An inmate at William Head Institution serving time for murder has died.
Richard Paul Preston, who had been serving an indeterminate sentence for second-degree murder since April 28, 1994, died in custody Sept. 2.
No details were made available about the nature of his death.
The Correctional Service Canada says it is reviewing the circumstances, and the inmate’s next of kin have been notified.
Peter Forbes, assistant warden at William Head, said the Correctional Service Canada could not provide any more detail due to privacy rules.
“As with all deaths of an inmate, Correctional Service Canada takes these very seriously, as any death is a tragedy,” he said, adding the coroner’s investigation has not yet been completed.
Preston, who was originally from Stettler, Alta., was 31 when he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 1992 shooting death of Michael David Arnold, 36, in what the judge called a jealousy killing, according to the Red Deer Advocate.
Preston had gone to the home of his former common-law wife, Connie Muise, shot open the door, shot Arnold in the head when he tried to warn Muise and her two sleeping children, then held Muise and the children, age two and seven months, hostage.
Muise escaped, and Preston was eventually convinced to surrender, the Advocate reported. The children were unharmed.
At the time, Preston was under a 10-year firearms prohibition for threatening to kill a former girlfriend, the newspaper said.
In the Correctional Service annual report of deaths in custody for 2016-17, the last year the report is available, the service noted there were 904 deaths in custody between 2000 and 2017.
Of those deaths the vast majority, 603, were deemed to have been by natural causes, 157 were suicide, 69 were overdoses, 43 were classified as homicides and 12 were deemed accidental.
According to the Correctional Service, when a person dies in federal custody, the police and coroner or medical examiner are notified. If the death appears to be of natural causes, the service will conduct a mortality review.
Circumstances of the death will determine if the coroner or medical examiner will investigate and the Correctional Service will hold a national board of investigation.
