Robert William Pickton was a pig farmer in Port Coquitlam, a suburb east of Vancouver, British Columbia. In December 2007 a jury in New Westminster found him guilty of the second-degree murders of six women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside: Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Ann Wolfe, Georgina Faith Papin and Marnie Frey. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
The six convictions were only part of the case. He had been charged with the first-degree murders of 26 women, and the remains or DNA of 33 women were found on his farm after police searched it in 2002. Twenty charges were stayed in 2010, after the six convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, because prosecutors said further convictions could not add to his sentence. After his arrest he told an undercover officer placed in his cell that he had killed 49 women, a claim never tested in court.
The case is also the story of an investigation that did not happen in time. Women had been disappearing from the Downtown Eastside for years, many of them Indigenous and many working in the sex trade. Families and community groups marched and pleaded for police attention. Police had information pointing to Pickton by 1998 and 1999, and he had been charged with attempted murder in 1997. A provincial inquiry led by Wally Oppal concluded in 2012 that the police investigations had been a "blatant failure." Pickton died in May 2024 after another inmate attacked him in a Quebec prison.
Pickton was born in 1949 and grew up on his family's pig farm in Port Coquitlam, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia. Jurors at his trial heard that he left school in 1963 or 1964, after time in special education programs, The Globe and Mail reported. He worked as a meat cutter for almost seven years before going back to the farm to raise pigs, and he also drove a truck for B.C. Hydro. His piggery burned down in 1978. A defense expert put his full-scale IQ at 86. Witnesses described him as a hard worker who did not drink or use drugs, and his property as filthy and full of junk and wrecked vehicles.
The farm sat on Dominion Avenue. The Pickton family once held 22 hectares there, Maclean's reported in 2002, and sold part of it for development in the 1990s; the land that was sold came to hold homes, condominiums, a park and an elementary school. An Associated Press report in 2002 said his brother and sister had made millions from the sales. The Canadian Encyclopedia says the siblings sold most of the property and kept 6.5 hectares, and that Pickton was a partner with his brother, David, in a salvage business. Much of the remaining land lay under fill piled as high as 10 meters above the street. The brothers also ran a demolition and building supply business from the site.
In 1996 the brothers started the Piggy's Palace Good Times Society, a federally registered charity whose stated purpose was to raise money through dances and shows, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia. Neighbors complained of noise, drunkenness and drug use, and crowds reached as many as 1,700 people. Maclean's described it as a party hall that broke local zoning rules and was rumored to draw sex workers and motorcycle gangs. The City of Port Coquitlam shut it down in 2000.
The women who disappeared lived in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, an inner-city neighborhood the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry described as a community with serious poverty, addiction and violence. The commission also found that the women were valued members of that community, and it said they had been treated as "nobodies," a word it chose on purpose. Aboriginal women made up about 3 percent of the province's female population but about a third of the missing and murdered women the inquiry examined.
The disappearances were noticed long before police treated them as connected. On February 14, 1991, the first annual women's memorial march was held to press for a police investigation, according to a Globe and Mail chronology. The same chronology records a sudden rise in the number of missing women in 1995 and again in 1998. In 1998 the Vancouver police reviewed missing-women files going back to 1971 and said they did not believe a serial killer was responsible. In April 1999 the Vancouver Police Board offered a reward of 100,000 dollars for information. In 2000 the Vancouver police scaled back the investigation, and in 2001 the number of missing women rose again.
Within the Vancouver department, the geographic profiler Kim Rossmo had concluded that a serial killer was responsible. His analysis was set aside, the CBC reported in 2010. The joint task force of the RCMP and Vancouver police that finally took on the cases, Project Evenhanded, was formed in 2001.
On the night of March 22 to 23, 1997, a woman Pickton had brought to the farm fought him when he tried to handcuff her. Both were stabbed in the struggle, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia and the commission. She escaped and reached the road, where a passerby found her; she and Pickton were treated at the same hospital. A hospital orderly found a key in Pickton's pocket that fit the handcuffs. On April 1, 1997, he was charged with attempted murder, assault with a weapon and forcible confinement.
