An inmate is facing murder charges after another inmate died following what RCMP said was an allegedly unprovoked attack inside a central Alberta prison.
RCMP said it happened Wednesday evening at the Drumheller Institution, where the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) said the serious assault happened in the medium security unit.
RCMP said 34-year-old Jeffrey Ryan of Parkland County, Alta., was seriously injured in an allegedly unprovoked attack and died in hospital.
At the time of his death, corrections said Ryan had been in custody since April 2, 2019, serving a sentence of three years, two months and five days for prohibited weapons possession and possessing illegal drugs for the purpose of trafficking.
The time of the attack is not known, but RCMP said officers were called to the prison around 8:40 p.m. No staff members or other inmates were injured during this incident, CSC said.
Initially, RCMP from the Drumheller detachment and the CSC were investigating the death, but the Alberta RCMP Major Crimes Unit has since taken over the investigation.
RCMP said an autopsy has been ordered by the medical examiner and will be performed in the coming days.
Ashley Baird, 38, of Nanaimo, B.C., has been charged with second-degree murder and will be appearing in Drumheller Provincial Court on Feb. 11.
The Drumheller Institution is a men’s prison in central Alberta with a capacity for 582 inmates in medium security and 122 in minimum security.