Canadian True Crime - 15 Robert Pickton - Part 1

Episode Date: December 7, 2017

[Part 1 of 4] Canada's most prolific serial killer was active from the late 80s until his capture in 2002. Robert Pickton was a pig farmer who lived in Port Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver. Over 20 years, he hand-picked the most vulnerable and desperate women from Vancouver's downtown eastside, lured them to his farm, and "disposed of them" there. Who was he? And how did he get away with it for so long? Support my sponsors! Here's where the discount codes are:www.canadiantruecrime.ca/sponsorsRecommended reading:On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver's Missing Women - by Stevie Cameron.Robert Pickton: The Pig Farmer Serial Killer by Chris Swinney Podcast recommendation:The Trail Went Cold Join my patreon to get early, ad-free episodes and more:www.patreon.com/canadiantruecrimeSocial media and contact information:Visit: www.canadiantruecrime.caFacebook page Facebook groupTwitter Instagram Email: [e-mail]:Research and writing: Meg Zhang and Kristi LeeAudio production and additional original scoring: Erik KrosbySpecial thanks to Wednesday LaChanceInformation sources:Can be found with the episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca.Music credits:Erik Krosby - composer and producer of original music usedMusic below is used under an Attribution License - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Podcast theme music: Space Trip. http://www.dl-sounds.com/royalty-free/space-trip/Chris Zabriskie-Undercover Vampire PolicemanChris Zabriskie-LaserdiscChris Zabriskie-Itasca Its Glowing Red HotChris Zabriskie-Everybody’s got problems that aren't mineChris Zabriskie-Cylinders 7Chris Zabriskie - Mario Bava Sleeps in A little later than he expected toChris Zabriskie-I don't see the branches, I see the leavesKai Engel-Imminence Kai Engel-DifferenceKevin MacLeod-Blue SizzleKevin MacLeod-AnxietyKevin MacLeod-Long Note OneKevin MacLeod-Long Note TwoKevin MacLeod-Long Note ThreeKevin MacLeod-Echoes of TimeKevin MacLeod-Zombie HoodooKevin MacLeod-Night BreakKevin MacLeod-Night Music Kevin MacLeod-Sunset at GlengormKevin MacLeod-Spring ThawKevin MacLeod-CryptoPuddle of Infinity-Armchair Stellar CrossingSergey Cheremisinov-Mother's HandsSergey Cheremisinov-Sea NightMisha Dioxin-EmeraldMisha Dioxin-From the Arctic Circle To the southern seasThe 126ers-Secret ConversationsSupport the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My name's John Weir. You don't know me, but you're gonna, because I know the people that have been watching you, learning about you. They know you've done well for yourself, that people like you and trust you. Trust you. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all that information that you've freely shared with the whole world. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all the information you have at it. Yeah, I'll be in touch. Radical starring Kiefer Sutherland, new series now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. Welcome to Canadian True Crime, Episode 15, Robert Pigdon, Part 1. This is Christy.

Before I start, I wanted to thank you for your patience during the recent long break between episodes. My husband, kids and I went back to Brisbane, Australia for a family visit and were gone for most of November. Now things are always a bit hectic when we go back and I didn't want to release the first part of a series before I left and then have a huge break in between parts. So thanks for your understanding. While I was in Brisbane, I had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of you to do a night tour of the Old Boggo Road Jail. Thank you so much to everyone who came. It was really great to meet you all. And with that said, it's on with the show. Turning the page, taking a bite of your toast.

Just another day. Just another death. Just one more thing you so easily forget. You and your soft, sheltered life. Just go on and on. For nobody special from your world is gone. Just another day. Just another death. Just another hasting street horror, sentenced to death. By Sarah DeVries, 1998. Vancouver is a city like no other, located in the lower mainland of British Columbia.

It is the largest city in the entire province and one of the most affluent cities in Canada. With its culturally diverse people, advanced infrastructure and captivating landscapes, it's no wonder why Vancouver is consistently named one of the most livable cities in the world. Despite its glamorous reputation, the city hides a dark past. Within its borders lies one of the poorest neighborhoods in Canada, the downtown east side. It's a small area east of the central financial district, about two kilometers by less than one kilometer in size. With its open-air drug trade and relatively cheap housing like single occupancy hotel rooms, the downtown east side ends up being the location of last resort for people who are poor

and frequently struggling with mental illness or addiction. The downtown east side is notorious for its staggeringly high levels of homelessness and poverty, mental illness and infectious disease, drugs and sex work. So who were the sex workers? While some of them were raised by loving parents and financially stable households, others were dealt a bad hand at birth and left to struggle against generations of violence and abuse. Regardless of their upbringing, a combination of maltreatment and misfortune landed them in the downtown east side with a nasty addiction to cocaine, heroin or a deadly combination of the two, also called a speedball. Most of these women were also single mothers of young children.

Their addictions usually left them destitute and desperate. With few options to support their habits and families, they turned to street-based sex work. The fact that sex work was a criminal activity, along with the stigma and shame attached to it, made the women easy targets for violent and perverse people. In 2006, the Vancouver Sun newspaper described the downtown east side as four blocks of hell. The problems started in the 1970s and 1980s. The police and local politicians pushed sex workers from other safer residential areas of the greater Vancouver area and herded them in the downtown east side.

The strategy was that it was better to keep them all together in one unsavory neighborhood than to have them scattered around the city where the so-called respectable families lived. Gordon Campbell, Vancouver's mayor in the late 1980s unapologetically told the media that its citizens wanted sex workers off the streets. Decades later, despite government funding and attempts at revitalizing the area, this neighborhood has never managed to shake its reputation as Canada's poorest postal code. In the late 1990s, Vancouver's downtown east side experienced an unusual spike of missing women, a sudden and alarming increase from a handful of cases in the late 1980s to over a dozen missing women in 1997 alone.

People on the street started noticing and brought it to the attention of a couple of police officers on the ground who took it back to the department. The Vancouver Police Department was left with troubling decisions to make. What happened next was an onslaught of stunning events. While police could not realistically expect all the women to be found alive and well, they certainly did not anticipate the extent of murder and carnage that they would end up having to deal with. The disappearances and murders of these women shone a devastating light on the prejudice, misogyny and general apathy in both the general public and the police force itself.

The aftershocks permanently resonated within the hearts of loved ones and officers alike. All in all, it would be a string of disappearances, a killing spree and a series of poor choices by the Vancouver Police Department that would finally result in the arrest of Robert Picton, Canada's most prolific serial killer. As we all know, the work of a serial killer is never an isolated event. Not only are their victims and loved ones deeply impacted, but their crimes gouge lasting scars into the thoughts, memories and general attitudes of the public. Robert Picton has evolved into something bigger than a serial killer. In fact, he's almost turned into a caricature.

