AGASSIZ, B.C. - Terry Driver, the man who killed a young British Columbia woman, beat her friend and then taunted police and the media about his crimes, has died in prison.

A statement from Correctional Service Canada says Driver died of "apparent natural causes" while in custody at the medium security Mountain Institution in Agassiz.

Driver had been serving an indeterminate sentence for the first-degree murder of 16-year-old Tanya Smith and the attempted murder of her friend, Misty Cockerill, in Abbotsford in October 1995.

His trial heard he attacked the girls with a baseball bat as they were walking down the street and then dragged them into the bushes, sexually assaulting Smith and beating Cockerill close to death.

The court heard that in the period after Smith's body was found in the Vedder River, Driver called police to taunt them, saying he was the killer, that he wouldn't be caught and he was looking for more victims.

Driver claimed at trial that he came upon the unconscious girls in the bushes and saw an unidentified person running from the scene, but he was convicted in 1997 and lost a later appeal.

The trial heard Driver removed the headstone from Smith's gravesite, defaced it and then left it on the hood of a vehicle owned by the local radio station.

He also wrapped a note in a package that contained references to the murder and tossed it through the window of an Abbotsford home.

A unanimous decision from the Appeal Court panel said Driver denied any part in the murder, except to say that he felt responsible for Smith's death because he did not try to get her help.

"He gave various explanations for his behaviour after the murder, such as the telephone calls, the note, and the defacing of Ms. Smith's gravestone. Among other things, he said that he started to feed off the attention generated by the media and the investigation and that he just got 'caught up' in it," the Appeal Court decision said.

After police released some of the taunting phone calls to the media, Driver's mother recognized his voice and turned him in.

The correctional service says Driver's next of kin has been notified about his death.

Both police and the coroner have also been notified and the service says it will review the circumstances of the inmate's death.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 23, 2021.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2021