Crown counsel stayed the charges on January 26, 1998. The inquiry's report says the woman, whom it identified only by a pseudonym because of a publication ban, was interviewed by police only once, and no formal statement was taken from her. The Canadian Encyclopedia says the charges were stayed because prosecutors did not consider her a competent witness, given her drug addiction. The Crown file was destroyed by mistake in 2001; the commission found that neither prosecutor involved was responsible for that. The commission's mandate on the stay was limited to neutral findings of fact, and it did not second-guess the Crown's decision. It did find "serious limitations on the initial investigation" by the Coquitlam RCMP, and it found it "patently unreasonable" that the investigation had not been pursued more fully.
Clothing police seized from Pickton after the attack was never tested at the time. When the publication bans were lifted in 2010, CTV News reported that the clothes held evidence that could have linked him to two other missing women. The woman testified at his preliminary hearing in 2003, but the trial judge excluded her account from the murder trial because it did not relate directly to the six counts, so the jury never heard it.
Doug LePard, a Vancouver deputy chief, later reviewed his own department's handling of the case. His report, about 400 pages long and based on more than 20,000 police documents, was released in August 2010. It found that police received information pointing to Pickton in 1998 and 1999 that should have led to a more vigorous investigation of him and his farm. The evidence available by 1999, LePard wrote, included eyewitness accounts of a woman's body in Pickton's barn, bags of bloodied clothing, women's identification in his trailer, and the 1997 attack. In July 1999 an informant reported that Pickton kept a "special freezer" in a barn. That tip was largely ignored.
In the spring of 1999, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia, an informant told police that a woman named Lynn Ellingsen had seen a woman's body in Pickton's slaughterhouse; she denied it at the time and admitted it only much later. Another man, Bill Hiscox, told police early in 1999 that a woman had seen women's belongings at the farm, but police could not get a search warrant on hearsay. LePard later testified that the RCMP had dismissed credible informants and had not shared important information about Pickton with the Vancouver police.
The farm lay in RCMP territory. The RCMP took over the investigation in 1999, the CBC reported, and after an intense start it stalled for months. In January 2000 two Coquitlam RCMP constables, Ruth Yurkiw and John Cater, interviewed Pickton. The interview had been planned in the fall of 1999, but it was put off at the request of his brother, David, who asked that it wait until the rainy season ended, and the officer agreed. At the inquiry LePard testified that the officers appeared to have no interview strategy, did not follow basic interrogation techniques and did not warn Pickton that his statements could be used against him. "There didn't appear to be an interview strategy at all," he said. During the interview Pickton consented to a search of his farm. The officers did not take up the offer. The RCMP did not tell the Vancouver police about the interview beforehand or share the results afterward.
LePard's report put most of the blame for the delays on the RCMP but said Vancouver's senior officers had also failed to press the RCMP to act. It found that management had not recognized early enough that a serial killer was targeting women in the Downtown Eastside, and that a bias against sex workers was partly to blame. The unit that handled the missing-women files lacked resources, training and leadership. LePard said the delays in arresting Pickton likely cost the lives of more than a dozen women.
Six of the women became the subjects of the trial. Reliable reporting describes each of them as a person with a family and a history, not only as a name on a charge.
Sereena Abotsway was born on August 20, 1971. Her father died of a drug overdose and her mother later took her own life, The Globe and Mail reported. She came to the home of Bert and Anna Draayers at the age of 4, with two younger siblings, and she called them Mom and Dad. Her foster father said she had been badly abused before she came to them. At 17 the family asked her to leave because she was disrupting the other children, and she went to a group home, where her life began to decline. About five years before she disappeared, she was beaten into a coma by a man she would not name, and she recovered. She was baptized in 1998 by The Street Church. She kept in touch with her foster family, and her first question when she called was usually about her siblings and their children. Once a month the Draayers took her to dinner downtown. Bert Draayers described her as "a lovely child with a lot of good in her," who "always had a good word for someone." She stopped calling in August 2001, when she was 29. Her memorial was held on March 11, 2002, at Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver.
Mona Wilson was 26 when she disappeared. She had been abused as a young child, the Globe reported, and at the age of 8 she was placed with Norma and Ken Garley on their hobby farm in Langley. As a teenager she was moved to a home in East Vancouver, and her contact with the Garleys became sporadic. They did not learn that she was addicted to drugs and working in the sex trade until after her death. "We could have tried to get her off the street," her foster brother, Greg Garley, said. "We should have gone and got her." Steve Ricks, who said he was her common-law partner, last saw her on November 23, 2001, when she got into a car with two men. He said that she and Sereena Abotsway knew each other and that both were of Indigenous descent. "She didn't deserve this," he said.
