RCMP application to dispose of Pickton items can move ahead as request from victims’ family members dismissed

The RCMP’s applications to dispose of or disperse approximately 15,000 items seized during the investigation of serial killer Robert Pickton can move ahead, as an effort to suspend the process was recently dismissed in B.C. Supreme Court.

The items, which were taken from the Pickton property at 953 Dominion Ave., include objects that belonged to victims as well as items used in Pickton’s crimes, according to a previous ruling.

Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder in 2007. Twenty murder charges against him were later stayed.

In 2013, a group of 13 children of Pickton’s victims launched a series of civil actions against Robert Pickton, his brother David Pickton, the Province of B.C., the City of Vancouver (on behalf of the Vancouver Police Department) and several RCMP officers.

The claims were settled against all parties except Robert and David Pickton.

Families of the victims as well as lawyers and advocates for missing and murdered women strenuously objected to the RCMP’s proposal to dispose of items.

“For the families of those victims, justice has been elusive and they still hold hope that one day they will know what happened to their loved ones. Disposal of the exhibits will quash any remaining hope they have and solidify their perception that their daughters, mothers, sisters and aunties are less important than the space required to keep that evidence,” stated a letter written by Sue Brown and Sasha Reid.

Justice Frits Verhoeven dismissed the application, determining the RCMP’s efforts to find the owners of the seized items have been: “painstaking, careful, and thorough.”

“I am not persuaded that the civil claims will suffer any prejudice by allowing the RCMP applications to proceed,” Verhoeven wrote.

The records should be “more than sufficient” for any civil proceedings, according to the judgment.

Verhoeven also decided that granting the adjournment would mean a lengthy delay and waste limited resources.

“These applications have been scheduled on the court’s calendar for quite some time. If the applications are not heard today, they will not be heard for several months at the earliest,” Verhoeven wrote.

A 2012 inquiry into the Pickton 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.

Pickton died in 2024 stemming from injuries sustained when another prisoner attacked him with a broken handle.