S04E12: ROBERT PICKTON (CANADIAN SERIAL KILLER MINI-SERIES, PART IV)

Robert “Willy” Pickton is one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers. His killing spree went uninterrupted for years, starting in the early 1990s until his arrest in 2002.

Living on a dirty pig farm all his life, Willy was known for his stench, his money, and his frequent company with sex workers. Despite rumours and eyewitness accounts, police could not connect Willy to the dozens of women going missing from Vancouver’s downtown east side. It took them years to admit a serial killer was roaming the streets of downtown Vancouver, allowing for Willy's reign of terror to endure for over a decade.

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EPISODE RESOURCES:

Beyond Crime, YouTube: Robert Pickton | Confessions of a Serial Killer | S1E09.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRLOQnp36-I 

 CBC News. B.C. judge bans publication of 1997 pig farm warrant. March 08, 2002.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/b-c-judge-bans-publication-of-1997-pig-farm-warrant-1.321041

 CBC News. Pickton investigators defended by man who warned of killer. February 11, 2012.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/pickton-investigators-defended-by-man-who-warned-of-killer-1.1169223 

 Crime Junkie Podcast. MISSING: Women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-women-vancouver-downtown-eastside/

Crime Junkie Podcast. SERIAL KILLER: Robert William Pickton.
https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/serial-killer-robert-william-pickton/

True Crime Canada: The Willy Pickton case. By Jeremy Hainsworth. October 15, 2022.
 https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/video/true-crime-canada/true-crime-canada-the-willy-pickton-case-5166046 

The Pig Farm Documentary.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HfVIurJA8

The Toronto Star. Pickton's mother was a key influence. By Stevie Cameron. June 17, 2007.
https://www.thestar.com/news/2007/06/17/picktons_mother_was_a_key_influence.html 

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Transcript

Katie: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.

So the whole situation is messed up. Imagine knowing that women are going missing, that there's a potential serial killer out there, hearing these rumors. The person that you're living with is the one doing it, then fucking actually seeing him do it and then still not doing anything.

He would show up at butcher shops and he'd just be covered in blood and everyone just accounted that to him to having just butchered some pigs and not bothering to clean himself up before he went out. 

AJ: Well, and also I don't understand, it's like there was someone who said there was a rumor going around that he had body parts in his fridge. How are people okay with it? How is that just a rumor?

Katie: So after all this, Willie was arrested again and this time under the suspicion of murder, and he was originally just charged with the murder of two women, but this would eventually grow to 26 women.

AJ: Hey everyone. Welcome back to Crime Family. So for this week's episode, we are going to be concluding our four-part mini-series on Canadian serial killers. To wrap up the mini-series, we are going to be talking about the Robert Pickton case. This one is pretty well known I think if you're especially Canadian, you're probably for sure have heard of him. He's one of the most notorious serial killers in Canada in recent memory. So definitely, well known and that's why we wanted to finish off with this one because it is one that a lot of people at least have heard of before, if not know all the details. So I'm excited to get into it with you guys. So Katie can take it away.

Katie: Okay. Yeah. So like AJ just said, Robert Pickton is probably the most, or one of the most well-known in Canadian history for serial killers. He's the most prolific serial killer in Canadian history and probably in North American history, actually. Pretty disturbing, pretty scary stuff that happened so brace yourself for that. So, yeah, I'm just gonna get into it. I know that you guys know a little bit about Robert Pickton. This case takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the other three serial killer cases that we did took place in the Toronto area in Ontario, which was by accident realized that they're all in the Toronto area. This one's in Vancouver. A lot of serial killers in Toronto. I guess Toronto's kind of a hole. I'm just kidding. I always make fun of Toronto, but it's really not that bad. Okay. So before I get into actually talking about Robert Pickton, I just wanna talk a little bit about where most of this takes place or where it starts, and that's Vancouver's downtown east side. And so this neighborhood is known as Canada's poorest neighborhood. It's like Canada's skid row. I think we've talked about this neighborhood in a few other episodes in the past. So this is the section of the city on East Hastings and Main Street, and it's where the homeless, drug addict population has congregated for decades. Drugs are easy to get here. Women prostitute day and night. There's pimps everywhere. And it's estimated that there's anywhere from 5,000 up to 10,000 people who live on these streets at any given time. Heroin and crack cocaine are the drugs of choice for most of the people here. HIV is very prevalent among the residents, and at one point there was at least one death every day on the streets of the downtown east side. Another horrific fact about this area is a section called the kitty stroll, and that's where children, mostly girls, as a young as 11, can be found prostituting. Many of these girls come from broken homes. Their runaways, maybe their parents currently live or used to live in this area as well. A lot of the female population who live here are single mothers who of course have lost their children. The children have been taken away from them, and many of them have no idea where their children are. So, you know, very sad, vulnerable population here, especially, you know, the children that are going through this as well. This is definitely the most prominent example of the homeless and drug population in Canada. In 1994, the government cut back on welfare payments, and so those that were living on the edge were pushed over and many of them likely found themselves unable to make ends meet and were forced into sex work. A lot of the mental health facilities in the area were closing down, and they were literally just shoving their residents onto the streets. Many of them had nowhere to go. They had no one to look out for them. They had no money. They were severely mentally ill. And so they just found their way down to the downtown east side and they got no help, and they're just getting worse, and a lot of them still live there today. So of course, some of the people that were living on the streets of the downtown east side were just travelers or those that were passing through, but a lot of them are long-term residents that are stuck in that lifestyle. They're severely addicted and they don't have anyone looking out for them. Of course, everybody has a family somewhere, but if you've been transient and homeless for years or decades, you lose touch with family, and so it's not uncommon for the people living there not to have regular contact with family or friends. If they do go missing off the street, who is really going to notice, especially right away. Many times people just up and leave on their own as well. They are attempting to get out of that life, start somewhere new. Some of them might be afraid of someone there and so they need to hide out for a bit. There's many reasons why a lot of people leave and may not be accounted for and a lot of them do show up down the road or later on are found. So that's just kind of the basic picture I wanted to paint of the downtown east side of Vancouver. And I guess I feel like you've ever been there or anywhere like it, it is really startling and sad. I remember being on the bus, driving through there, or even walking down the streets occasionally when I lived in the Vancouver area and it's just super depressing just being there. It's scary and stressful, so I can't even imagine that being my life. Super, super unfortunate and it's a huge problem.

