Police say hit man and fellow murderer caught trying to flee B.C. prison

SURREY — Two murderers including gangland hit man Dean Wiwchar have been charged with attempting to escape from a British Columbia pretrial centre last month.

The Surrey Police Service says in a news release that correctional officers observed the men attempting to escape from the exercise yard at Surrey Pretrial Services Centre on Dec. 7.

It says 40-year-old Wiwchar and 34-year-old Harry Christensen were both charged on Tuesday and remain in custody serving their original sentences as the wait new court dates.

Wiwchar was one of four men who was convicted of first-degree murder and handed a life sentence for a brazen daytime shooting at a Toronto café in 2012.

He also pleaded guilty last year to two counts of conspiracy to commit murder in relation to the killing of a man in the lobby of Vancouver’s Sheraton Wall Centre in 2012 and a plot to kill a second man.

Last March, Christensen pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the killing of a man in Chilliwack in 2018.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan, 29, 2026.

The Canadian Press