You know the one I mean. The lonely, balding pig farmer with the muddy rubber boots dawdling around comically on the junkyard farm, described as dimwitted, raised by a crazy mother. The character even elicited sympathy from some. Poor, slow Willie Picton. He didn't know any better. But that is not who he was. And this series is not just about him. It's about the dozens of women that went missing in the downtown east side.

Slivers of DNA evidence later proved that most of them were his victims, but evidence wasn't able to be found for others. Regardless, Robert Picton was the final tipping point after generations of systemic bias and tolerance, and police and political mishaps. Why did the authorities not seem to care that so many women had disappeared from the downtown east side? Robert William Picton was born on October the 24th, 1949, to Leonard and Louise Picton. They called him Willie, a nickname he would have for the rest of his life. He had two siblings each a year apart.

Linda was his older sister, and he had a younger brother named Dave. The family kept to themselves on their dishevelled farm in Port Coquitlam, a city about 40 minutes drive from the downtown east side. The locals call it Poco, and so I will too. Nowadays, the city has a population of almost 60,000, but back in 1949, it was around 3,000 people. Poco has a clearly divided north and south side, divided by train tracks. North Poco hosted nicer schools and affluent neighborhoods, and South Poco was made up of lower income families.

The Pictons were on the north side. They kept to themselves in the desolate outskirts of the farming territories, surrounding their property with junk and kept rockwilers to chase away any visitors. Neighbours did clear of the Picton farm. Leonard Picton specialised in livestock and the production of pork. Even as children, Robert and his brother Dave were expected to aid in the slaughter and butchering of pigs. Their father was said to have minimal interaction with his kids beyond working in the business and doling out punishment when they needed it in the form of beatings.

Some accounts by neighbours and co-workers paint Leonard as a violently abusive and abrasive man. However, later interviews with Robert's sister Linda portrayed him to be a respectable and well-intentioned person. Regardless of this, the main parent in charge of raising the kids was their mother Louise. But by all accounts, she was not a nurturing maternal kind of woman. In fact, she was unusual in a number of ways. Like Leonard, her primary goal in life had nothing to do with raising successful productive members of society. It was to advance the family business. Pigs. Louise was an eccentric, unkempt, workaholic.

She didn't pay any attention to her health or her appearance. She had rotting teeth and didn't care. She was heard constantly screeching orders at the kids. Former neighbours have strong memories of the Picton house. It was smelly and dirty. Louise let the farm animals roam in and out of the house, relieving themselves as they went, and she didn't seem to care to clean the mess up. It was a pig farm after all, and everyone worked with the pigs. It seemed she'd gotten used to the smell.

It didn't help that the kids only bathed once a week or so, but it was never enough to get rid of the smell. It was said that the general attitude of the Picton family was that there was nothing wrong with a bit of mess. Louise was very strict with her children. She demanded that they spend long hours slopping after the hogs and other animals, even on school days. She also nagged and shamed Robert in front of other children in town. As a result, Robert would remain quiet for long periods of time and like to hide when he was in trouble. The kids wore hand-me-down clothes. Robert had a memory of the first new outfit his mother bought him.

It was so filled with starch that he ripped it off and ran around without any clothes on. The peculiar behaviour of the Picton family did not go unnoticed to neighbours. The family looked and acted poor, but in actual fact, they weren't. Their business was fairly profitable. They just chose to live that way. Many of Robert's memories from his childhood and early adulthood were disturbing to say the least. One time, he said, as a three-year-old, he accidentally put his father's truck in neutral and sat in it as it slid down a hill. The pigs in the back of the truck all started jumping off and even though Leonard was yelling at Robert to stop the truck,

being three years old, he of course didn't know what to do and the truck slammed into a telephone pole. He said he was severely beaten by his father. At age four, his mother Louise caught him smoking a cigarette and as punishment, she forced him to smoke a cigar thinking it would cure him for good. She was right and he said it was the last cigarette he ever had. A particularly disturbing story recounts what happened to Robert's pet calf when he was 12 years old. He developed a close emotional attachment to the calf and spent all day and night with it. One day, he came home to find his favorite animal missing.

After searching all over the farm, he found the calf hanging upside down in a shed. It had been slaughtered and disemboweled. Robert would not speak for days after this discovery. He was traumatized by the incident and even as an adult, it was only something he would share with people he'd become close to. It seemed to mark the first time Robert began to develop the sentiment that life goes around and around with little meaning. Robert didn't do well at school. In today's terms, he would likely have been diagnosed with a learning disorder

and would receive appropriate therapy and treatment. And a family friend would later say that he was much more intelligent than people thought. But back in those days, he was automatically labeled slow and put in the special education classes. Being in this class was embarrassing for him and he was teased because of it. But he didn't do himself any favors with his lack of personal hygiene. Due to the farm work and the unclean house, he stunk of pigs, manure and dead animals. His hair and clothes were ratty and smelly and he didn't bathe very often. He had developed a visceral fear of showers, saying it was because his mother forced him to take them when he was younger.

This fear of showering and bathing would go with him into adulthood. Even when he was convinced to take a bath, it was too little, too late and not enough to get rid of the smell. At school, his appearance and smell provided even more reason to tease and bully him. So Robert ended up quitting halfway through high school. Rather than being upset that he decided not to continue with his education, his mother Louise was almost pleased to have an opportunity to have Robert working on the farm full time now. She worked him every spare minute he had. This was Robert's life.

He'd never really known anything else but school and the farm. And now it was just the farm. As for his siblings, Robert was said to get along with his brother and sister. When his brother David wasn't at school, he worked the farm with Robert. Their father taught them animal husbandry and butchering. But Robert would later say his sister couldn't stand the farm and tried to be away from it as much as possible. Another disturbing occurrence involving the Picton family took place on October 16, 1967. David was 16 and he just earned his driver's license.

That evening he was driving along the road when he hit one of the neighborhood children. 14 year old Tim Barrett lay crumpled on the road and David knew he was badly hurt so rushed home to tell his mother. Louise Picton stopped her housework and rushed with her youngest child back to the scene. But what she did next is bone chilling. Louise leaned down and rolled the severely injured Tim Barrett to the edge of a deep slough that ran along the road and pushed him in. She then hurried David away from the scene. The boy saw what his mother had done and realized he needed to protect himself so he drove his truck into town and met with a mechanic. There was a dent in the bumper and a front indicator light was smashed so the mechanic fixed these but he did refuse to repaint the truck.

In the meantime Tim's parents were of course frantic calling around neighbors to see if anyone knew where their son was. Just before 1am they reported him missing to police. The next morning Tim's father was searching the road area when he spotted his son's shoe at the side of the road. He and a neighbor went over to the slough, peered down into the water and found Tim's body. The police arrived right away and pulled the 14 year old out from the water. His autopsy revealed he had died from drowning. Although he had suffered from a fractured skull, subcranial hemorrhaging and a fractured and dislocated pelvis from the collision with the truck, the pathologist found that these injuries would not have proven to be fatal.