AJ: Yeah, Vancouver's a hole. I'm just kidding. 

Katie: Yeah, sounds like it. So with all that, I'm gonna get into a little bit of Robert Pickton's background. His name is Robert William Pickton, or Willie as a nickname. He was born on October 24th, 1949 to Leonard and Louise Pickton. They called him Willie so that was a name that just stuck with him as he grew up. He had an older sister named Linda and a younger brother named Dave, and they lived in Port Coquitlam on a farm, which is about 40 minutes from the downtown east side in Vancouver. Back in the fifties, it only had about 3000 people living there, but now the population is closer to 60,000 and it continues to grow. They were a family that mostly kept to themselves. They were pretty much isolated on their farm. They would line their property with old junk and they had rottweilers to chase people off their property if they happened to stumble upon it. So it really was not a place that an outsider would be welcome or want to be at all. They owned a lot of pigs and sold pork, so even as a young kid, Robert and his brother had to help out on the farm. They were even expected to help slaughter the pigs. Their mother was the one who did the day-to-day interactions with the kids as their father really only spent time with them when they were helping out on the farm, and he would beat the children as well as a form of punishment. Their mother was also apparently not a very loving or nurturing mother. She was described as very odd and really only cared about the business and doing what she could to advance it. She was a workaholic, but to the point where she didn't take care of herself or her house. She was unkept. She had rotten teeth and allowed the farm animals to run in and outta the house. They would relieve themselves in the house and no one would clean it up. So it was just a chaotic, dirty, smelly household. There was a lot of disturbing things that happened when Robert was growing up. One in particular was when he was 12 years old, he had become emotionally attached to a baby cow that was on the farm, and he would spend all his time with this cow. One day he couldn't find it, and after looking around, he found the calf in the barn hanging upside down, slaughtered and disemboweled. So that took a toll on him emotionally, I guess. Very traumatizing for a child, especially when you felt like that's your pet, and now it's dead upside down in the barn. Also, when Robert's brother first got his driver's license, he was driving around and he hit one of the neighbors with his truck. So he rushed home to tell his mother, and she went out to the scene. She found the 14 year old lying on the road, and instead of helping him, she just pushed him over the side of the road down into a swampy area. Dave went to go fix his truck so that it wasn't obvious that he had hit something or someone. So that boy that was hit actually died from drowning, and the injuries from being hit weren't life-threatening, so he probably wouldn't have died if Dave or his mother had called for help. Dave was found out though. He was caught and he was just sent to a juvenile court and his mother was never charged. Robert knew about this whole situation. He knew what had happened, and so this was just another example of how his parents didn't see the importance of other lives and that the lives of animals and even other people just came and went. That was reality. So this is, you know, maybe where his warped sense of reality starts to set in, or you know, gets triggered even more. When his parents died, Willie and his brother inherited the farm that they had grown up on and this was like a big, huge plot of land. Like I said, it had a lot of pigs and a barn where they would be slaughtered and they would grind up the meat and there was large freezers to store a lot of the meat in. It was a farm, but also a slaughter house as well. So not a place that I wanna be, that's for sure. They sold a lot of their land to developers to build houses, and so Willie and his brother actually became quite wealthy because of this. Despite Willie having money, though, he still lived in disgusting conditions and he himself was disgusting just inside and out.

AJ: Yeah, I was gonna say that he also was disgusting. You just look at pictures of him. It's like you wanna throw up. 

Katie: Yeah, and people just describing him. He wouldn't bathe, he hated showers and baths and so he just didn't do that. He stunk super bad all the time, and everyone that knew him just knew that's how he was. He was just this gross smelly man, that's Willie. Sick. He would show up at butcher shops and he'd just be covered in blood and everyone just accounted that to him to having just butchered some pigs and not bothering to clean himself up before he went out. So that, you know that was Willie. A lot of people started coming around and hanging out because they knew Willie had money and he would give people money to sort of help them out. He let people stay on the farm and do odd jobs. He would pay them. It was most of the time drug addicts or recovering addicts. It was like he was trying to help them out, but he had this power over them because he had money. They wanted money and so that's, I think the relationship that he had with a lot of his so-called friends. I guess he tried to help people out apparently that were down and out. So that's a brief description of Willie Pickton. 

So back to the downtown east side. There were always women that had been going missing from the downtown east side, but there was an increase that got some attention in 1997. Over a dozen had gone missing in that year alone, which was a spike from the handful that had gone missing throughout the late 1980s. So in just one year more had gone missing than throughout a few years. That got some attention, of course. Vancouver police started their investigation into the missing women from the downtown east side in September of 1998 when an aboriginal group sent the police a list of people that were missing from the downtown east side, and they basically demanded a thorough investigation. The police were skeptical though. When they examined this list, they did see a bunch of women who they knew had died from a drug overdose or diseases on the streets, and some who had just left but had actually been found alive previously, and so they were thinking that this list wasn't really accurate of actual missing women because a bunch of them had been accounted for. Nonetheless, I'm sure there was still a bunch on the list that were actually missing. So there was one detective named Dave Dixon. He dug a little bit deeper. He actually made his own list of women from the east side who had vanished without a trace, and there was enough names on that list for him to be concerned. He took this to his superiors and they launched a task force to investigate these disappearances. This investigation took about four years. On that list, there were 40 women who had gone missing dating back to 1971. But when they focused the list down to prostitutes from the downtown east side in Vancouver, it was reduced to just 16 missing women starting in 1995. A man named Kim Rossmo, who was another officer in the Vancouver PD, he felt that there was an actual serial killer preying on the women of the downtown east side. He was the one who created a geographical profiling technique that is still used today that highlights locations and discovers patterns in movements or signatures for crimes within a certain area. His technique did show that there was an unusually large amount of women disappearing from the downtown east side. He found that there was a statistical significance to these numbers, but police dismissed it because the people living in this area were transient, like I was saying, there was no way to know if they had come across foul play, if they had died from drugs somewhere else, or if they had just left and didn't tell anyone as they had seen so many times before, so they really weren't convinced at this time that there was a problem, let alone a serial killer. 

