Serial killer vividly described elaborate plan to kill cell mate

Serial killer vividly described elaborate plan to kill cell mate

VANCOUVER - A convicted serial killer who methodically strangled a fellow inmate to death in their shared cell has placed blame on the federal corrections system for transferring him out of a higher-security prison.

During a police interview played at a coroner's inquest Monday, Michael McGray, 45, described in vivid detail how he planned and then killed 33-year-old Jeremy Phillips in an Agassiz, B.C., prison in November 2010 as part of a fake hostage-taking scenario.

"I don't know why they made the mistake of putting me here. I'm not a 'medium' inmate," McGray told a pair of homicide investigators the day after the crime.

"We didn't have a beef ... This was all about me, it wasn't about him."

McGray was a six-time convicted serial killer from Eastern Canada who initially was held in a super-maximum security prison in Quebec. He was later transferred to the Kent high-security prison in British Columbia, and then just before the murder, was moved to Mountain Institution, which is classified as medium-security.

The inquest was called because B.C.'s chief coroner wanted the "issues raised surrounding the safety of inmates in the prison system" to be explored.

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