A coroner's jury deemed it to be an accident and Dave was sent to juvenile court. Louise Picton was never charged. Robert Picton would later recall these events to his co-workers. So although the incident involved his mother and brother, Robert clearly knew exactly what happened. He observed from his own mother's reaction that another person's life was inconsequential. Despite his unusual upbringing and her departure from the behavior of a normal mother, Robert remained close with Louise. He would later express a deep admiration for his mother's strength and discipline.

Robert was well known to not smoke, drink or do drugs and he didn't hang out in bars. He seemed to be more comfortable hanging around his mother even though she continuously nagged him. And while his younger brother David was dating regularly, Robert himself didn't have much luck. He was socially awkward without even taking into consideration his hygiene and appearance issues. Instead, he took up the hobby of collecting female pen pals. One of them would go on to be more than that. It was 1975 and Robert Picton was 24. He decided to take his first holiday to Pontiac, Michigan to meet a girl named Connie.

He was gone for six weeks by bus, stopping in at several cities along the way. At some point during the trip, he would later tell another pen pal called Victoria that he was stopped and asked to be a model and would receive $40 an hour. He told his pen pal that he wasn't interested so turned it down. Eventually he made it to where Connie was and by the time he left he considered himself engaged to her. Although it's not known if he actually proposed or if it was just a proclamation of the seriousness of the relationship. Unfortunately though, despite being madly in love, Robert quickly broke it off when he had to return to Port Coquitlam. In his own words, Connie was the love of his life, but she couldn't leave her job and he couldn't leave the farm.

So he went back to working while also dabbling in horses and truck driving for the British Columbia Hydro to supplement his income. In 1976, Robert was 27 and things would start to change around the farm. His older sister Linda got married and emotionally distanced herself from the family even more, avoiding them completely unless there were business decisions to make. Robert's younger brother Dave had a common law wife, Sandy, and two kids who lived on the farm. Then the next year, their father Leonard was diagnosed with cancer and died not long after on New Year's Day 1978. Sandy and Dave broke up mainly because he wasn't overly monogamous. Sandy moved out with the two kids. Robert would later tell people that he adored her and asked her to marry him, but she turned him down.

Next, there was a fire in the pigory barns, destroying them along with at least 600 pigs. Robert would spend a lot of time trying to rebuild them, but this wasn't the end of the trying times. The next year, Mother Louise was diagnosed with cancer too and her battle was a little more drawn out. Ever the workaholic, she continued to work on the farm right until she literally couldn't anymore. Robert was the one who took care of all her needs, including feeding her, bathing her, the diapering routine, and dressing her. She died on April 1, 1979, age 67. There was a shock for Robert in the will. His mother had split the estate in three, a share for Linda, Robert and Dave. Linda, described as an accountant, and David, described as a truck driver, would receive their share immediately, $86,000 each.

But as for Robert, described as a farmer, he would only receive $20,000 as a lump sum, and the rest would be available to him when he turned 40. That's in ten years time. Robert was devastated by this and saw it as a betrayal by his mother. He took his $20,000, purchased a 1977 Ford truck, and then retreated into a world of mechanics. He could fix anything. He got into junking old cars, selling the usable parts, separating the copper, selling them to scrapyards. The farm became even more of an eyesore, with the junk lining the edges of it so outsiders couldn't really see what was inside. He also went to weekly livestock auctions, bringing a client shopping list with him. He would butcher the animals when he got home, package the meat, and store it for clients in the freezers.

As for the carcass waste, he would drive it into Vancouver to an animal rendering plant called West Coast Reduction. Here's how an animal rendering plant works. With large scale machines and processes, the carcass waste would be ground up, moved into deep fat fryers, and cooked until the grease could be separated. The grease would then be used to make cosmetics, soaps, candles, plastics, and other things. West Coast Reduction was only ten blocks from Vancouver's downtown east side. By this time, Robert's older sister Linda was working in real estate and living in a well-to-do area, and David had a profitable demolition business. Neither of them wanted to do anything with the farm, and definitely not with the pigs. David was associated with the local Hell's Angels bikey gang and roped Robert into using the farm as a chop shop, where they buried stolen goods and claimed insurance money.

David was busy with his demolition business, so with Robert's experience junking old cars, he took over the chop shop side of it. It was now well into the early 80s, and Robert was in his early 30s. David became more and more involved with the biker gang scene, and Robert ended up running the chop shop completely, including managing and arranging payment for the gang of teens he'd hired to steal the cars. Robert also dabbled in cock fights and selling cigarettes and alcohol. Together, the brothers gained quite a reputation among the local gangs and other crime syndicates in Poco. Eventually, thanks to the affiliation with the Hell's Angels, the farm drew the attention of the police, who had heard word on the street that it was a chop shop. They came to investigate, but ultimately decided to focus on a much bigger priority, catching a psychopathic serial killer who'd been preying on children in the area. This was, of course, Clifford Olson, who, when convicted of 11 counts, would go on to take the title of Canada's worst serial killer for a time, until another took his place.

The End My name's John Weir. You don't know me, but you're gonna. Cause I know the people that have been watching you, learning about you. They know you've done well for yourself, that people like you and trust you. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all that information that you freely shared with the whole world. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all the information you have at it. Yeah, I'll be in touch. Radical starring Kiefer Sutherland, new series now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. Do you have a passion project that you're ready to take to the next level?

Square Space makes it easy for anyone to create an engaging web presence, grow a brand and sell anything, from your products to the content you create and even your time. When I launched this passion project six years ago, I needed some kind of online hub to manage all the non-podcasting tasks that come with podcasting. I chose Square Space because it's an all-in-one platform that seamlessly helps me achieve multiple goals. It's important to have a website that looks good, and I was inspired by Square Space's wide selection of clean and modern templates. They can be easily customized with pre-built layouts and flexible design tools to fit your needs. And you can even browse the category of your business to see examples of what others have done. I use the built-in blogging tools to create a new page for each episode, and there are so many intuitive options from embedding an audio player so listeners can stream episodes, to scheduling posts to be published on a certain date, an easily moderated comment section and automatically displaying recent episodes on the homepage.

Every Square Space website and online store includes SEO tools to help you maximize your visibility in search engines. And I love the powerful insights I can get from the analytics tools, helping me better understand who's visiting the site, where they came from and how they're interacting with it. Do you have a passion project or business idea or something to sell? Go to squarespace.com.ctc for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code CTC to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com.ctc with offer code CTC and get your passion project off the ground today. Robert Picton continued to make his runs into West Coast reduction to dump his animal waste. He was now so well known that he'd just drive up to the gate and then let him in. No one ever suspected his drums of mess.

