Foul play is not suspected in the death of an imprisoned child killer who was convicted nearly half a century ago. Robert Harold Billyard, 63, died Thursday night at 7:45 p.m. after collapsing, Corrections Canada says. He was rushed to Kingston General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“It was unexpected,” said Michele Vermette, an assistant warden at Bath Institution, where Billyard was incarcerated. “It was health related but at this point we don’t know exactly what the cause was.”
Vermette said a post morten is planned.
Prison staff provided first aid and CPR until Billyard, who was known as “Bobby,” was taken to hospital.
He was serving a life sentence for non-capital murder that began in 1966. It is the equivalent of the modern sentence of second-degree murder.
Billyard murdered six-year-old Michael Clancy in Red Deer, Alta., on Feb. 17, 1966.
A letter he wrote to a girlfriend was presented as evidence at his trial.
“I will be doing time for a while … I choked a little boy to death … and I hope God will forgive me for what I have done … I am worried sick now.” He also gave police a confession, admitting that he choked the child to death.
Billyard attracted national attention in 1973 when he escaped, while he was free from a Saskatchewan prison on an escorted temporary absence pass.
Billyard was at the home of a prison guard who left him briefly unattended. He fled and stole a car.
Billyard was a native of Dunnville, Ont., a small community on the north shore of Lake Erie, about 30 kilometres south of Hamilton.
At his trial, a doctor said he suffered from several personality problems.
Because of Billyard’s death, Corrections will no longer provide detailed information about his case, including any explanation for his continued imprisonment so many years after his parole eligibility.
He was eligible to seek full parole in 1972.
He also had convictions for assault causing bodily harm and being unlawfully at large.
The death is under investigation. Bath is a medium-security prison just west of Kingston, Ontario. It has a large population of older inmates and holds offenders with health problems, including disabilities, who live in cottage-style buildings in groups of eight to 10.
(This also appears today in The Kingston Whig-Standard)
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