Two violent criminals die in B.C. prisons within days
A suspected link to a 1993 disappearance and a 2021 Yukon double murder mark the deaths of Daniel Robert Dow and Ralph Bernard Shaw.
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Two violent criminals have died in British Columbia prisons within days of each other.
Daniel Robert Dow died on June 22 at Mission Institution at age 68. He was serving an indeterminate sentence that began in March 1998 after his conviction for beating and choking a woman into unconsciousness and threatening to kill her child. Dow was a repeat violent sexual offender with a history of convictions.
Dow was also a suspect in the disappearance of 20-year-old Sherri McLaughlin, who went missing from Kamloops in 1993 when Dow was on parole for a previous conviction. Forensic evidence linked his car to McLaughlin's damaged bicycle, but he was never charged in the case and her body was never found.
Ralph Bernard Shaw died on June 24 at Pacific Institution and Regional Treatment Centre in Abbotsford, also at age 65. He was serving a life sentence that began in November 2024 following his conviction in a 2021 double shooting in Faro, Yukon.
In October 2021, Shaw shot and killed Patrick McCracken, 73, and Saenduean Honchaiyaphum, 42, after what police described as a domestic dispute. Honchaiyaphum was married to Shaw but the couple had separated months earlier. The shooting prompted a local lockdown in Faro.
The Correctional Service of Canada has notified the families of both inmates. The B.C. Coroners Service has been informed of the in-custody deaths.