It obviously wasn't a job that anyone wanted to do, and also it would be impossible to tell what was what. After he'd stopped by the rendering plant, Robert would treat himself to a drive around the nearby neighborhood, the downtown east side. Here, he intently watched the people on the street, particularly the sex workers that David and his biker friends had talked about. When Robert wasn't able to drive his drums into town himself, he would arrange for someone to pick them up. A driver for West Coast reduction made regular trips out to the Picton farm to pick up the drums and bring them back. He would later say when he looked in the drums, he noticed there was meat in big chunks. This was surprising because most farmers and butchers carved off every piece of meat they could find, but it seemed Robert was just throwing it away. But the driver raised an eyebrow and kept working.

Robert was a regular customer and no one asked questions. At this time, one person was noticing that there were women going missing from the downtown east side. Her name was Kim Pemberton, a young police reporter at the Vancouver Sun newspaper. Some of these women were found murdered and others just disappeared. Whenever the police announced there was a new female homicide, she would ask if the victim was a sex worker. The police continued to give the same reaction, rolling their eyes and sighing. They also didn't want to even listen to any theories about serial killers, even though in the 1980s there was one known serial killer still active. Gilbert Paul Jordan, a barber who would pick up Aboriginal sex workers and brutally force them to drink lethal amounts of alcohol until they died.

The police continued to attribute the homicides to this guy, dubbed the boozing barber. Unfortunately, it seemed these cases were not worthy of further investigation. In 1987, the RCMP finally saw the need to set up a special team to deal with the problem of murdered and missing sex workers. They had many suspects, but couldn't gather enough evidence on any of them. So, in 1989, the team was disbanded, even though the rate of missing women had not shown any signs of decreasing. But journalists continued to write about each one. They were not just another sex worker, they were people who were loved and cherished no matter what personal issues they were dealing with. The sex workers themselves chipped in to help any way they could, gathering at Wish or the women's information safe house.

Wish prided itself in being a non-profit organization that sought to improve the health and safety of women involved in Vancouver's street-based sex trade. The Wish drop-in centre at the First United Church was a women-only facility that provided the women with a full range of services that included nursing care and counselling. Women could expect a hot meal, a space to rest, and opportunities to get ready for the night. They also talked to each other and the police. They gave descriptions of the men who gave them the creeps or attacked them, many times including whole number plates they jotted down. They kept bad date lists of people who had shown violent, perverse or creepy tendencies, so they could warn each other. Robert Picton appeared more than once in the Slog Book. The police said they reviewed the information, but nothing happened.

Looking back, the police had no tangible evidence on Robert Picton, but couldn't rule him out either. And one woman would later write that her friend had an experience with Robert around this time, saying that he assaulted her and tried to kidnap her. She filed a report with police, but nothing was done. By 1989, a group of women living in the downtown east side banded together to lobby the police for more action. They held an annual Valentine's Day Remembrance Walk that started at the Carnegie Centre, a community centre in the downtown east side. They stayed on the case of the police, asking them for updates, reporting more missing women, and keeping the situation top of mind. By 1991, the RCMP decided to try again to see what they could uncover with a team of profilers, a new kind of police officer at the time. Criminal profilers connect the behaviours of a serial killer, like the kind of victim chosen, the style, and the method of killing, to determine a behavioural pattern and possible psychological portrait.

This new method unsettled the existing homicide detectives who believed in old-fashioned methods like door knocking, interviews, matching fingerprints, and analysing motive and opportunity. Obviously, the two methods are complementary, but that didn't stop the old-school detectives from feeling threatened. Nonetheless, this new group formed what would be called Project Eclipse. They were charged with analysing 25 unsolved cases of missing sex workers. And while they were doing this, the women continued to go missing. Nancy Clark was 25 years old and had two daughters, an eight-year-old and an eight-month-old baby. She wasn't from the downtown east side, she was from Vancouver on Victoria Island. She was described as a caring and sensible woman and devoted mother. She was also a sex worker.

It was her older daughter's birthday when she disappeared and she didn't return home after work. Both of these facts caused great alarm to her family, but police deemed her to not be related to the women going missing on the downtown east side. What they didn't know until much later was that Robert Picton and his brother David had gone to Vancouver Island to a demolition job, at the same time as Nancy Clark went missing. Meantime, Project Eclipse decided more brainstorming was needed, so brought in five more profilers, several high-profile ones from the FBI and from the United States. In addition, was a young Canadian officer from the Vancouver Police Department called Kim Rosmo. He had eight years' experience in the downtown east side and was a brilliant analytical thinker. He had just started to develop a new practice called geographic profiling, which involved linking a predator through analyzing the crime locations and connecting them. His idea was that serial killers worked in areas they were familiar with, areas they felt comfortable in.

Using this information, all the profilers got to work and spent a week analyzing the data. This was one of the first times that a group of international profilers had brainstormed together. It was an exciting collaboration and paved a road for the way police departments worked today. They presented their findings to a packed theatre of other investigators, profilers and stakeholders. The Project Eclipse team had sorted the sex worker murders into different groups and found that with a cluster of four linked murders, there was at least one serial killer at work, with the possible two others out there as well. They presented this to the Vancouver Police Department who owned the jurisdiction. Unfortunately, it all fell flat. The Vancouver PD were just not interested in pursuing the findings. Kim Rosmo said he believed the reason why was laziness, lack of resources, the cost and the energy required.

But most of all, he suspected that the main reason was that the findings didn't tell them what they needed to do next. This was unprecedented research and it required them to think outside the box in terms of how to proceed. They just didn't know what to do with an investigation into serial killings. So they put it in the too hard basket and went back to business as usual. Over the years, Robert and David Picton continued to run with the Hell's Angels and the farm started becoming a bit of a spot to hang out. There were girls, barbecues, bikers and lots of drinking. But Robert stayed as a bit of an outsider. He never interacted much and never dated anyone. He generally tended to the barbeque and pig roasts that seemed to be where he was most comfortable.

He was becoming famous for his barbecued pig which was proving to be a profitable side business for him and an associate named Pat Casanova. Interestingly though, the people who attended the farm party said he never used his own pigs for the pig roasts. He would always have some excuse like that the pigs were sick. Now that they were known associates of the Hell's Angels, the police kept an eye on Robert and David Picton. By the early 1990s, the chop shop rumors were still swirling and David was a fairly bad driver who'd racked up a lot of traffic incidents including accidents where he was sued for damages. He was not doing himself any favours with the police. Another thing that put David on the radar was that in 1992 he was convicted of sexual assault. He cornered a female employee on his excavation site inside an on-site trailer, pushed her up against the wall and sexually assaulted her.

She filed a complaint with the police and David was charged. But although he was found guilty, he only got probation and a $1,000 fine. After that, she was threatened by another employee that she would be cut into pieces if she didn't leave town. The poor woman was terrified after that and lived in fear for many years, suffering the effects of PTSD. Many people said that while David acted like he was a bit of an idiot, underneath it all he was very intelligent. After all, he ran several successful businesses and would often bid on large demolition jobs, frequently winning the contract with his well-prepared pitchers. While he had several different girlfriends during that time period, he also cruised the downtown Eastside and he would bring women back to the farm where he and Robert lived. In June 1992, Kathleen Watley vanished from the downtown Eastside.

