Agassiz (Correctional Service Canada) – On October 23, 2025, John Wendell Keyler, an inmate from Kent Institution, died while in custody.
At the time of death, the inmate was 40 years old and had been serving a sentence of 4 years, 10 months, and 29 days since December 12, 2024.
The inmate’s next of kin have been notified.
As in all cases involving the death of an inmate, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) will review the circumstances.
CSC policy requires that the police and the coroner be notified.
Keyler had a history of alcohol and drug abuse.
CBC reported earlier this year that John Keyler claimed he was in a drug-induced psychosis when he killed Sarah Foord with his Leatherman.
UPDATE — July 21, 2025: On Dec. 12, 2024, Keyler was sentenced to 11 years for manslaughter, less 2,130 days for time served. Keyler also received a two-year sentence to be served at the same time for causing indignity to human remains. He will be under a 10-year supervision order upon his release, a DNA order, and a lifetime weapons ban.
A northern B.C. man who stabbed his common-law partner to death with the blade of a multitool and then buried her at a remote natural gas site has been found guilty of manslaughter and indignity to human remains.
John Wendell Keyler was charged with second-degree murder in the 2020 slaying of 38-year-old Sarah Foord at their home in Taylor.
AB.C. Supreme Court judge said the evidence didn’t definitively show Keyler intended to kill Foord, which is necessary for a murder conviction.
