Serial killer Robert Pickton dies at 74

Warning: This story contains disturbing details.

Murderer Robert Pickton died on Friday stemming from injuries sustained when another prisoner attacked him with a broken handle.

Pickton, who was 74, was serving his sentence at Port-Cartier Institution after being convicted of six counts of second-degree murder.

The confirmed victims included Georgina Faith Papin, Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Ann Wolfe and Marnie Frey.

Born in Edmonton, Alta., Papin was a Cree woman known to friends and family as an artist and writer, as well as a mother to seven children.

Speaking to the Globe and Mail after Pickton’s death, Papin’s sister Cynthia Cardinal said she felt happy.

“I can actually move on and heal and I can put this behind me,” she said.

Cardinal also expressed sadness for the families who didn’t get their day in court.

Pickton was initially charged with murdering 26 women. However, the Crown stayed 20 charges based on the fact Pickton had already been sentenced to Canada’s harshest criminal sentence.

Rick Frey spoke to the Victoria Times Colonist about his daughter Marnie Frey, who went missing in 1997.

“I still haven’t got answers,” he said.

‘Blatant failures’

An inquiry into the police investigations found “blatant failures,” and “recurring patterns of error,” some of which went uncorrected for several years.

“I have found that the missing and murdered women were forsaken twice: once by society at large and again by the police,” wrote Wally Oppal, who served as commissioner of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.

Charges stayed

The commission examined a 1997 incident that resulted in Pickton facing charges of attempted murder, assault with a weapon, unlawful confinement and aggravated assault – only for those charges to be stayed.

The Crown file on the assault was “inadvertently destroyed” in 2001.

However, while there are gaps in the record, the commission reconstructed the destroyed file “in large measure,” the commission reported.

In March 1997, a woman known as Anderson (her real identity was protected under a publication ban) was hospitalized after being taken to Pickton’s farm.

Four days after the attack, Anderson was still in hospital when two RCMP officers interviewed her. At the time, Anderson was still in pain following surgery.

She told the officers she’d been hitchhiking to a hotel in the Downtown Eastside shortly before midnight when Pickton picked her up in a red pickup truck. He offered her $100 for sex but insisted she go back to Port Coquitlam with him.

Pickton took United Boulevard and backtracked to Port Coquitlam. He wouldn’t let her use the washroom, she told officers.

“I know why he wouldn’t pull in, he didn’t want no one to see me. ‘Cause I wasn’t expected to get out of there, I’m sure I wasn’t,” she said.

She told officers: “I just know there’s broads on that property.”

She described Pickton handcuffing. She said she was: “fighting for her life.” At one point she picked up a knife and slashed Pickton across the jugular.

He stabbed her. Speaking to officers, Anderson said she thought she would die. However, Pickton became dizzy and went limp, allowing Anderson to run to the end of the property and climb the fence.

A driver and a passenger passing by helped Anderson into the car, called 911 and drove her to meet an ambulance.

Police eventually searched Pickton’s trailer and truck. The evidence included a woman’s bra and “numerous blood samples.”

“Police interviewed Pickton shortly after the incident, but no formal interview was taken,” according to the commission’s report.

Anderson told police that Pickton said he went to the Downtown Eastside once a week to pick up prostitutes.

A more comprehensive investigation: “likely have led to information that Pickton engaged in other illegal or troubling activities,” the report noted. There is no evidence police interviewed Pickton’s neighbours.

On March 29, 1997, a message went out to all RCMP detachments and municipal police departments: “that Pickton should be considered a danger to sex trade workers.”

Charges against Pickton were approved on April 1, 1997. The trial was set to begin in February 1998.

However, Crown prosecutor Randi Connor reported having difficulties with Anderson, who she described as being in bad condition.

“My impression was that she was under the influence of drugs,” Connor told the commission.

Connor also told the commission she had challenges reaching Anderson.

“All of the other evidence, however, shows Ms. Anderson could be contacted through her mother and that she returned calls quickly,” the commission reported.

With the trial date looming, the prosecutor concluded Anderson wouldn’t be able to articulate the evidence during a trial. Connor decided to stay the charges.

Pickton was arrested four years later in February 2002.

Unsolved cases

The commission recommended the provincial government set a provincial standard that: “police officers have a general and binding duty to promote equality and to refrain from discriminatory policing.”

It’s crucial that failures in the Pickton investigation be addressed, Oppal concluded.

“Putting Robert Pickton behind bars is not the end of the story; he was one serial predator who wreaked extensive devastation, but is not alone – there are many unsolved cases of missing and murdered women,” Oppal wrote.

A release from Correctional Service Canada noted the horrific nature of Pickton’s crimes.

“We are mindful that this offender’s case has had a devastating impact on communities in British Columbia and across the country, including Indigenous peoples, victims and their families. Our thoughts are with them,” the release stated.

Correctional Service Canada is set to investigate the May 19 assault on Pickton.

“The investigation will examine all of the facts and circumstances surrounding the assault, including whether policies and protocols were followed,” the release stated.