Correctional Service Canada confirmed that serial killer Robert Pickton was injured in a major assault Sunday at a Quebec prison.

Quebec provincial police issued a statement, Tuesday, saying the 74-year-old convict was in hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to local news outlet CP24. Police spokesman Hugues Beaulieu confirmed that a 51-year-old suspect was in custody, but provided no further information on the nature of the charges against the suspect.

Canada’s most prolific serial killer, Robert Pickton (49 killed) photographed smiling in the slaughterhouse of the pig farm where he butchered his victims and later fed them to unsuspecting friends. pic.twitter.com/p6HsDx7gDq

— Creepy.org (@creepydotorg) April 6, 2024

404096 01: Investigators of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) walk through the property owned by Dave and Robert William Pickton April 17, 2002 in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. RCMP began a search on the property, known to locals as “Piggys Palace” as part of a continuing investigation of the 50 women who disappeared from the Vancouver area over the past two decades. (Photo by Don MacKinnon/Getty Images)

The attack took place Sunday, inside the Port-Quartier Institution in northeastern Quebec, where Mr. Pickton was detained, Correctional Service spokesperson Kevin Antonucci said in a statement to The Globe and Mail.

“This assault did not involve any of our staff,” Antonucci said.

“We are not able to disclose any additional details, including medical information,” he said.

PORT COQUITLAM, CANADA – JANUARY 13: Royal Canadian Mounted Police dig and sift soil for clues on the pig farm of Robert William Pickton January 13, 2003 in Port Coquitlam, Canada. Pickton is charged with the murders of 15 of 63 women, mostly prostitutes and addicts, according to authorities, who have disappeared from Vancouver’s rough East Side over the past 20 years. (Photo by Don MacKinnon/Getty Images)

Pickton is deemed to be one of the most prolific serial killers in Canadian history. He was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder for the killings of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Ann Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey, according to CP24.

He was charged with the murders of 26 women in total, and was sentenced to life in prison in 2007, with the maximum parole ineligibility period of 25 years.

Police filed murder charges on Friday, February 22, 2002 against 52-year-old Robert William Pickton, the owner of a dilapidated pig farm that has been become the focus of the search for 50 Vancouver prostitutes who have disappeared without a trace since the early 1980s and are feared dead. Three firearms charges were brought on Pickton on February 7, 2002 and police have been searching the farm since then. (Photo by Christopher Morris/Corbis via Getty Images)

Police uncovered the remains or DNA of 33 women on Pickton’s pig farm in Port Coquitlam, and the infamous serial killer once bragged to an undercover police officer that he killed a total of 49 women, according to CP24.

At the time of his sentencing, B.C. Supreme Court Justice James Williams noted this was a “rare case that properly warrants the maximum period of parole ineligibility available to the court.” (RELATED: Jeffrey Dahmer’s Dad Tells Dr. Phil That He Missed Opportunities To Stop His Son’s Killing Spree)

The nature of Pickton’s injuries remain unclear at this time.