Stephanie: I just wanna add something to that. I don't know if you might get into this a little bit later, but I know I was listening to a podcast the other day on this case, and now they were saying that a lot of women have changed their names when they went into prostitution, so if they were looking for a certain person, they might be missing, but a few of them had changed their names, so when they were looking for these people, they're not necessarily connecting the two names together. That's interesting too, not all the girls went by their actual names. They went by an alias, so it might have been even harder to find these people. 

AJ: Yeah. Even if someone who knew them or their family says like, "We're looking for this person." If they've changed their name since then and no one knows them by that name or they go by a different name it could be very hard to connect the two, I guess.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm. 

Katie: Yeah, that's true. I actually didn't think about that. It didn't come up in anything I was looking at, so, yeah, that's a good point. I guess the people on the streets, their prostitute friends may not actually know their real name, so yeah, I guess if they brought it to the police, there's no way for them to connect that with the actual name of the person. So yeah, that's a good point. 

Stephanie: When I was doing the research I just found that part really interesting. You don't think of someone changing their name, but it makes total sense if they're out there prostituting, they don't wanna go by their real name, they wanna go by a different name. So, it would be really hard to track those people down. 

AJ: Or even if they don't change their name, but a lot of times they might be known by nicknames, like within people within the community, right? People just know them by a nickname or something and don't know their actual name because they never call them by that. 

Katie: Yeah, that's true. And I mean, there is still a lot of missing women that are unaccounted for, and you never know if there's a Jane Doe that's actually someone that was reported missing, but the names don't match up. People don't actually, you know, aren't connecting the dots there. So, yeah, that's, a good point. It's sad how that happens. So that officer that I just mentioned, Rossmo, he stuck to his theory about there being a serial killer in this area because of his geographic technique that he came up with, and he was actually demoted within the police force. Because of that, he resigned just because he was, you know, not being supported, even though he was actually the one that was on the right track. So unfortunately nothing came out from that, even though, you know, Rossmo was the actual hero here, and he could have been if people listened to him.

So Willie was frequently involved in the downtown east side. He owned a place down there called the Piggy Palace Good Time Society. This opened in the mid nineties, and it was a place where vulnerable women, dangerous people would hang out. There's a lot of prostitutes, biker gangs like the Hell's Angels, et cetera. So people like that, this was their hangout. It originally had opened as a charity that people could rent out for parties and activities, and then all of the proceeds would go to charity. Whether that happened, I don't know, but it really just was a gross, nasty nightclub for Willie and his people to hang out. Most of the people, the locals that weren't involved with Willie avoided the place and they really didn't like it. They tried to get it shut down multiple times and, you know, it really was just a dump for criminal activity. Just picturing this seedy, gross nightclub that people avoided at all costs unless they were in that lifestyle. So it actually was eventually shut down in 2000. People and the locals knew Willie through this establishment as well. It's not like he was unknown downtown. People knew him, they knew he had money, they knew him because of this place. So whether they liked him or not, it was a different story. But, you know, people knew Willie, the police knew Willie. Willie was also known for frequently using prostitutes and taking them back to his gross farm. He had money. Like I said, people knew that, so that was likely a factor in women willingly leaving with him cuz they knew that he would pay and he often paid more than they would typically get, so it was very enticing. People were catching on to things that were going on. There were rumors that a lot of the missing women that had disappeared were because of Willie and many of the missing women were indigenous, and it was known that Willie had a thing for indigenous women and a lot of his victims were indigenous. Despite the rumors that were going around, the police really weren't too interested in Willie at the beginning, so he was able to get away with what he was doing for years without any issues. He was known to the police, like I said, but not just for Piggy Palace. He was known for having a violent side. Even years before he was arrested for murder, he was brought in by police for an attack on a woman who was at his farm. In the early morning hours of March 23rd, 1997, a woman named Wendy Eistetter was found covered in blood and stabbed multiple times by passing motorists after she had escaped from Willie's house. Wendy was 30 years old. She had two children that lived with their father. She lived in the downtown east side. She was a sex worker, and she was addicted to drugs. So she agreed to go back to Willie's place because like I said, he was offering more money than the usual going rate. Once she got out to his place, things took a turn for the worst. Willie gets out a pair of handcuffs and puts one around her wrist. Of course, this freaks her out. She flips and she's fighting Willie off. She's able to grab a knife from the kitchen counter, and she's fighting him with this knife. She's able to run out the door, but Willie is close behind. They're still fighting. They're both probably fighting for their life at this point, and he's able to get the knife from her, and he stabs her in the stomach and chest before he actually collapses from his own knife wounds and Wendy's actually stabbed four times. She was able to escape though, and ultimately picked up and taken to the hospital where she survives to tell her story. Willie manages to take himself to the hospital, the same hospital that Wendy arrives at. His story that he tells is that he picked up a hitchhiker who attacked him. But people are putting two and two together. The handcuffs that are on Wendy tell a different story than what Willie is saying, and they connect the two because they find a key in his pocket that matches the handcuffs on Wendy. Willie's actually arrested and he's charged with assault with a weapon, unlawful confinement, and endangering a life. But unfortunately, these charges were eventually dropped even though he actually confesses to stabbing her because the Crown prosecutor said that because of Wendy's drug addiction, she was unable to proceed with the charges when the time came for her to stand up for them. So Willie is free and clear at this point. So, I mean, they were so close to getting him because of this incident. I mean, this is probably something that happened to a lot of his victims, but Wendy was just able to get away, but nothing came of this. 

Stephanie: So because she was a drug addict, she couldn't go to court?

Katie: I don't know the exact details, but I'm thinking that it's because maybe she was called to court or was supposed to show up, but because of her addiction, she just wasn't able to get it together. Wasn't able to testify maybe, or just wasn't in her right mind to tell her story. So that's just what happened. Since they had nobody to back up what she was saying, that was the end of it basically. 

Stephanie: That's unfortunate. 

Katie: Yeah. 

Stephanie: Especially for her since she was the one who was attacked. 

Katie: Mm-hmm. I know. 