Andrea Joesbury was born on November 6, 1978, in Victoria, and grew up there with her mother and her younger sister, Heather. She was about 22, under five feet tall, with strawberry-blond hair, and she insisted that her name be pronounced "Ahn-drea." Her dream was to be a wife and mother, and she had a daughter. Elaine Allan, a former drop-in center worker, described her as kind-hearted. She was last seen in June 2001.
Brenda Ann Wolfe was born on October 20, 1968, in Pincher Creek, Alberta, and grew up in Calgary, according to the Globe. She was a member of the Kahkewistahaw First Nation in Saskatchewan. She had two children. She was a certified hairdresser and also worked as a waitress, a bouncer and in a print shop. She struggled with addiction for much of her life but sought treatment when her children were born. A friend, Maggy Gisle, remembered her street-smart toughness: "She was not vulnerable, in a physical sense, at all." She was last seen in February 1999, at 30, and recorded as missing in April 2000. Her daughter, Angel, became a youth advocate, and the lawsuit she later filed describes her mother as "a strong, quiet, genuine person with a great depth of character."
Georgina Faith Papin was born on March 11, 1964, on the Enoch reserve west of Edmonton. Her parents, George and Alice Papin, had nine children, and all of them were placed in foster homes; she and her brother Ricky were the only siblings who stayed together. By 18 she had lived in 32 homes and institutions. A former prison warden described her as bright and a natural leader. She had seven children. She lived on the Enoch Cree Nation reserve with her daughter Kristina until 1987, when she took the girl to Las Vegas to be raised by the girl's grandparents; when Kristina visited her in Mission, British Columbia, at 12, she was given the name Snowbird. Friends remembered Georgina as a good maker of bannock and a good guitar player. She disappeared from the Downtown Eastside in March 1999.
Marnie Frey was born on August 30, 1973, in Campbell River, on Vancouver Island. Her parents separated when she was a toddler, and her father raised her. She wanted to be a nurse. She gave birth to her daughter, Brittney, in July 1992, a month before she turned 19, and her parents raised the child. She moved to Vancouver and became caught in addiction in the Downtown Eastside. She was last seen in August 1997.
The case against Pickton began with a search for guns. Early in 2002 a man named Scott Chubb told the RCMP he had seen illegal firearms in Pickton's trailer, The Canadian Encyclopedia says, and that was enough for a warrant. On February 5, 2002, officers searched the farm. They found illegal guns and items that linked missing women to the property, among them an asthma inhaler prescribed to Sereena Abotsway. On February 6 the joint task force sealed off the property and began searching it. On February 7 Pickton was charged with a weapons offense.
DNA testing on blood found in a motor home on the property matched Mona Wilson. On February 22, 2002, Pickton was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. The charge sheet accused him of killing Sereena Abotsway between July 18, 2001, and February 5, 2002, and Mona Wilson between December 1, 2001, and February 5, 2002, at or near Port Coquitlam. At a two-minute hearing in Port Coquitlam the charges were read to him, and he said nothing. He was 52. His lawyer, Peter Ritchie, said Pickton was shocked by the charges. Pickton and his relatives denied any involvement in the disappearances.
On February 23, 2002, the day after his arrest, Pickton was questioned at the RCMP detachment in Surrey for about 11 hours. Maclean's reported that he moved between silence and rambling answers. "I'm just a pig man, that's all I've got to say," he told the officers at one point. At another he said, "I should be on death row." Shown a poster of missing women, he said, "You make me more of a mass murderer than I am." He denied knowing the women, and when an RCMP sergeant, Bill Fordy, confronted him with DNA evidence, he answered that it did not mean he had done it. "Do I look like a murderer?" he asked.
Police had also placed an undercover officer in his cell. Pickton told the officer he had killed 49 women. "I was going to do one more, make it an even 50," he said, according to the recording later reviewed at trial. He also reportedly said he had planned to stop at 50, take a break and then kill 25 more. His defense at trial argued that his taped statements came at the end of a very long interview or in leading conversations with the officer, and that a man of his limited intelligence had been easily led. No court ever tested the number 49. It is his claim, not a finding.