She was described as a vivacious black woman, even though she was only petite in stature. She was wearing a yellow blouse and a black miniskirt. She was 39 years old. Four months later, Elsie Sebastian disappeared. She was a 40-year-old Aboriginal woman with four grown children, who were of course devastated to lose their mother. They remembered her warm and friendly nature, joyous spirit, and good sense of humour. She loved to dance to Kenny Rogers. They remembered she was so much more than a sex worker on the downtown Eastside. But evidently, the Vancouver police didn't share their view, as the family had difficulty even having Elsie declared as a missing person. Multiple attempts were made, and met with roadblocks each time. In 1993, 31-year-old Teresa Louise Triff vanished, a petite woman with curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes who had grown up in Edmonton.

All in all, 15 women had vanished from the downtown Eastside in the 14 years between 1979 and 1993, without a trace. Back on the farm, Robert and David Picton were not getting along. They had a tumultuous living arrangement there, that around 1993, ended up with Robert living on top of a freezer in a shed on the property where he'd stayed for months. After that, he and David came up with an agreement that Robert would live in a motor home on the property, and David would have the farmhouse. Both were happy with this. Despite the brothers' known problems with cleanliness and odour, combined with David's reputation of being a foul-mouthed jerk, they always seemed to have women around that were willing to work with them in exchange for housing on the farm. One of them, a girl called Tanya, moved into the motor home with Robert in 1994 and stayed there with him for 19 months.

She would later describe it as like living with an uncle. She wasn't a girlfriend, there was no sex. She said she would often go to bars at night, and when she got home, Robert wouldn't be there. But she assumed with the various activities and jobs he was involved with, that he was just working late. She described Robert as a friend, someone she liked and trusted. So much so that when she moved out to live with a new boyfriend, she still went back to the farm every day to help out. She said she had no idea about the women he was meeting in the downtown east side. Tanya was not the only female friend Robert had. After this, he always seemed to have someone around him, who didn't seem to care about his personal stench or awkwardness.

For some reason, the girls around him seemed to trust him. Around this time, Robert made another female friend who would end up being a key player in the story. Lisa Yales was a former sex worker on the downtown east side and still part of the biker scene. But at 38, she had a failed marriage and two boys aged in their early teens. She was trying to clean up her act. She lived close to the Picton farm and met Robert because her oldest son was friends with David Picton's son. One night, Robert found the teens who were out past their curfew and brought them home to Lisa. She was grateful and struck up a friendship with Robert. Before long, they were chatting on the phone and she was hanging out on the farm.

And then she moved there with her sons. They seemed to have an honest and straightforward friendship. Lisa was appalled by Robert's hygiene and general dirtiness and would often tell him he needed a bath. He didn't mind though and would fire back with complaints about her smoking inside the house because of course he didn't smoke. Again, there was apparently never a sexual relationship between them although Lisa would often lie with him for a cuddle. She noticed he was often visibly excited but never actually tried anything with her. They did lots of things together, movies at the cinema and at home, bargain shopping and going together to the animal auctions. Robert was generous with her giving her meat to take home, spotting bargains for her and even setting her up with a Costco membership. Unfortunately, David Picton didn't like Lisa even though their sons were best friends.

David would greet Lisa by saying, hi you fucking loser, how are you? It seems it was mutual. She also described David as the domineering one of the brothers and bossed Robert around until one time when he tried to trip Lisa up, Robert kicked his brother hard in retaliation. This incident only served to strengthen the friendship between Robert and Lisa. But Lisa also says she didn't know about Robert's trips to the downtown east side. He kept this side of his life a secret from her apparently. She kept her own secret though. Despite the fact that she treasured their friendship, he reminded her of Ed Gaine, the American serial killer. She'd read up on him and was a little uneasy by some of the things that Robert and Ed had in common. For example, they both had a domineering mother and an abusive father.

Despite this, Lisa wasn't afraid of Robert and was confident he would never hurt her, so she kept her thoughts to herself. Around 1994 when Robert was in his mid-40s, a sex worker named Gina met him in the downtown east side. She said she went for a walk with a fellow sex worker friend and ran into Robert who introduced himself of course as Willie. He said he was looking for company and seemed very comfortable picking up a sex worker. He'd definitely done it before. Gina's friend was the one to oblige. She got with him in his car, he paid promptly and he drove away. They both described him as a nice guy. Robert's trips to the downtown east side were becoming second nature. One of his projects was working for David on a demolition project in north Vancouver, so he would need to drive northwest from Poco through Burnaby and just over the second narrow bridge that connected to north Vancouver.

The second narrow's bridge is close to the downtown east side, so he would always make a slight detour to buy himself the company of a sex worker or two. But after a while, he tired of the commute, so decided to take his motor home to the demolition site in north Vancouver and live in it there, also watching the site as security out of ours. This location was much closer to the downtown east side and he began spending more and more time there. He started hanging out at local bars, which were the hangout spots of the down and out people who called the area home. He developed a routine. Given that he didn't drink, he would drink soda and when he found a woman he liked, he'd give her money to buy dope. He of course didn't smoke it, it was for her, an incentive. Sometimes he was able to talk them into driving with him out to his farm to party more. The list of missing women continued to grow. 35 year old Lee Miner grew up in a middle class family in California.

She was one of four kids, but the family had a few setbacks. Her father died suddenly of a heart attack when she was a teenager, devastating the entire family. Next, Lee's husband suffered crippling depression and died by suicide with a shotgun, dying in her arms. Lee's devastation was exponential and she began using heroin to cope. Addiction soon followed. She desperately tried to give it up, most especially when she discovered she was pregnant in 1986, but her little girl ended up with her mother and younger sister. Her family tried desperately to help her, including moving everyone from California to Vancouver thinking surely they would do better in British Columbia. But Lee just couldn't shake her drug addiction and ended up in the downtown East Side. On Christmas Day 1994, her family on Vancouver Island waited for her to show up, all day, with unopened presence.

But Lee never showed up. They just assumed she hadn't kept her promise. Finally, six weeks later in February, with still no word from Lee, her mother Doreen went to the downtown East Side to look for her daughter. Unsuccessful, she tried to file a missing person report, but the police showed little interest and nothing happened. The next August, 17-year-old Angela Arsenault disappeared after she'd been shopping with her boyfriend in downtown Vancouver. She boarded a bus home and wasn't seen again. She didn't work or live in the downtown East Side, but she is included in the count because that's where she was last seen. The next year, 1995, saw a massive spike in the number of women who went missing. 27-year-old Catherine Gonzalez disappeared in March, leaving behind a daughter. In the next month, Catherine Knight, age 27, went missing.