AJ: And it's so annoying too. This is a common theme that we're seeing too, all the chances where the person gets away for whatever reason, you know, whether it's because the police don't do a good job, or because somebody doesn't testify, or, you know, for some other reasons. There's opportunities where the police could potentially catch them, but either just aren't interested in doing so, or...

Katie: Yeah.

AJ: I don't know. Or the person is just too good at evading, you know what I mean? I know we saw that with the Bruce MacArthur one a lot where he was interviewed by police and then let go and other things like that.

Katie: Yeah, it is a common theme. It almost seems like it's rare for a serial killer to be unknown and not, you know, brushed with the law and somehow still get away with things, and that happens in this case for sure. There's a documentary about this case called The Pig Farm and it interviews a lot of the people that were in Willie's life when all this was happening. They had hints here and there about things and some of them tried to act, some of them didn't do anything, but it's just crazy how a lot of these people knew what was going on, but he was still able to get away with it. Even Wendy is in that documentary, even though her identity is hidden for some reason. Maybe she comes out later with her actual identity. But anyway, it's super interesting to just hear their sides of the story. 

Stephanie: It's also unfortunate, going back to the cop who was looking into the case to begin with. He just got pushed aside cuz they didn't wanna have to deal with, I guess they didn't wanna help him out. Which is pretty sad cuz he could have been caught earlier. None of this would've happened. The attack on Wendy probably wouldn't have happened if they went along with the cop at the beginning. It's just sad that he had to resign and give up his job because nobody really wanted to help him.

Katie: Yeah. I guess admitting there's a serial killer is too much work for the police department. I don't know, but they just were not willing to go there at that time. Which yeah, is super unfortunate. 

AJ: What the fuck are the police there for? Fuck, isn't that literally their job?

