Beaver Creek (Federal Correctional Institution)

Escapes

In late June of 2002, convicted murderer Native David Resnickoff escaped from Beaver Creek Institution, provoking a nation-wide warrant for the arrest of both Resnickoff and his wife, Tanya. Resnickoff was serving a life sentence for murder he had committed in British columbia in 1981.

11 years into his sentence he escaped from Frontenac Institution, only to be captured and sent to the tighter, medium-security facility of Joyceville. In 2000, after good behaviour, he was then sent to the minimum-security Beaver Creek Institution. Officials suspected that Resnickoff was headed to BC after his escape, but disclosed little about their investigation. Both the OPP and the RCMP in British Columbia were involved in the case.

10 years before Resnickoff escaped, the institution had come under attack from another escape attempt, this time by convicted sex-killer Philippe Clement, who later went on to rape and stab a mother of 5 in Gravenhurst. Clemente was known among inmates as a "sick puppy," who had once grabbed a female prison guard while she was performing a bed check on Cement's cell. Apparently, there were allegations that the female guard was actually having a minor relationship with Clement, but that was never justified. Clemente later pleaded guilty to attempted murder and sexual assault charges, and was given two life sentences to be served in British Columbia.

Clement's post-escape victim, who was found wrapped in a blood-soaked sheet on the side of the road, suffered extreme psychological harm following the incident and required counseling, hospitalization and medical treatment. She went on to sue Correctional Services of Canada, Beaver Creek's warden, the female prison guard, and the treatment director at the sexual-behaviour clinic at Warkworth Penitentiary where Clement had received programming for about $3.75 million in damages (20 Aug 1994 The Globe and Mail). Apparently, significant information on Clement's file had not been properly transferred to Beaver Creek Institution from his previous sentence at Pinel Institution in Montreal, and that this contributed to his inappropriate placement in minimum-security.

Since Clement's escape, the prison facility, sometimes called "Muskoka Hilton" because of its relaxes rules and golf course, became more automated, but apparently not enough to prevent Resnickoff from escaping (The Canadian Press, 30 June 2002). Justice John Goodearle of Ontario Court who gave the post-escape sentence Clement said that correctional officials involved in the improper placement were "magnificent buck passers" in trying to treat Clement as a sexual offender. The correctional facility that provided treatment to Clement did not consider his responsivity by assigning to his programming a female staff member who had been known to be previously involved with romantic engagements to offenders. Clement's psychologist, Howard Barbaree, advised staff that if Clement was to placed in a minimum-security facility that he be administered full-time treatment as a sexual offender (17 Nov 1993 The Toronto Star).

In late July 1995, two men who escaped from Beaver Creek were later caught by BC police in a police pursuit. In March of that same year, 26 year-old Rodney Acres walked away from the facility, but shortly after was re-arrested at gun-point by OPP officers at a Red Carpet Inn in Lindsay, just 100 kilometres south of Gravenhurst.

In the summer of 1986, 22 year-old inmate Robert Edward Brown escaped from Beaver Creek, only to be found the following year in March lying dead and decomposed less than a kilometre away from the facility (25 March 1987 The Globe and Mail).

Suicides and Deaths

In July of 1986, one inmate died, one was blinded, and two others were hospitalized after drinking methylated alcohol present in windshield washer fluid. The inmate who later died at Toronto General Hospital had been serving a life sentence for murder (The Globe and Mail, 19 July 1986).