Catherine grew up in poverty, and by the time she was 15 she was homeless and relying on sex work to survive. But like most of the women, Catherine made efforts to keep in touch with her family with regular phone calls. Phone calls that just stopped, abruptly. Dorothy Spence, age 33, went missing in July 1995. Dorothy came from an Aboriginal family and was close with her sister. But again, the phone calls stopped. The last to go missing in 1995 was Diana Melnick, age 20, who was last seen just after Christmas. She came from a middle-class family and went to a private school, yet somehow ended up descending into drug addiction and petty crime. In the meantime, big things had happened with the Pictons.

Robert's sister Linda was by then a successful realtor and had decided it was time to start selling off the farm. Port Cacuitlam was no longer the rural area it once had been. It was now a fast-developing residential suburb of Vancouver, with new housing developments taking over. Linda saw the potential in the farmland. In 1994 she negotiated the sale of the north end of the farm for $1.76 million to a developer, who wasted no time in building a dense townhouse development. The next year, the city of Port Cacuitlam bought another piece of the farm for $1.17 million, and yet another piece was sold for $2.3 million earmarked to be a school.

The Pictons did well for themselves beforehand. But after the sale of this land, Linda, Robert and David ended up quite wealthy. Linda was able to distance herself from the brothers even more, and the brothers had their pockets lined with wads of cash to do whatever they wanted with. David had an idea for a new business. He saw an opportunity for a local hangout venue, a beer and dance hall, that would service his biker friends and other locals. He purchased a property around the corner from the farm, and converted one of the large corrugated iron sheds on it into a new entertainment venue.

For the fittings and furnishings, he used those he'd salvaged from several nearby pubs and restaurants that had closed down. He called it Piggy's Palace. It featured a dance hall, bar and restaurant, and could safely fit more than 150 people. There was also a disco ball and sound system to ensure their customers were having a good time. Many local bands found great gigs there. It was also the local hangout of drug dealers and sex workers. He wanted food served, so he brought in women he knew to cook, and of course they also served Robert's famous barbecued pork.

Apparently the food was quite good, everyone was excited, including Robert. He saw this as a new opportunity for him to maybe find a girlfriend. He'd spent many years regretting the failed engagement with Connie Anderson, and had been firmly friend-zoned by the women he had around him since. He decided it was time for a makeover. He had become the very definition of scraggly as he got older. He was a rat-faced man with greasy, stringy hair that was bald on top, a patchy, graying beard and a toothy grin. He walked around town in muddied rubber boots and clothes stained with blood.

His lack of personal hygiene, academic failures and acid tricity repulsed most of the women he met. It was time to change. He purchased a hairpiece to cover the top-boulding part of his hair, although he still kept his own hair long down the back of his neck. He also tried to take more frequent showers and purchase new jeans and t-shirts. Unfortunately though, the hairpiece didn't last long. He of course didn't take care of it, so it succumbed to his own filthy hygiene habits. At this time, he also moved out of the motorhome and into a large mobile home, which he positioned on the farm.

He used the living room as a spare bedroom where his friends and acquaintances would stay, including the women who came to clean, help him with work and just keep him company. Just like the trailer and the farmhouse, the mobile home soon became a mess. Meanwhile, the new entertainment venue was incorporated as Piggy Palace Good Time Society. It was supposed to be throwing parties to benefit local charitable organizations in need, but in reality, this was murky. It was still a biker hangout. In fact, the Hell's Angels took over the place every couple of weeks for a private party,

and they seemed to be always there at other times. But Piggy's Palace had a reputation as a local fun spot, and there was a much wider clientele than just bikers. They were visited by off-duty police officers as well as business owners and city officials. A counselor even rented Piggy's Palace for an end-of-season party for a local sports team that he coached. Even the mayor of Port Coquitlam, Len Trambolay, visited once. There was always noise coming from the venue, from the country music to the Harley bike engines. Piggy's Palace even had security and bouncers. Not surprisingly, locals started to complain about the parties.

The city tried to shut them down, but the Pictons fought back. But the truth was, despite the occasional high flyer who frequented, the reputation of Piggy's Palace preceded it. It primarily was a party place with drugs and sex workers. Ruffer patrons. By 1995, people were finally starting to pay attention to the women going missing from the downtown east side. The talk of a serial killer was becoming stronger. Later that year, three sex workers from the area were found in remote areas east of Vancouver. The battered bodies of Tracy Olajide, 30 years old, and Tammy Pipe, 24 years old, were found near the Agassiz Mountains, about 50 kilometres east of Vancouver.

And not long after that, the body of Victoria Younger, aged 35, was found in the same area. The police went through a list of suspects, including a local violent offender out on parole, who was cleared after DNA testing. Also included was a suspect who had terrorized the Seattle, Washington area between 1982 and 1984, and also had a track record of leaving the bodies of his victims in remote woodland areas. This was, of course, Gary Ridgway, the notorious Green River killer, who would later be convicted of 48 murders and believed to be responsible for many more than that. The police had their eye on him, but didn't have enough evidence to arrest him. Seattle is only three hours drive south of Vancouver, and Gary was aware the US police were watching him, so he did come to Vancouver during this time. DNA evidence ended up clearing Gary Ridgway of suspicion, so the police moved to another suspect, Robert Picton.

As we know, the Picton brothers were well known to the police in several jurisdictions, including the Major Crimes Unit of the RCMP, as well as the police in Coquitlam and Vancouver. For unexplained reasons, despite both brothers having a reputation, some had a suspicion that Robert was the one who might be a serial killer. They finally managed to obtain a sample of his DNA, but it didn't match. By this time, Robert's close friend Lisa Yales had moved out of the farm with her kids to a place on their own. She said she was glad to have moved because with Robert and David's new money and Piggy's palace being open, the police had changed. It was a roaring success, and David and Robert were the center of attention. Lisa of course stayed in touch with Robert, and one day he asked for help. He knew she had a police scanner and listened to police calls often.

It seemed that Robert was scared and paranoid that the police were going to raid the palace, even though many of them frequented as customers after their shift was over. With his close friend Lisa having moved away, Robert missed her and began to spend more time in the downtown east side. He would buy drinks for the girls and often pick one to take home. This was about the time that Gina Houston came back into his life. As you'll recall, Gina was the sex worker he met in the early 80s a decade beforehand. By now, she had actually moved out to Poco, and she ran into Robert when her friend was working at Piggy's palace. He didn't remember her, but she remembered him. Gina was a known con artist and identified Robert as being someone gullible that she could trick.