Katie: I know, right? Yeah. I guess just like I was saying, just because of the population that they're dealing with, cuz they're transient, they don't have any proof really that there's anybody out there doing anything bad. These people go missing all the time. So I, yeah, it's just very, looking back, it seems very irresponsible, but I don't know, maybe when you're living it, it just seems more, even though it doesn't, because people, other people, like I was saying, they brought this list to the police, like do something about this. There was even marches about, you know, these people are missing, there's women missing, do something. So people were definitely way ahead of the cops in knowing that something was going on. Yeah. So that's unfortunate. Okay, so there was another man named Bill Hiscox. He worked at the Pickton farm and he came forward to the police in 1998 with his suspicions. Now he was familiar with Willie's habits. He knew that women in the downtown east side were going missing and he also knew that Willie had lots of women's clothing, purses and IDs in his trailer. So he put two and two together and he told the police about this, but he only knew about all this because a woman named Lisa Yelds had told him about it. So when he went to police, it was like secondhand information or hearsay to them. Police did try and follow up. They tried to talk to Lisa about it, but she just was not cooperative, and so because they didn't have anybody to corroborate what Bill was saying, they couldn't go forward with it and they just had to drop it. Now, that documentary that I had mentioned before, The Pig Farm, Lisa speaks up and she says that she didn't cooperate with police because number one, she hates cops, and number two, she actually didn't see anything. So I'm not sure where Bill got this information and if it didn't come from Lisa, why would he say it was Lisa? I feel like maybe Lisa just didn't wanna be upfront about it. You know, she says that even if she did say anything, the cops would twist it into a bigger thing than it actually was. Maybe rope her into this situation. It would become this big story that didn't actually happen. So she was reluctant to talk to the cops at all. So I think that's what's happening here as well. People don't wanna come forward because they have bad histories with the police. The police aren't trustworthy. They have put them in bad situations in the past, people are looking out for themselves. So that's maybe what's happening here. But it just seems like this tip from Bill is huge and could have, you know, blown this thing wide open, but it just didn't go anywhere. It's frustrating looking back now to be like, "Oh my God!" So in 1999, police are starting to put the pieces together. They decide that it's time to start really watching Willie. So I'm not sure where their change of heart came from. Maybe it was these tips that they were getting, so they're like, "Okay, maybe Willie is a problem." So they actually get a surveillance team together and they start surveilling Willie. They were told to stop him right away if they saw him trying to pick up women or if women are getting into his vehicle or anything like that. So for two weeks they follow him around in unmarked cars and they got nothing. Also during this time, they decided to send his DNA for testing. So back when he was arrested for attacking Wendy, they collected his boots and clothes and got all of his, you know, DNA, and so they had that on file and they submitted it. So around the same time, there were a few bodies of women that had turned up in the Vancouver area. They decided to test Willie's DNA against these bodies that had been found, but there's no match. So Willie's DNA doesn't match the DNA that's found on these bodies. And so because police were even hesitant to admit that there was one serial killer in Vancouver, they thought because Willie's DNA doesn't match, you know, if he's a serial killer too, then they would have to be admitting that there's two serial killers. They're not willing to go there. They just figured that Willie wasn't their guy, you know, DNA doesn't match. They stop the surveillance on him after that. Looks like they almost got there, but then, you know, just didn't quite get all the way . There was also an America's Most Wanted episode that aired around the same time about all the missing women in Vancouver, and there was a hundred thousand dollars reward that was put up. Tips still keep coming in, and so even though they aren't officially surveilling Willie anymore, they still have their eye on him as tips roll in over the years. As they're watching him though, the number of missing women starts to decline each year and year by year it goes down. Then by the year 2000, there's only one missing person that was reported so they figure that whoever has been murdering these women has, you know, either moved on, has died, or has just stopped. They figured that their problem is over. So the Vancouver Police Department at this point, dismantled the team that is investigating the disappearances, and they move on to other cases. So it's not like they haven't connected the dots that maybe because they're doing surveillance, maybe Willie knows that and that's why the numbers have gone down. Instead, they're just thinking that whoever's doing it has stopped and they can, you know, move on. Fortunately though the RCMP do feel that there's still a problem, and so they get their own team together finally. So finally the RCMP is getting involved. It's not just Vancouver Police Department, and they actually include some of the Vancouver PD officers in their task force, and they finally acknowledge that there is a serial killer. So yeah, finally. Just as this task force comes to be, more women start going missing. Finally, the Vancouver PD joined the R C M P to say that, "Yes, there is a serial killer and that 49 missing women that they know of are now considered murdered." Finally, everybody's on board that there's a serial killer. The missing women, they feel aren't just missing. They are murdered by a serial killer. Around the same time, there's a man named Andy Bellwood. He was staying on Willie's farm in February of 1999. So he was a recovering heroin addict, and he had just been out of treatment and he was trying to, you know, get his life back together, pick things up. He was doing odd jobs for Willie and staying on the farm. He says that one day he was just sitting in his chair watching tv, Willie came in and sat on his bed and he asked if he wanted to go out and get a prostitute. Andy wasn't into that, he's like, "No, I don't want to." Willie was just pushing. He's like, "No, I don't want to." Then finally Willie was just like, "Well, do you know what I do with hookers?" He told and showed Andy that he would take a belt and wire handcuffs, and he said he would put the handcuffs on them, strangle them with a belt, and as they were dying, he told them that it was going to be all right and that it was over now. Then he told Andy that he would take them out to the barn and gut them. So after he told Andy this, Andy didn't go to anyone with this information. Four days later, two men that knew Willie visited Andy, they beat him up and they, as a scare tactic to be like, "Don't say anything or, we'll, you know, come back and kill you," basically. At this point, Andy figures that he should get out of there. So he just leaves without telling anybody. He says in that Pig Farm documentary that he figured that if this actually all was true and that Willie was killing prostitutes, that you know the truth would come out, the police would find out and catch him. That was his rationale and he just got the fuck outta there. Still kind of unbelievable. Why not, you know, tell the police, you know, call anonymously with this tip, but nope, didn't happen. Andy bails. Now again, in 2002, there's a man named Scott Chubb. He comes forward to the police cuz he's looking for money. He's thinking that if he has some tips on people, that he can exchange that info for money. Whether that's a thing I don't even know, or whether he got money outta the police, I don't know. So he tells the police that there's illegal guns on Willie's property. So I don't think Scott knew anything about the murders, but he did know that there was illegal guns all over Willie's property so he calls the police about this. The police are like, "Oh, this is a good tip." And they're, you know, they get a warrant to go check on these illegal guns on Willie's property. This is something that gets them out to the property finally. So they search for these weapons. They do find a lot. They find, you know, automatic weapons, rifles, things like that. Willie is arrested for possession of illegal weapons on February 5th, 2002. When they're searching his home and his barn and his trailer and you know, looking for these guns, they start to discover some odd and disturbing things around the property. Just picture this gross, disgusting pig farm. It's not only dirty from all the animals, but it's just a mess. There's shit everywhere. There's clothes everywhere. The kitchen's a disaster. They find clothes and women's jewelry and a purse, pictures, restraints, handcuffs. They find a box of kitchen knives on his nightstand in his bedroom, and in the living room they find a birth certificate for a woman named Heather Bottomley, who just happens to be one of the women on the police's missing list. They also find an asthma inhaler that belonged to a woman named Sereena Abotsway, who was also on the missing person's list. Something that's interesting, kind of eerie is there's an actual clip of Sereena on The Pig Farm documentary that I mentioned. This was of course before all this stuff came out about Willie. She had been beaten almost to death by some other John that she had gone with when she was a prostitute. She was out back on the streets after this has happened. She was included in one of the marches that the people in Vancouver were having to try and get attention to the missing women. There's a clip of her and they actually talked to her and she said that she's more aware of the type of people out there now. She says that if she has a bad feeling about someone, she's not gonna go with them. Yet, somehow she was still tricked by Willie and she became one of his victims. It's just eerie how she was in this documentary about him before he killed her. Even though they had enough to charge Willie with illegal gun possession, and even after finding all that stuff about the women, some stuff from women that they knew were missing, they didn't have enough evidence to keep him. He was let out on bail. He was let out one day later, February 6th, 2002. So it's like, "Holy crap, he got out again." Now, fortunately, they don't just let it go obviously, because of all the stuff that they found that was related to women and these missing women, they get another warrant that is specifically for them to look for this kind of thing. They're able to return and they just find a ton of evidence. They search his trailer or his mobile home and they find blood everywhere. It's obvious that something horrific had happened there. All the blood came back to an Aboriginal woman named Mona Wilson after they did a DNA analysis. After all this, Willie was arrested again and this time under the suspicion of murder, and he was originally just charged with the murder of two women, but this would eventually grow to 26 women. Police could not get a confession out of Willie. They couldn't really get him to say anything. They were showing him pictures of some of the missing women to try and get a reaction out of him, but there was nothing. He was emotionless. He definitely seems to be a psychopath. He's able to see all these women as objects and just really have no emotion for them whatsoever. When he sees a picture of Mona, the police say, " Do you recognize this woman? Her name was Mona." You know, they probably knew that that was her DNA in his trailer at the time. He really doesn't say anything. He just says, "Oh, you know, she's pretty, but that's all I know." While he is in jail, his cellmate was actually an undercover officer that they had put in there, you know, strategically trying to get him to have a conversation with him because they're not having any luck with him actually confessing to anything. Willie actually gets talking to this undercover officer and he says to this officer that he has actually killed 49 women in total, but his goal was to kill an even 50. But because he got sloppy, he got caught and so he wasn't able to get to that 50th victim. He says that he disposes of all the bodies on a rendering plant, which is where farmers will drop off unused parts of the animals. He likely combined all the animal meat with human remains. Also, because he was such a good customer at these rendering plants, he was allowed to bring whatever he wanted at any hour of the day or night and just dump his remains as he needed without any supervision on that rendering plant. He had this ideal situation for someone that wants to dump parts of bodies, just mix it all up and bring it to these rendering plants. I don't know what they do at rendering plants with all the meat. I'm just thinking that's where hot dogs are made. But I don't know for sure.

AJ: Gross.

Katie: I know. 

AJ: Ew. Just think of what people are eating. 

Katie: Yeah. It's disgusting. 

AJ: This is gross. 

Katie: Yeah. Sausage, hot dogs. 

Stephanie: I don't eat hot dogs anyways.

Katie: So have fun with that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it is. I don't know for sure, but that's just like what I'm picturing. Cause I mean, they must do something with all that leftover nastiness.

AJ: Yeah. Isn't that known that hot dogs are just made from...

Katie: All the scraps. 

