EDMONTON — William Bicknell vowed he wasn’t going back to prison.
The convicted killer made his escape while on an escorted pass from Drumheller Institution in southern Alberta in March 2011. On the ride back from visiting his sister in Edmonton, he feigned a heart attack, pulled out a knife and overpowered the lone guard who was driving.
At various times over the next 10 days, Bicknell held the guard and three other people hostage in their homes.
His run for freedom eventually ended in a car chase and gun battle with RCMP. He was shot twice in the head, but survived.
On Tuesday, the 45-year-old pleaded guilty to 14 charges, including unlawful confinement, escaping lawful custody, robbery and weapons offences.
He appeared in court on closed-circuit TV from a prison cell in Quebec. Court heard he is in solitary confinement.
“I truly believed I was going to be murdered,” guard Darryl Steeves told the judge in a victim impact statement.
Steeves said he has witnessed riots, murders and beatings in prison but never felt such loss of control as when Bicknell overtook him that day. Now, Steeves said, he’s known as the guard who let an inmate get away. And he feels responsible for the trauma the other hostages had to endure.
The Crown, calling it a “horrific series of crimes,” asked that Bicknell receive a life sentence on all charges, with no chance at parole for 10 years. The defence told the judge Bicknell hadn’t physically hurt his victims and suggested a 14 to 16-year term.
Justice Eric Macklin said he would decide Wednesday.
Court heard how Bicknell had already been serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2003 of second-degree murder for the beating death of a woman from British Columbia.
News reports from Bicknell’s trial said the two were involved in a bank-machine scam and that Bicknell killed the woman with a bat.
Nicknamed “Tiny,” Bicknell was described at the time of his escape as weighing 460 pounds and standing roughly six-foot-six tall. When he was granted the day pass, he was matched up with 58-year-old Steeves — an experienced guard but one who was much smaller at five-foot-five and 170 pounds.
Bicknell had made up his mind that he wasn’t going to stay behind bars. He had a plan.
He wasn’t in handcuffs as he rode in the front passenger seat of the prison van on the way back from the visit. He complained of chest pains and numb arms, so the guard pulled over. Bicknell got out, pulled a knife, ordered Steeves into the back and put him in cuffs.
Bicknell drove to a bank machine and withdrew cash from the guard’s accounts. He next stopped at a storage unit and grabbed eight long-barrelled guns and ammunition.
He headed to the Vegreville area where he grew up and forced his way into the house of Gerald Gutoski, 58, a farmer he knew from years before.
He left the guard with Gutoski and took off in the farmer’s car after telling the pair to wait a couple of hours before calling police. The guard waited a few minutes, ran to a neighbour’s and called 911.