Gina would eventually take Lisa Yelts's place as Robert's best female friend. Back at the Vancouver Police Department, Kim Rosmo's reputation with police departments around the world continued to flourish. The young profiler was highly educated and people were watching his doctoral thesis project with interest. It was a computer program he created and patented called Rigel, which would go on to be a primary tool used by geographic profilers today. The software applies a formula he developed that predicts where a serial killer lives based on the places they are most comfortable. Kim was turning into a real superstar. His leading edge findings in the criminal science world made him a sought after public speaker and conference participant. Unfortunately, Kim and his work were not such a hit with his colleagues at the Vancouver Police Department.

The Old Boys Network reigned supreme, and they didn't like this young upstart coming in and upheaving their methods. Jealousy was rife. They made life at the office difficult for Kim with petty behaviors, like giving him the cold shoulder, cutting his budget for office supplies, and refusing to share information with him. Kim had one champion though, Ray Canuel, chief constable of the Vancouver Police Force. He gave Kim a promotion which angered the Old Boys Club even more. Already apathetic about the cases of missing women, the jealousy of Kim Rosmo's intelligence and innovation motivated them to ignore his groundbreaking work even more. And while petty sores fested in the Vancouver PD, the women continued to go missing.

In April of 1996, 36 year old Fran Young would become one of them. She had a great sense of humour, a big happy smile and enjoyed experimenting with makeup and cosmetics. She was close with her family and loved animals. She was last seen on the downtown east side taking a walk in the evening. Her mother was of course frantic and reported her missing to the Vancouver PD, where she was told there wasn't much they could do. Her mother would continue to advocate on behalf of her daughter Fran doing everything she could to find her. These women may have meant nothing to the Johns who picked them up, but they each had a family who loved and missed them. So too did the family of 23 year old Tanya Marlowe Hollick.

Tanya had been given up for adoption when she was two years old and her adoptive parents lived in the small First Nations community of Clemtu. Eventually Tanya met her biological mother for the first time and moved in with her in Vancouver. Her mother wasn't a particularly good influence and liked to party. Tanya soon followed suit. From then on she would bounce between her mother's house and her sister Cathy's house back in Clemtu. Tanya ended up having a baby son, who motivated her to kick her addiction for a while. But two days before Halloween 1996, Tanya left her son for visitation with her ex-partner for three days and headed to a Halloween party. She didn't come home.

Three days later, her mother tried to file a missing person report with the Vancouver PD and was told that Tanya was probably just out having fun. Their response was, don't waste our time. Tanya was never seen again. The last woman to disappear from the downtown east side in 1996 was 22 year old Olivia Williams, one of the least known victims. She had long brown hair, brown eyes and was described as having a sweet child's face. Also in 1996 would be the first of two women who were lucky to have lived to tell the tale of their dangerous encounters with Robert Picton. Tracy Byron lived with her husband in a small room in the downtown east side, both existing to fund their drug addictions. Her husband would wait for her to earn the money and bring home the food, money and drugs. Tracy was desperate to get clean and go home to Victoria to see her five kids.

She had her regulars, but Robert was not one of them. One night, he pulled up to her and said he wanted oral sex. This seemed to be his preferred service. She said when she got into his car, the stench of filth almost drove her straight back out. She said it smelled terrible like barn animals. Despite this, she went with him out to his trailer, which she described as disgusting. There was stuff everywhere. They completed the transaction and he said he couldn't find his wallet. She said he pulled out a knife, accused her of stealing it and cut two buttons off her shirt. She was able to walk out and strangely he finally came out and gave her back her bag and wallet.

He then drove her back to the downtown east side, chatting jovially about how he liked helping sex workers to kick their drug addictions. But chillingly, he said if they went back to the drugs, then they don't deserve to live. Quote, they're useless, they're better off dead. Tracy gathered that Robert was picking out the worst drug addicts in the downtown east side, especially the ones in withdrawal, the most desperate ones. He tried to get them to trust him, but she was different because she had a rule that she didn't use drugs when she was with a date. Unlike the other girls, she didn't ask him for drugs. She didn't have that currency and came to the conclusion that that's why she was able to get away. He never stopped her for company again.

Tracy told her sex worker friends what had happened and Robert Pickden's name was again noted on the bad date list. It was now New Year's Day in 1997, and 52-year-old Maria Lellaberte was the first downtown east side woman to disappear. Although she was last seen on New Year's Day, she wasn't reported missing until five years later. Almost no information is known about Maria except that she was Aboriginal. Just 10 days later on January 11th was the last time anyone would hear from or see 20-year-old Stephanie Lane. She was part Aboriginal, part Black, and described as beautiful. Her mother said she was pretty, popular, and had been spoiled by her family, but she fell in with a bad crowd. Her family had been desperately trying to get her to kick her addiction to heroin.

Stephanie was willing and had begun the detox process, but tragically went missing shortly after. The following month in March, two more women went missing. The first was 29-year-old Sharon Evelyn Ward, a petite Caucasian woman who had survived a tough life. A phone call was the last time her family heard from her, and they weren't even home at the time she called, so it was just a voicemail. Also that month, 25-year-old Cara Ellis disappeared. Originally from Calgary, she'd been a sex worker since she was 13 years old. She was a troubled teen, but always stayed in contact with her family although sometimes sporadically. Her brother's fiance went to Vancouver to look for Cara and tried to report her missing to the Vancouver PD but found them extremely unhelpful.

Also in March of 1997 was the incident that produced the second survivor of a Robert Picton attack, but unlike Tracy Byron, she did not make it out completely unharmed. Her real name remained protected by a publication ban for a long time, and different recounts of the story call her different names, but eventually she came forward and her real name was known, Wendy Lynn Eisteder. Wendy was 30 years old at the time and had two young kids who lived with their father in North Vancouver. Wendy was a drug addict, speedballs were her preference, a mix of heroin and cocaine. That day, she'd lost $60 gambling and needed to make it up. She'd had her fix and was ready to work. A red Chevy pulled up. It was Robert Picton trolling for a blowjob. Here's Wendy. There were several times during the car ride to Poco when Wendy felt uncomfortable. Robert refused to make small talk and appeared distant. She asked if they could stop at the Petro Canada as she needed to use the washroom. He kept driving.

She noticed how he gradually braked ahead of every red light so he never had to completely pause at an intersection. Finally, they made it to their destination. When pulled in, he had to get out and unlock his gate. I didn't know it was a farm. It was more of a junkyard, beat up old wreck cards. And then we went in. We went down through the trailer towards the back room. As we were going through, I remember the kitchen was so dirty and grubby, but I remember this big, large butcher knife sitting on this table. And then you go further down and we went into a room where there was no bed or nothing. Just a big roll of plastic, clear plastic and a sleeping bag on the floor. After the room, I asked him if I could borrow his phone because I wanted to call my boyfriend at that time and tell him where I was and that I'm on my way back. I was bent over the table looking in the phone book for the hotel number where we were staying.