AJ: ...the remains. Yeah. 

Katie: Yeah. There was human remains mixed in with that. Who knows what happened to those, right? So I don't wanna think about it. So also police continue to search Willie's property and they find these big freezers where he keeps some of his meat and inside they find two buckets with two human heads and they are cut in half and inside each of the skulls are two hands and two feet. It took a while for them to search this entire farm because it was 14 acres. They also dug down in some places, 30 feet to try and recover remains in evidence. And throughout this search they did find other pieces of other women. There was a woman who lived on the farm with Willie before, you know this big police raid, and her name was Lynn Ellingsen. They were friends for a while and she helped him out around the place. She helped him by cleaning. I'm not sure what she cleaned cuz it was disgusting. She answered the phones for the business and in return he would let her live there and he would give her enough money for food and for her drugs as she was a drug addict. She grew suspicious when she heard rumors that there were body parts in his freezer. Now, the thing is she didn't see the body parts in the freezer. She heard from other people that he had body parts in his freezer, but it's like, "Who told her that? Why were these rumors circulating?" Police still, you know, weren't there checking things out. Seems like everyone knows what's going on but nothing is happening. She heard these rumors, has suspicions and she brings this up to Willie's brother Dave, and he flips out at her, he beats her up and you know, she doesn't tell anyone else again after that for probably fear of her own life. She even went with Willie one time on one of his runs to pick up a woman and bring her home. The woman was skeptical to get into the car because she was aware of all the women that were going missing, so she didn't wanna go into this guy's car, and go all the way out, 40 minutes away to Port Coquitlam. But because Lynn was in the car, she talked to Lynn. Lynn said, "Yeah, I'm going. I live there." She felt way more comfortable and so she agrees to go into the truck with Willie and Lynn. When they get back to the house Lynn was in her room and she heard a woman screaming, but she was super high at the time, she says, so she was skeptical, didn't really know if she was actually hearing a woman screaming, but she decided to go check it out anyway. So she looks around the trailer, there's no one there, so she goes outside and she sees that there's a light on in the barn. She goes out to the barn and what she sees is that woman that Willie had just brought home hanging from a hook from the ceiling of the barn, and Willie was cutting her open as if she was an animal and he was gonna butcher her. Willie's there and she's terrified. She sees Willie. Willie threatens her and says that, you know, she'll be next if she tells anybody. Apparently he tells her to leave, gives her a hundred dollars so she can get a cab or whatever and get out of there and go somewhere else for the night. She obviously gets the fuck outta there as fast as she can and she just finds a new place to stay. She doesn't report it, she doesn't tell anybody at this time. She literally saw him in the act and still didn't say anything. But I mean like Jesus, she was probably obviously scared for her life. Maybe that just shows the power of her drug addiction. Willie would stop giving her money if she reported him. Allegedly she actually started blackmailing Willie for money as well, saying that, you know, she was gonna report him if he didn't give her more money. She needed her drug money over reporting him to the police. That's super messed up, sad situation all around. 

Stephanie: I don't get why these people aren't reporting things that they saw early on when they were suspicious of him, they just didn't do anything. Maybe cuz it's outta fear that he'll find out and come after them. I just don't understand.

AJ: To me it's weird, it's more risky that he's going to come after them when he's not in jail. They know stuff and they saw stuff, you know what I mean? They'd be safer if they just report it. But I guess, but I understand too the fear of if the police don't do anything and then he retaliates. I do get that. But when you think about it, it's like, well if you just report him and something happens, you'll be safer than if he's still out there. 

Katie: I know. Yeah. Just think about this woman who's still getting money, blackmailing him. She's obviously not that worried that he's gonna do that to her. Right? If she's still willing to communicate with him and take money from him. So the whole situation is messed up. Imagine knowing that women are going missing, that there's a potential serial killer out there, hearing these rumors. The person that you're living with is the one doing it. Then fucking actually seeing him do it and then still not doing anything. It blows my mind that this went on. Then other people, not just Lynn, but you know, people hearing stuff, Willie actually telling them things that he's done and they still haven't reported it. I mean, fucking no wonder he got away with it for so long. He had this group of people around him for some reason that just were unwilling to, you know, turn him in. It's crazy. 

AJ: Yeah. And could you imagine for her seeing that too. What an image to see that she has to also live with. Forever walking in and seeing, you know, her hanging from the, you know, hanging and then him cutting her open. I couldn't even imagine just having to witness that, first of all. 

Katie: Oh my God! I know. Yeah. Super traumatizing. 

AJ: Disgusting. 

Katie: Ugh. I know. 

AJ: Disgusting. What a disgusting person. 

Katie: I know. I don't know why you went to get the fuck outta there and go straight to the police department. Right? They could get out there and catch him doing it too. So, I don't know. Just craziness happening.

AJ: I also don't understand the psyche of someone who could even allow themselves to do that to the women. Robert Pickton, what goes wrong, I guess just crazy to me. I don't even want to get inside of his mind. 

Katie: Oh, I know. 

AJ: For somebody to be that awful and disgusting and evil.

Katie: He obviously just saw them as just objects. He was so used to doing this to animals that he probably, you know, it wasn't that much different doing it to a human. So he obviously, you know, enjoyed it for some reason. Didn't care, didn't think about it, that it was an actual living person that he was doing it to. So, I mean, yeah, I can't begin to understand it. I mean, I can't understand how people can do it to animals either, but that's a different topic. So , just throwing that in there. Okay. 

AJ: # vegan. 

