The Province

Man with terminal cancer who killed two in B.C. gets full parole

- PAUL CHERRY

A man who was once considered to be one of the most dangerous criminals in Canada has been granted full parole so he can spend his final days outside a penitentia­ry before he dies of cancer.

Serge Robin, 63, killed at least three people, including a man he shot as a killer for hire. At different points while serving his current sentence, he was placed in a super-maximum security penitentia­ry, where the worst of Canada's criminals are incarcerat­ed.

He was granted full parole on Thursday with a condition attached that he reside at an undisclose­d location.

The Montrealer killed two of his victims in British Columbia in 1992 while he was out on day parole and while he was still serving a sentence for armed robbery and for the death of a 17-yearold girl he killed in 1976 by beating her repeatedly with a crowbar. He was also a suspect in at least two other homicides.

On Oct. 6, 1992, he fatally shot Roger Daggitt in a hotel in Surrey. Two days later, he killed a fellow Montrealer, Robert Pelletier, in front of a pub in Vancouver. Three men who witnessed the second shooting tackled Robin and turned him over to police. It took little time for homicide investigat­ors to link the two murders to Robin.

He was first tried, in 1994, in the Pelletier case.

The Crown alleged that Robin shot Pelletier because Pelletier was trying to move in on his drug-traffickin­g turf in Vancouver.

A psychologi­st who evaluated Robin in October classified him as a psychopath and, until 2017, he was considered to be an associate of the Rock Machine biker gang. He remained a violent man while behind bars over most of the past two decades. but things changed after 2018 when his cancer became worse and he had to be transferre­d to a penitentia­ry where he could be treated.

The written summary of a decision made by the Parole Board of Canada details how Robin is so badly stricken with cancer he is no longer poses a threat to anyone.

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SERGE ROBIN

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