New charges in hostage-taking
A twice-convicted killer who has been described as one of Canada’s most dangerous female inmates is facing new charges after holding another inmate hostage with a pair of eyeglasses in the Edmonton courthouse last month.
Serena Nicotine, 31, is serving a life sentence for the 1997 murder of a North Battleford woman, and has been convicted in numerous previous violent hostage-takings in prison using objects including shards of glass, broken scissors, and a pen as weapons.
Alberta Justice spokeswoman Michelle Davio said Nicotine was in court in Edmonton on May 22 to face charges related to another armed hostagetaking, when she allegedly took another female inmate hostage in the basement cell area of the courthouse. The incident ended just under two hours later. No one was injured.
Nicotine has been a long fixture in the Canadian justice system. At 12, she was charged in the death of three-year-old Scentri Fox, who drowned after Nicotine repeatedly dunked her underwater in the swimming pool of a hotel in North Battleford. Nicotine was later convicted of manslaughter in the toddler’s death.
Released to a halfway house in North Battleford in 1997, the then-15- year-old Nicotine and another teenage girl killed Helen Montgomery, the 58-year-old woman running the group home where they were living, stabbing and beating the woman to death with a kitchen knife and her cast iron frying pan. Nicotine and her coaccused later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the slaying.
In prison, Nicotine continued to be involved in a number of violent incidents, including a highprofile hostage-taking at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary in 2000, in which a female correctional officer was tied up and tortured for several hours, her hair singed and cut, and her face burned with cigarettes.
During previous proceedings, courts have heard that Nicotine has severe fetal alcohol syndrome and had a very violent childhood.
Nicotine is currently charged with unlawful confinement and possession of weapon for the courthouse incident, and has outstanding charges for uttering threats, hostagetaking and possession of a weapon related to an incident on Feb. 21. Details of that incident could not be obtained by the Journal on Friday.
Nicotine’s next court appearance is slated to take place in Edmonton on June 7.