Katie: That's right. Yeah. So another friend of Willie's confessed that Willie had told him that he had fed the bodies of his victims to the pigs and then whatever was left over, that's what he brought over to the rendering plants. There's some speculation about whether he did feed anything to the pigs. Some sources say that he did. Some say that he didn't. I'm not really sure if he did feed anything to the pigs, but there is one person that came forward to say that Willie told him that he did do that. He also says that Willie told him that he cut off the hands, feet, and head, because those were distinctly human looking bones, while the others could easily be mistaken for animal bones, you know, especially if they were all mixed together. I mean, you see a hand bone, you're gonna know that's a human, obviously a human skull, but a giant leg bone or something, or an arm bone, especially mixed with cows and pig bones would not be as obvious. So he didn't want someone to discover a foot, a hand, or a head at the rendering plant, so that's why he cut them off. So he's obviously, you know, thinking about what he's doing very meticulously. Also, police discovered that in some of the packaged meat that they found in the freezer, which was pork mixed with human remains, and it's probable that some of this meat had been sold to the local shops. So, ugh, that's super disgusting to think about. Super disturbing. Obviously there's no proof that this meat went out to people, people bought it, but you know, it's probable. I guess pork and human flesh look very similar. You can mix 'em together and you wouldn't know the difference. # vegan . Okay, so that's disturbing. Disgusting. Like I was saying, this investigation was massive. There was a 14 acre crime scene, which is the largest in Canadian history. There was 500 investigators involved. The cost they later calculated was around a hundred million dollars. It took 18 months to find and gather and organize all of the evidence, and there was hundreds of thousands of DNA samples that they collected. It took over five years to get all the evidence ready to the point where they could bring it all to trial. So it's a massive thing. But they were very thorough. They brought in archeologists or anthropologists or you know, people that dig for bones to help them so that they didn't miss or destroy anything. So, yeah, it was a huge endeavor. 

AJ: Also, imagine just how many DNA samples are in that house, because he never cleaned anything for years. So anyone who's ever in that building ever, their DNA would be there. 

Katie: Ew, that's true. Yeah. Every little bit of it would still be there. Gross. So after all of this, he was only tried for six counts of first degree murder for the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Marnie Frey, and Georgina Papin. These were all the cases where they had actual blood or physical pieces of these women to know that they had been there and died because they had pieces of them. So that's why he was initially charged with these six counts of first degree murder. On December 7th, 2007, the jury actually finds him not guilty of first degree murder, but he's found guilty of second degree murder for all six cases. I guess they did that because they just weren't convinced that he was the only one that was involved. They felt that he could have had help. So I guess if he had help, it wasn't first degree murder, and so that's why it was second degree murder. Cuz also when he was arrested there was three other people that were arrested with him as well. It was one of his friends named, I think it was Dana Taylor, that Lynn woman was also arrested, and then someone that worked on the farm with him that helped him butcher his animals, was also arrested. But they were all let go and not charged with anything in the end. So you know whether they did more than they're saying, whether they helped, whether they knew, obviously at least one of them knew what was going on. Either way they weren't charged with murder. There was actually 20 other charges that were with Robert in this case, but the Crown actually decided to stay those charges, which means the crown decided that it would be bad for the justice system for the case to continue. So that means that the issue of guilt or innocence is never determined. I think the reason why they didn't go forward with these other 20 charges is because back then, like we had talked about before, the max sentence in Canada was life without parole for 25 years. And you couldn't stack those sentences. So the max that you could get, regardless of how many people you killed, was life without parole for 25 years. So if he was to go forward with these other 20 charges, it's not like he was gonna get more time, so they felt that it was a waste of time and money to go forward with those because he had already been given the max sentence, which I guess makes sense, but a lot of the families feel like there wasn't justice because he was never charged with those other murders. 

AJ: Yeah. And it's also just the principle of it too, right? Like you want him to be in court facing the charges for the murder of all of those people and have a recognition that he is guilty of it. 

Katie: Yeah, exactly. And I mean they could have had all 26 charges in one trial, but the judge decided not to do that cuz he thought it would just be way too much evidence, too confusing, too many things going on for the jury to keep track of, and so to simplify it, he was gonna split them up. Then since, you know, he was charged anyway, they decided not to go forward with the rest of them. So, yeah, I mean, it feels like he should be charged with all of them because, you know, he for sure did more than six. He even admitted to almost doing 50. So, mm. It just seems like it's not enough, but it is what it is. So the scary thing, he could actually be eligible for day parole next year. So February of 2024. 

AJ: Oh my god! That's crazy. 

Katie: I know. That's terrifying. Of course I feel like he's never gonna get granted parole of any kind, so I don't think we have to worry about that. But I mean, you never know, right? 

AJ: The fact that it's a possibility is scary. I mean, just looking at pictures of him and just obviously what he did, he's a definition of a psychopath.

Katie: Oh, I know. 

AJ: So the fact that he could even be given the possibility. You know what I mean?

Katie: Yeah, I know. 

AJ: Technically it's possible. 

Katie: Technically it is possible. Yeah. 

Stephanie: I don't like the fact that people like him or anybody who kills has the right to be out on day parole. I mean, I know it's a right, you have your rights to do whatever, but people like him should never be able to have a chance to get out. I mean, it's only day parole. 

AJ: Yeah, well, people like him who are obviously very calculated, people who have done it, 49 people killed and probably would've done more. Someone who's clearly a psychopath and will never change, obviously shouldn't be given day parole. I mean, I think there is room for you know, some people who kill one person, second degree by accident. Not saying it's okay, but you know what I mean? There's different varying degrees of it. You know what I'm trying to say? Just because you kill someone, depends on the circumstances, right? 

Katie: Yeah. I mean some people maybe deserve a second chance, you know? 

AJ: Mm-hmm. 

Katie: Of course for him, he was a psychopath that loved doing what he was doing. 

AJ: Yeah. 

Katie: He would've kept going. So yeah I feel like he's not one of those people that deserves a second chance at all.

AJ: Yeah. Like anyone who does the cold calculated murders, doesn't even matter how many people, people who clearly are cold blooded, obviously shouldn't get day parole or any kind of parole. 

Katie: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, he could be eligible for day parole next year and in 2027, he could be eligible for just full on complete parole. I feel like neither of those are gonna happen. But I mean, you just, you never know. Because he will be in his seventies, so maybe they're feeling like he's not a menace or like a threat to society. But I feel like even if he's not a threat, he still doesn't deserve to be free. Right? So just cross our fingers that doesn't happen. 

AJ: Knowing how things turn out these days, it probably will happen. I'm just kidding. 