The search of the property became the largest crime scene investigation in Canadian history, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia. On June 6, 2002, heavy equipment and archaeologists were brought in to excavate. Investigators sifted 383,000 cubic yards of soil, took 200,000 DNA samples and seized 600,000 exhibits. The excavation, which dug up to two meters deep, ended in November 2003 after about 21 months. Maclean's reported in 2007 that the investigation had cost 70 million dollars through the end of 2003, with a further 46 million dollars budgeted.
Investigators found the remains of several women on the property, some of them in his trailer and his slaughterhouse. In all, the remains or DNA of 33 women were found on the farm. On March 10, 2004, the province's health officer warned that meat processed on the farm might have contained human remains.
The list of women missing from the Downtown Eastside kept growing while the search went on. A revised list issued on October 6, 2004, held 69 names. The inquiry later examined the cases of 67 named women.
The Crown added charges over several months. By October 2, 2002, Pickton faced 15 counts of first-degree murder, according to a guide to the case published by the B.C. Ministry of the Attorney General. The preliminary hearing began in January 2003 at the Port Coquitlam courthouse before Judge David Stone and ended in July 2003, when Pickton was ordered to stand trial on all 15 counts. A publication ban covered the hearing.
In May 2005 Justice James Williams of the B.C. Supreme Court became the presiding judge, and the Crown laid 12 more charges, for a total of 27. In March 2006 one count, concerning a woman who had never been identified, was ruled a nullity, leaving 26. The Canadian Encyclopedia says that count was dismissed for lack of information about the woman's identity and the time of her death.
On August 9, 2006, Williams divided the indictment. Trying all 26 counts together, he ruled, would place an unreasonable burden on a jury, given the expected length of the trial, the volume and nature of the evidence and the complexity of the law. He found that the evidence on six counts was "materially different" from the rest. Lynn Frey, whom the CBC identified as Marnie Frey's mother, said that knowing Marnie would be among the first six made her feel like getting on a bridge and screaming. Kate Gibson of a Downtown Eastside women's shelter asked, "What about the other 20?" On September 8, 2006, the Crown announced it would go first on the six counts, with the others to be tried later. Jury selection, which was expected to draw on about 3,500 people, was completed on December 12, 2006.
The trial opened on January 22, 2007, at the B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster. Pickton pleaded not guilty to the six counts. Crown counsel Derrill Prevett, part of a team led by Mike Petrie, told the jury that Pickton alone was responsible for the six deaths. He told them that some of the women had been shot and that their remains had been cut up and hidden on the farm, and that a witness would describe finding Pickton with a woman's body in his slaughterhouse.
The Crown's evidence was both physical and testimonial. Police had found the remains of Sereena Abotsway and Andrea Joesbury in his trailer in 2002, and DNA identified them. A tote bag held Abotsway's DNA and some of her belongings. A .22-caliber handgun found in the trailer's laundry room carried DNA from Pickton and from Mona Wilson. Remains of Brenda Wolfe and Georgina Papin were found in the months after the search began.
Lynn Ellingsen testified that she walked into the slaughterhouse and found Pickton covered in blood with Georgina Papin's body hanging from a chain. Another Crown witness, Andrew Bellwood, testified that Pickton had described to him strangling women and disposing of their bodies on the farm. The jury watched video of the police interview.
The defense did not dispute that the women's remains had been found on the farm. Peter Ritchie, the lead defense lawyer, told the jury that Pickton did not "kill or participate in the killing of the six women." He described the farm as "a busy hive of activity," pointed to other people who lived there or had access to it, and urged the jury to consider Pickton's relationship with his brother. David Pickton was never charged, and Pickton told his interrogators that his brother was not involved. In closing, the defense attacked Ellingsen and Bellwood for their drug addictions and criminal records and argued that Pickton had been duped into incriminating himself.
The Crown rested on August 13, 2007, and the defense on October 16. In all, 98 Crown witnesses and 30 defense witnesses testified, according to the Attorney General's guide.
The jury of seven men and five women began deliberating on a Friday night. During deliberations it sent the judge a question about the possible roles of other people in the crimes, and deliberations were suspended while he considered it. Justice Williams answered by amending part of his instructions, which the Supreme Court's case record calls the "actual shooter" instruction. He told the jurors, as the CBC later summarized it, that it was enough to find that Pickton was an "active participant" in the killing. The B.C. Court of Appeal later noted that the amendment came six days into deliberations. This exchange became the main ground of his appeal.