And I could feel something behind me and I turned around. It was him behind me and he had grabbed my left hand and crested it. And real quickly, he slapped a handcuff on my left hand. Wendy immediately began to fight, punching and kicking him with him countering back. She remembered the knife she'd seen on the kitchen table when she came in and edged backwards towards the kitchen as he came for her, throwing punches and slaps. She felt around for the knife and grabbed it, but she accidentally grabbed the blade, which slipped through her hand carving into her palm. But she was able to grab it properly and leapt at him, slashing at his throat and then his cheek. The slashes were quite deep. You fucking bitch, you got me, he roared. He grabbed a rag with one hand and the other picked up a stick and swung it at her.

She picked up anything she could find and threw it at him, including a plant. The fight continued and they ended up outside with him pinning her down against his truck. She lost consciousness for a short while and then came to. He stabbed her multiple times in her abdomen before he started to slide to the ground. He was losing consciousness due to his own injuries. Wendy grabbed the knife and started to run, covered in blood. She ran for her life down the dirt laneway towards the gate of the property. She ran up two neighboring houses but got no answer.

Headlight suddenly appeared down the road, but she was scared it was him so she ducked down. As the car came closer, she saw there were two people and one was a woman. Feeling safer, she screamed out to them to help her. What they saw was a skinny little woman waving a butcher knife, covered in blood, almost naked, with her intestines starting to spill out of her stomach. Don't stab us, the man in the car yelled. Wendy threw the knife to the ground. The man helped her into the back seat and took her to hospital.

As they left, she pointed to the farm and said if anything were to happen to her, the guy that did this to her lived on that farm in the trailer. As they were driving, the female passenger called 911 and the ambulance met them on the way to the nearest large hospital, the Royal Columbian in New Westminster. The male driver informed the police that the man who was responsible had also been stabbed. Wendy had a badly cut hand, a punctured lung and deep wounds in her abdomen. She was losing blood quickly and was swept into an operating room. The doctors worked on her and were able to save her,

but everyone was wondering about the handcuffs that was still around one of her wrists. About half an hour later, the police with Wendy at the hospital received word that a second stabbing victim, a male, was on his way to the hospital. He'd been to a smaller hospital first and they didn't have the facilities to cope with him. While Robert was being operated on, one of the police officers was trying to piece together what had happened and went through his clothes collecting evidence. In one of his pants pockets, he found a key and took it to the other officer who was still with Wendy. They tried the key and the handcuffs on her wrist and they opened.

Other police officers were in the farm neighbourhood questioning the Hell's Angels hangout opposite the farm. There was blood all over the door and steps. This was one of the houses that Wendy had tried to break into as she escaped. They found the knife there and searched the Picton farm, logging and cataloging the items they'd seized. It was a long night. When Wendy woke after surgery, she told the police the story except left out the part about her being a sex worker because she was scared they would take the hundred dollars she had received from Robert. She called the father of her boys and told them that since she was going to have to be in hospital for weeks,

she may as well use the time to try and kick her drug habit. For a while things went well. She left the hospital, moved in with her boys and their father and began a methadone program. But as so often happens, the addiction called to her again and it wasn't long before she was back on the streets. The local newspaper covered the story but didn't name Robert or Wendy. They referred to him only as a 49 year old man saying he would be charged. That's where we're going to leave it for this part one. They had Robert.

Wendy had the handcuffs. Robert Picton had the keys in his pocket. They matched. Close case, right? Wrong. Thanks for listening. Along with my usual news releases and articles, I'm utilizing three main resources for these episodes. One of them is a book called On the Farm, Robert William Picton and the tragic story of Vancouver's Missing Women by Stevie Cameron.

Stevie is an investigative journalist and she really got down into the weeds of this case. She included many in-depth back stories to many of the other characters including the missing women. A huge thank you to Stevie Cameron for giving me permission to use her fine book as a resource. She was really lovely. And the second book is Robert Picton, The Pig Farmer Serial Killer by Chris Swinney from the book series called Crimes Canada, True Crimes That Shocked the Nation. I've utilized a few books from this series on some previous episodes and they provide great high level looks at the cases. Links to both of these books are in the show notes. I wanted to say that most of the audio bites I'm using in this series is from the 2011 documentary series for CTV called The Pig Farm by filmmaker Christine Nielsen.

If you liked this show and wanted to support it, you could tell a friend to listen or recommend my podcast. Thank you so much to everyone who has left such amazing reviews on Apple Podcasts and the Facebook page. I love reading every single one of them. Also, the Apple Podcasts reviews in particular help me get more visibility on the charts which attracts more listeners. So that's a huge help for me. You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and join my discussion group on Facebook. Dylan Millard and Mark Smith's trial for the murder of Laura Babcock is happening right now. So there's a lot of discussions around that in the group.

You can find me on social media, just search for Canadian True Crime. And lastly, you could pledge a couple of dollars at my Patreon site and in return you'll receive rewards like the early release of ad-free episodes, being in the know with episodes I have planned and occasionally surprise gifts. Thanks to my patrons, I've been able to launch my new website, www.canadiantruecrime.ca. It's just a little basic at the moment, but I'll be continuing to build on it as I have spare time here and there. So a massive thank you to these patrons. Karen S, Nicola H, Tara G, Ryan M, Janine M, Emily P, Brooke A, David N, Andrea M, Saraya C, Mike M, Lisa C, and Tony and George Plattis from the Dirty Bits podcast.

I will be playing you a promo in a couple of episodes time. And now for the podcast recommendation. Today we have a Canadian podcast called The Trail Went Cold with Robin Water. If you haven't already heard it, this highly respected podcast tells stories of unsolved mysteries from various places, both within Canada and outside, and you will be hearing Robin on this podcast in an upcoming episode. Hello everyone, this is Robin Water, host of the True Crime podcast, The Trail Went Cold. If you grew up watching the classic television show Unsolved Mysteries, then this is the podcast for you. Each week, I profile a new unsolved murder or missing persons case and share all the baffling details.

Afterward, I provide my own personal analysis and theories about what might have happened. This is a show for true crime buffs who are fascinated by cold cases and love to discuss them and pick them apart in an attempt to figure out the truth. So be sure to check out our podcast to learn about some truly bizarre unsolved mysteries where the trail went cold. This episode of the Canadian True Crime podcast was researched and written by Meg Zhang and me with audio production and scoring by Eric Crosby. Special thanks to Wednesday La Chance, cousin of victim Marnie Frey, who provided valuable information and input into this series. And also thanks to Beck and Tyler Allen from the Minds of Madness. Beck voiced the poem written by Sarah DeVries at the start of this episode and Tyler voiced my new disclaimer. I'll be back soon with part two. I'll see you then.

My name's John Weir. You don't know me, but you're gonna. Because I know the people that have been watching you, learning about you. They know you've done well for yourself, that people like you and trust you. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all that information that you freely shared with the whole world. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all the information you have at it. Yeah, I'll be in touch. I'll be in touch.