$50K reward offered to help find convicted killer who escaped B.C. prison

Police are hoping a $50,000 reward will help them find a convicted killer who escaped from a Mission, B.C., correctional facility in 2018.

RCMP say John Norman MacKenzie, 59, had been serving a life sentence since 1982 for multiple convictions, including second-degree murder and armed robbery, at Mission Institution.

He was discovered missing from the facility's minimum-security unit during a head count on Aug. 7, 2018, and police believe he may have fled Canada.

Police declined to say how MacKenzie escaped the facility and said he was considered a low-risk inmate.

He was last seen in Mission on Aug. 7, 2018, at about 7 p.m., wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. 

MacKenzie has been wanted on a Canada-wide warrant since November 2019.

Police say MacKenzie is highly intelligent and computer savvy, and has been known to carry fake driver's licences and passports.

They say he is at large internationally, but did not elaborate on where MacKenzie might be living now.

The $50,000 reward is being offered through Crime Stoppers and the Bolo Program, a charity-run initiative that targets Canada's most wanted fugitives with bright yellow ads.

The program says the reward to help find Mackenzie is only available until July 8, 2020.

"Someone knows where are you are, Mr. MacKenzie," said Bolo program director Maxime Langlois at a press conference Wednesday.

"And it's only a matter of time until you're captured, put back behind bars and face new charges for being unlawfully at large."

Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers is offering another $5,000 for information that could lead to MacKenzie's arrest.

MacKenzie is described as a white man who's five feet nine inches tall and weighs 196 pounds. He has blue eyes, greying brown hair, a greying brown goatee and a scar to the side of his right eye.

Police warn that he may be armed and dangerous and should not be approached if spotted.