On Sunday, December 9, 2007, the jury found Pickton not guilty of first-degree murder and guilty of second-degree murder on all six counts. He listened with his head bowed. Two jurors wiped tears from their eyes as the verdict was read. Outside the courthouse, families of the other 20 women whose cases were still pending said a second trial mattered to them. B.C.'s attorney general, Wally Oppal, said it was too early to decide about one.
Second-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence in Canada, with parole eligibility set by the judge at between 10 and 25 years. The Crown asked for 25. Ritchie asked for 15 to 20, noting that Pickton had no earlier record of violence and that defense witnesses had testified he tried to help people with addictions.
On December 11, 2007, Justice Williams imposed six concurrent life sentences and set parole ineligibility at the maximum of 25 years. Most second-degree murder cases do not exceed 20 years, he said, but this one was unique. "Mr. Pickton's conduct was murderous and repeatedly so," he said. "What happened to them was senseless and despicable." He said the women had been members of the community whose troubled lives and addictions had left them extremely vulnerable.
Pickton did not address the court. Crown counsel Mike Petrie read from victim impact statements; CTV reported 15 statements and the CBC 18. Jay Draayers, Sereena Abotsway's foster brother, wrote that his sister "consumes my thoughts every day of my life." Karin Joesbury, Andrea's mother, wrote that she had lived a hellish life since her daughter's death and felt "trapped." Petrie struggled at moments to go on reading. Cynthia Cardinal, Georgina Papin's sister, cried out when the sentence was read and said afterward that justice had finally been served. "It's a good day for us," said Rick Frey, Marnie's father. Oppal said it would be difficult to conclude that Pickton would "ever see the light of day again."
His sentence began on December 11, 2007, Correctional Service Canada later recorded. From 2010 to 2018 he was held at the maximum-security Kent Institution in British Columbia.
Pickton appealed, arguing that the judge had made errors in his charge to the jury, chiefly in his answer to the jury's question. The Crown cross-appealed against several rulings, including the severance of the counts, which could have led to a new trial on all 26 counts if Pickton had won.
On June 25, 2009, the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed Pickton's appeal by two votes to one. Justice Richard Low held that the trial judge had correctly told the jury about co-principals, meaning people who act together in a killing, and that he had been right to amend his instructions. Justice Donald dissented and would have ordered a new trial. The court allowed the Crown's cross-appeal but set the order aside to await any further appeal by Pickton. The case went to the Supreme Court of Canada both as of right and by leave, which was granted on November 26, 2009.
The Supreme Court heard the appeal on March 25, 2010, and on July 30, 2010, it dismissed it and affirmed the convictions in R. v. Pickton, 2010 SCC 32. The court was unanimous in the result. Justice Louise Charron wrote that "this case was never about whether the accused had a minor role in the killing of the victims," found no legal error and said that "no miscarriage of justice was occasioned in this trial."
The ruling ended the case on the six counts, and with it the Crown's interest in a second trial. On August 4, 2010, the Crown stayed the remaining 20 first-degree murder charges. Its spokesman, Neil MacKenzie, said the Criminal Justice Branch had concluded that going ahead was not in the public interest, because "any additional convictions could not result in any increase to the sentence" Pickton was already serving. He called it a difficult decision. The Crown also said it would not bring any further proceedings against Pickton, including for women linked to him later.
The 20 women whose cases were stayed were Sarah de Vries, Dianne Rock, Cara Ellis, Andrea Borhaven, Kerry Koski, Wendy Crawford, Debra Lynne Jones, Tiffany Drew, Cynthia Feliks, Angela Jardine, Diana Melnick, Jacqueline McDonell, Heather Bottomley, Jennifer Furminger, Helen Hallmark, Patricia Johnson, Heather Chinnock, Tanya Holyk, Sherry Irving and Inga Hall. Pickton was charged with their murders and never tried; the law treats those charges as unproven. Brief profiles published by The Globe and Mail record that many of them were mothers. Kerry Koski had three daughters, Dianne Rock five children and Tiffany Drew three. Cynthia Feliks, born in Detroit, was a mother and grandmother. Inga Hall, born in Germany, had two daughters and two granddaughters. Jennifer Furminger grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario. Sarah de Vries was adopted at 11 months; her journals and poetry have been widely published, and her sister, Maggie de Vries, wrote about her in the book Missing Sarah.