Katie: I know, that's what I'm afraid of. There is a possibility still, so it's not like unheard of. So, yeah, like I was saying before, there was a lot of people that felt that the police were really weren't doing enough and they hadn't done enough. On August 20th, 2010, the Vancouver Police Department apologized for, "Not having caught this monster sooner." In January 27th, 2012, the R C M P apologizes too for not having caught Pickton earlier. So they're kind of recognizing that, you know, maybe they fucked up, didn't take it as seriously as they should have. It took them way longer than they should have, so they're apologizing even though that's not gonna change anything. October 11th, 2011, there was an inquiry, with the former judge, and Attorney General Wally Oppal. In December 17th, 2012, that inquiry was delivered. It was a 1,448 page report. It concluded that there was systematic police prejudice towards the drug addicted, poverty stricken sex workers Pickton targeted in Vancouver. He said police failed in following up reports, which could have led to Pickton, and failed to warn women of the dangers they faced. So at least they're acknowledging, like I said before, that the police fucked up. They didn't take it as seriously as they should have. Didn't look into it as much as they should have maybe at the time. And while they did eventually find him, it just took way too long and more people died and were murdered than needed to, of course. But so that's Willie's disgusting story. 

AJ: We see that all the time with serial killers too. It's always those types of populations that are preyed upon by the serial killers. The people who are, you know, poverty stricken or vulnerable or, you know, addicted to drugs or just transient or something, right? Where they don't have a fixed address, they're homeless because that makes it easier for the police to ignore the problem, which they always do with those types of populations. So I feel like in most of the cases that we covered for this miniseries, it was always the case, at least one victim or multiple were members of that population or a marginalized population of some sort. 

Katie: Yeah, definitely. I think even if the police did take these cases as seriously as they would other cases, it still would be harder for them to track anything down or really validate what was happening. I feel like, you know, even if they did think it was as important, it would still be harder. People know that, serial killers probably know that. So that's definitely a reason why they target these people. It's easy. People aren't gonna care or they just can't, you know, look into it as, as much as they would've wanted if it was somebody else. So, yeah. Super tragic. 

AJ: Yeah, there's a reason why there's a lot of serial killers who target those populations that go undetected for years or maybe not undetected, but unarrested or uncharged for years because they know the types of populations that they can target to evade the police in some way.

Stephanie: I just can't get over the fact, like nobody for so many years, didn't tell police about what he was doing. He would've got caught so much sooner if people just went to the police the first time. 

AJ: Well, and also I don't understand. There was someone who said there was a rumor going around that he had body parts in his fridge. How are people okay with that? How is that just a rumor? " Oh no big deal." Just a rumor that somebody has body parts in their freezer. People are just talking about that amongst themselves without doing anything. 

Katie: Oh, I know. That's the craziest thing. How does that rumor go around and nobody do anything about it? I guess that woman tried to do something about it. Told Willie's brother and she got beat up for it. So that was a deterrent for sure. But I mean, tell the police they're probably not gonna beat you up. So I mean, I don't know. It just, you have to realize just the situation they're into. Right? They really don't have anywhere else to go. Robert, he's giving them money, drugs, place to stay. So, I don't know. I still can't justify it. If that was me in that situation, why, you know, police would be my first stop. But it's hard when you're not in that situation, I guess. 

AJ: Yeah. And also too, for people in that population who are probably just distrustful of the police anyway. They probably have had situations where they go to the police with something maybe, and they're not listened to, they're not believed, or also they might have to admit to doing illegal drugs themselves or doing illegal things, right? So that would also be incriminating themselves in some type of illegal activity. So they also wanna just avoid that altogether. 

Katie: Yeah, definitely. People are trying to protect themselves and I guess in the case of like if you heard a rumor like that and then you tell, and then it's found out that you tell, and it wasn't true, then you're gonna be in huge trouble, right? By somebody that's gonna hurt you, beat you up or even kill you. So you can understand where the fear comes from, but it's just crazy. It went on for so long. 

AJ: I think it's hard too to put myself in the mind or the position of somebody who's in that cuz I've obviously never experienced any of that. Right? So it's hard to put myself into their mindset of what I would do in that moment because I'm not someone who's homeless or on drugs or, you know what I mean? 

Katie: Drugs are the most important thing in your life, I guess. Then they're still the most important thing in your life, regardless of what you just saw, maybe. I don't know. If you're that far gone, you need that, the money, the drugs over getting yourself outta that situation and telling the police I guess. But it's still crazy. 

AJ: Yeah, that's crazy. And like I said, yeah this is probably a pretty well known case. Like most people know if, if you just say the pig farmer, I feel like most people in Canada just know who that is, who you're talking about, just cuz that's what he's known as. 

Katie: Yeah, definitely. 

AJ: Yeah, so it's definitely a pretty well known case and like Katie said, the most prolific serial killer, 49 killings that he admitted to, which is pretty crazy. So definitely an intense one to wrap up our mini-series on Canadian serial killers. Does anyone have any final thoughts or anything before we sign off? 

Stephanie: Let's just hope he doesn't get out in a few years from now, cuz that terrifies me. 

AJ: Yeah. 

Katie: Yeah, definitely. 

AJ: Yeah, let's all pray that doesn't happen. I would be surprised if I saw that he got out because he's pretty disgusting and horrible. But also I feel like we're just used to being let down in the news these days of all the horrible things that are happening. A part of me wouldn't be surprised if I were to read that, but I hope it doesn't happen. 

So yeah, that does it for this week's episode of the podcast and this wraps up our serial killer miniseries. We thank you so much. We hope you enjoyed the miniseries. If you like the show, you can follow us on all the social medias. We're on Instagram @crimefamilypodcast. We're on Twitter @crimefamilypod1, and we're on Facebook @ Crime Family Podcast. You can also send us an email, crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com for case suggestions or for feedback on the show. Just let us know your thoughts and what you think of the show. We'd love to hear it. If you are a fan of the show and you want to help support us, you can join us on Patreon and you can become a patron on tiers one, two, or three. You'll get exclusive benefits just for being a patron and helping support the show. You can find that at patreon.com/crime family podcast. There's also a link in the show notes for that and for our merch. If you want to support the show and have some Crime Family merch, then you can find our Red Bubble merch store. There's a link to that in the show notes as well. So we'd love to have you support the show through either of those two ways. And yeah, follow us on the socials if you want to hear more from us and keep up to date with us. So thank you so much and we'll see you next week for another episode. Take care. 

Stephanie: Bye. Sorry. Late to the game.

AJ: Bye.