Hamilton inmate Billy Cummer — who asked to be jailed for life — dies of cancer

A Hamilton inmate who was the focus of a Spectator feature three years ago has died in custody at the Bath penitentiary near Kingston.

Billy Cummer died on Aug. 21 from complications due to esophageal cancer, according to his daughter, Ashley. He was 50 years old.

Cummer was nearly halfway through a 12-year sentence for robbery, break and enter, possession of a weapon and uttering threats.

With his distinctive tattooed and shaved head - the words Steel City" were inked above his forehead and tattooed gun barrels that mimicked thick sideburns ran down each side of his face - Cummer was unmistakable.

Cummer had lived a life of near-constant, unimaginable violence since he was a child, cycling through a variety of prisons.

Over the years, Cummer had accumulated two bullet wounds from a failed hit on him, numerous stab wounds across his torso, a healed-over hole in his rib cage where a tube was inserted to drain his lungs, and he was once put in a coma.

He had a heart murmur, liver damage, nerve damage to his legs, and holes in his esophagus from acid reflux that went unrepaired for a long time.

I've been piped, I've been stabbed, I've been shot, I've been poisoned, I've been jumped and I've poured so much dirty dope in me, it's ridiculous," Cummer said in an interview with The Spectator at the Bath penitentiary in the spring of 2017.

When he stood before Justice Toni Skarica in Hamilton court on Dec. 5, 2016, to be sentenced for his most recent set of charges, Cummer made the unusual request to be jailed for life because he believed he was too institutionalized to survive outside the prison system.

Just as remarkably, Skarica turned down his request.

You've still got time," Skarica told him. You still have a shot.

You're not irredeemable yet," the judge said.

The words struck Cummer like a thunderclap. A life-changer," he would say later.

It was the kindest words anybody's ever used on me, especially in a courtroom," Cummer said.

In a Facebook post, Ashley paid tribute to her father. They had reconnected in recent years.

I love you Dad so much," Ashley wrote. Since we reunited again we were so close, and now knowing you are gone forever is killing me.

I just wish I could have one last visit, one last hug, one last conversation to remind you how proud I was to be your daughter."

In an interview, Ashley said her father had been taking programs in prison and was looking forward to his release in four years and getting to know his grandkids.

People look at him and think he's scary but he was really just a big teddy bear," Ashley said.

A spokesperson for the Correctional Service of Canada said no further details would be immediately released. The coroner's office for the Kingston district did not respond to a request for information.

Steve Buist is a Hamilton-based investigative reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbuist@thespec.com