Families of those women said the stay left them without answers. "We feel that we've been failed by the justice system," said Lillian Beaudoin, Dianne Rock's sister. "You don't just lay all these charges and then stay them." Some families had hoped Pickton's appeal would succeed so that all 26 counts could be tried together.
Other women were never part of any charge, although their DNA was found on the farm. The Globe's profiles name among them Nancy Clark; Stephanie Lane, who disappeared from the Downtown Eastside in January 1997 at 20, soon after the birth of her only son; Jacqueline Murdock, the youngest daughter of a large First Nation family in Fort St. James, who had four children; Dawn Crey, a member of the Sto:lo First Nation near Chilliwack, who had a son; Sharon Abraham; and Yvonne Boen, who had a son. Stephanie Lane's remains were found in 2003 and returned to her family in 2014, the CBC reported. Their DNA was found on his farm, and Global News reported in 2024 that Stephanie Lane is believed to have been killed by him, but he was never charged with any of these deaths.
The end of the case lifted most of the publication bans. CTV and The Canadian Press were able to report on the 1997 attack and the woman's preliminary hearing testimony, on the untested clothing, and on what Pickton had said in his cell. The journalist Stevie Cameron, who wrote about the case, told CTV that the woman had not testified in 1998 partly because of intimidation by people working for Pickton's defense, and that Pickton later boasted of spending 80,000 dollars to fight the charge. "It was very hard to understand why it was dropped," Cameron said. The court also released previously sealed evidence about the remains of an unidentified woman found in the Fraser Valley in 1995; bone fragments from the same woman were later found on the farm.
Vancouver police apologized first. On the day of the Supreme Court ruling in July 2010, Deputy Chief Doug LePard apologized "from the bottom of my heart" to the families. When LePard's review was released in August 2010, the RCMP's deputy commissioner, Gary Bass, said the force "deeply regrets that we weren't able to gather the evidence necessary to lay a charge sooner," but did not apologize.
On January 27, 2012, while the public inquiry was still hearing evidence, Assistant Commissioner Craig Callens, the RCMP's senior officer in British Columbia, told a news conference that he wanted the families to know "how very sorry we are for their loss." "I apologize the RCMP did not do more," he said. Ernie Crey, Dawn Crey's brother, said he was glad the force had "manned up to it" and hoped the apology could begin a new relationship between police and families. On December 18, 2012, after the inquiry's report was released, the Vancouver police chief, Jim Chu, apologized again. "We could have and should have caught Pickton sooner," he said.
The province announced a judicial review or public inquiry in August 2010, and the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry was established that year with Wally Oppal, a former judge and attorney general, as commissioner. His report, Forsaken, is dated November 19, 2012, and was released on December 17, 2012.
Oppal concluded that "the initiation and conduct of the missing and murdered women investigations were a blatant failure." He identified seven critical police failures: poor report taking and follow-up; faulty risk analysis and assessment; an inadequate proactive strategy in the Downtown Eastside; failure to follow major case management; failure to pursue all investigative strategies; failure to deal with problems that crossed jurisdictions; and failure of internal review and outside accountability. He examined discrimination, systemic institutional bias and political and public indifference as underlying causes. The women, he wrote, had been "forsaken by society at large and then again by the police." He also called the case a "tragedy of epic proportions," according to The Canadian Encyclopedia.
The report made 63 recommendations. They included a regional police force for Greater Vancouver, funding for emergency shelters for women in the sex trade, compensation for the children of the missing women, and measures concerning the Highway of Tears, the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16). Vancouver police changed their missing-persons procedures, among other things keeping files open until the person is found. Chief Chu declined to commit to a regional force.
Families sued. Angel Wolfe, Brittney Frey and Kristina Bateman, daughters of three of the six women in the convictions, filed claims against the City of Vancouver on behalf of its police, the province on behalf of the RCMP and the criminal justice branch, Robert Pickton, David Pickton and several officers. They alleged that police had failed to investigate properly or to warn the neighborhood of a likely serial killer, although evidence implicated Pickton by 1997 and 1998, and that prosecutors had dropped the 1997 case. Their lawyer, Jason Gratl, represented families in nine suits.
