaded guilty to assault and threatening the life of Earl Burns.
Many of Sanderson’s crimes were committed while intoxicated, according to court records. At one point he told parole officers that his substance use made him lose his mind. Records showed he repeatedly violated court orders prohibiting him from drinking or using drugs.
Indigenous communities in Canada are plagued by drugs and alcohol.
“The drug problem and the alcohol problem in these stocks is completely out of control,” said Ivor Wayne Burns, whose sister was killed in the weekend attacks. “We have dead people and we asked in advance that something be done.”
Miles Sanderson’s childhood was marked by violence, neglect and substance abuse, court records show. Sanderson, who is indigenous and grew up on the Cree reservation, population 1,900, started drinking and smoking marijuana around 12, followed soon by cocaine.
In 2017, he broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home, punched a hole in a bathroom door while his two children were hiding in a bathtub and threw a concrete block at a vehicle parked outside, according to parole documents.
He got into a fight a few days later at a store, threatening to kill an employee and burn down his parents’ house, documents state.
That November he threatened an accomplice to rob a fast food restaurant, brandishing a gun and stomping on his head. He then stood guard during the wait.
In 2018, he stabbed two men with a fork while drinking and knocked someone unconscious.
When he was released in February, the parole board placed conditions on his contact with his partner and children and also said he should not have relations with women without written permission from his parole officer.
Granting Sanderson “statutory release”, parole authorities said: “It is the opinion of the board that you will not present an unreasonable risk to society.”
Canadian law grants prisoners statutory release after serving two-thirds of their sentence. But the parole board can impose conditions on that freedom, and inmates who violate them — as Sanderson did more than once — can be ordered back to prison.
Sharna Sugarman, who organized a GoFundMe for the victims, questioned the parole board about his release and questioned why Sanderson was still free so many months after he was deemed “unlawfully at large.”
“This is just outrageous to me,” said Sugarman, a counselor who counted one of the stabbing victims as a client. “If they claim they were looking for him, well, you weren’t looking that hard.”