On March 18, 2014, the federal government, British Columbia and the City of Vancouver announced a joint compensation framework. Each of the 98 living children of the missing and murdered women identified in the inquiry's report was entitled to 50,000 dollars. Canada and the RCMP paid 40 percent, the province 40 percent and the city 20 percent. CP24 reported the total as 4.9 million dollars and said that 12 of the 13 children who had sued accepted the offer. "The RCMP commits to learning from past experiences," said the RCMP commissioner, Bob Paulson.
The suits against David Pickton under the province's occupiers liability law, which argue that as a co-owner of the Dominion Avenue property he owed a duty to the women, were still before the courts in 2025. In October 2025 Justice Alan Ross of the B.C. Supreme Court rejected an application by a member of Sarah de Vries's family to stop the RCMP from handing human remains from the case to the B.C. Coroners Service, which planned to test them, identify them where possible and return them to families. Many families still do not know whether their relatives' remains were among the roughly 15,000 items seized.
Pickton was transferred in June 2018 from Kent Institution to Port-Cartier Institution, a maximum-security federal prison in Quebec about 600 kilometers northeast of Quebec City. In 2016 a book said to have been written by him in prison, Pickton: In His Own Words, was published by Outskirts Press of Denver, Colorado, and withdrawn from Amazon.com after public outrage.
On February 22, 2024, he became eligible to apply for day parole, which would have required him to return to a prison or halfway house each night. The Parole Board of Canada said eligibility did not mean a hearing; he would have to apply, and no hearing had been scheduled. Families held a vigil at the farm, now owned by the province, the evening before. "Pickton should not walk on this earth," said Michele Pineault, Stephanie Lane's mother. Lorelei Williams, a cousin of Tanya Holyk, objected that he could apply at all. Jason Gratl said Pickton had "a snowball's chance in hell" of parole. No application by him was reported.
On May 19, 2024, during the distribution of medication at Port-Cartier, another inmate, Martin Charest, then 51, attacked Pickton in a common room. According to the statement of facts read in court in 2025, Charest manipulated the door lock so that staff would have difficulty opening it, closed the door, knocked Pickton to the ground and punched and kicked him. Staff released gas into the room, and Charest stepped back. When guards tried to persuade him to come out, he took a broom, broke the handle and drove it into Pickton's head as he lay on the floor.
Pickton was taken to hospital by ambulance and the next day flown to a hospital in Quebec City, where he was kept in intensive care in a medically induced coma. He never regained consciousness. He died in hospital on May 31, 2024, aged 74. Correctional Service Canada announced the death that day, said he had died of injuries from an assault by another inmate, and convened a board of investigation. The cause of death was given in court as blunt polytrauma.
Families reacted with relief and with grief at what would now never be heard. "Because they didn't get their day in court," Cynthia Cardinal said, was what saddened her. Michele Pineault said she was elated. Lorelei Williams said she was overwhelmed with happiness. The premier, David Eby, said "good riddance." Sue Brown of Justice for Girls said the death closed "another potential door for answers."
The board of investigation's report, released in July 2025, found that inmates had free access to cleaning tools, including mops and brooms, which were not kept in locked cabinets, and that the wrong family member had been notified of the death. It made three recommendations, including reducing inmates' access to items that could be used against institutional security. An independent observer called its work "meticulous, highly professional and impartial."
On July 3, 2025, Martin Charest was charged with first-degree murder. At a hearing in September his lawyer, Sonia Bogdaniec, said he intended to plead guilty. On September 25, 2025, appearing by video from a prison in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines before the court in Sept-Iles, he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Superior Court Justice Carl Thibault sentenced him to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
"I killed Robert Pickton for the victims," Charest told the court. "I know that we can't take justice into our own hands." He said Pickton had kept boasting about his crimes and had said he would keep offending if released. He said he had lost control and felt no remorse. The prosecutor, Melissa Hogan, said no victim impact statements would be made on Pickton's behalf; a brother had not wanted to speak. Justice Thibault said that Pickton had committed "the worst atrocities a person can commit towards others," but that Charest still had the right to serve his sentence in safety.
Proven by final judgment: the second-degree murders of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Ann Wolfe, Georgina Faith Papin and Marnie Frey. The jury acquitted him of first-degree murder on each count, so planning and deliberation were not proven.
Charged and stayed, never tried: the deaths of the 20 women listed above. A stay is not an acquittal, but it is not a conviction either, and Pickton's death in 2024 ended any chance of a trial.
Never charged: the deaths of other women whose DNA or remains were found on the farm, including Stephanie Lane, Dawn Crey, Jacqueline Murdock, Nancy Clark, Sharon Abraham and Yvonne Boen.
Claimed, never tested: his statement to an undercover officer that he had killed 49 women and wanted to reach 50. Some later reports describe this as a confession to 49 murders; it was a recorded claim, not a finding of any court.
The role of others: the defense argued at trial that others with access to the farm could have been involved, and the jury's question and the "active participant" instruction turned on that possibility. No one else was charged in any of the deaths. David Pickton was never charged, and his brother told police he was not involved.
Details that vary between sources: Georgina Papin's age at her disappearance (34 in a CTV report; her birth date and last-seen month are given separately by the Globe); the number of victim impact statements at sentencing (15 per CTV, 18 per the CBC); the cost of the investigation (70 million dollars through 2003 per Maclean's; "nearly 70 million" per The Canadian Encyclopedia); and the size of the remaining farm (about 10 acres per AP in 2002, 11 hectares per Maclean's in 2002, 6.5 hectares per The Canadian Encyclopedia).
1949: Robert William Pickton is born; he grows up on his family's pig farm in Port Coquitlam.
1963 or 1964: leaves school.
1978: the family piggery burns down.
February 14, 1991: first annual women's memorial march in the Downtown Eastside.
1996: Piggy's Palace Good Times Society is founded.
March 22 to 23, 1997: a woman escapes the farm after a struggle in which both she and Pickton are stabbed.
April 1, 1997: charged with attempted murder, assault with a weapon and forcible confinement.
August 1997: Marnie Frey is last seen.
January 26, 1998: the 1997 charges are stayed.
1998 to 1999: police receive tips pointing to Pickton; Vancouver police say they do not believe a serial killer is responsible.
February and March 1999: Brenda Wolfe and Georgina Papin are last seen.
April 1999: Vancouver Police Board offers a 100,000-dollar reward.
January 2000: Coquitlam RCMP interview Pickton; he offers a search of the farm, which is not taken up.
2000: Port Coquitlam shuts down Piggy's Palace.
2001: Project Evenhanded is formed.
June to November 2001: Andrea Joesbury, Sereena Abotsway and Mona Wilson are last seen.
February 5, 2002: RCMP search the farm for illegal firearms.
February 7, 2002: charged with a weapons offense.
February 22, 2002: charged with the first-degree murders of Sereena Abotsway and Mona Wilson.
February 23, 2002: 11-hour police interview in Surrey; later, his statement to an undercover officer about 49 killings.
June 6, 2002: excavation of the farm begins.
October 2, 2002: 15 counts of first-degree murder.
January to July 2003: preliminary hearing in Port Coquitlam.
November 2003: excavation ends.
May 2005: 12 more counts bring the total to 27.
March 2006: one count ruled a nullity, leaving 26.
August 9, 2006: Justice Williams severs six counts for the first trial.
January 22, 2007: trial opens in New Westminster.
December 9, 2007: guilty of six counts of second-degree murder.
December 11, 2007: life, no parole eligibility for 25 years.
June 25, 2009: B.C. Court of Appeal dismisses his appeal, 2 to 1.
July 30, 2010: Supreme Court of Canada dismisses his appeal; Vancouver police apologize.
August 4, 2010: the remaining 20 charges are stayed; publication bans lifted.
August 2010: LePard's review is released.
January 27, 2012: the RCMP apologizes.
December 17, 2012: the Forsaken report is released.
March 18, 2014: compensation of 50,000 dollars for each of 98 children announced.
2016: a book attributed to him is withdrawn after public outrage.
June 2018: transferred to Port-Cartier Institution, Quebec.
February 22, 2024: becomes eligible to apply for day parole; no hearing is scheduled.
May 19, 2024: assaulted by another inmate.
May 31, 2024: dies in hospital, aged 74.
July 3, 2025: Martin Charest charged with first-degree murder.
July 2025: Correctional Service Canada board of investigation report released.
September 25, 2025: Charest pleads guilty and is sentenced to life with no parole for 25 years.
October 3, 2025: B.C. Supreme Court allows the coroner to proceed with remains from the case.