Introducing - Robert Pickton: The Final Chapter, Part 1

In this special mini series, Alsie Canadian host Christy Lee revisits the case with tons of new information. There's much we didn't know about mister Picton.

Stevie Cameron. Please be aware this series includes distressing details that might be difficult to hear. There's also mention of sexual assault, residential schools, Indigenous issues, child abuse, and suicide. Please see the show notes for crisis referral services. Proceeds are being donated to the Wish Drop In Center, society supporting street based sex workers on Vancouver's downtown east Side

since nineteen eighty four. It's a cold night in March of nineteen ninety seven, and a thirty year old woman named Wendy is working a street corner in Vancouver's downtown east Side, often referred to was the poorest postal code in Canada. The downtown Knee Side is known for high concentrations of poverty, homelessness, mental illness has it a substance use crime and sex work. A red pickup truck.

arrested for stealing cigarettes and other goods. She gave birth to a daughter with one of those men, but according to an obituary, their little girl passed away as a toddler. Wendy retreated to drugs for a while, but she pulled herself together. Vancouver is a port city, and she found a job on a local fishing boat as a deckhand and crew cook. She fell into a relationship with the captain and gave birth to two children with him. For a few years, Wendy's life was mostly stable, but the

urge to use was not easy to overcome. The relationship broke down, and she left her children with their father to get help for hazardous substance use. Cocaine and heroine were her drugs of choice, but she was also desperate to see her kids again. Wendy ended up living on Vancouver's downtown east Side with some of society's most vulnerable

marginalized people, trying and failing miserably to get clean. That cold night in March of nineteen ninety seven, she was stuck in survival mode, sustaining her drug use through stealing an outside sex work.

mobile trailer home and ushes Wendy inside. It's filthy in there, the air is stale and there's mess everywhere. She notices a large butcher knife lying on the table as he leads her through the kitchen and into a back room. There's no bed, only a sleeping bag on the floor. The man gives Wendy the hundred dollars and she performs oral sex followed by intercourse. Nothing out of the ordinary. She gets dressed and asks to use the phone to call a friend. She senses the man behind her and

he gently takes her left hand. Then, without warning, he snaps a handcuff onto her wrist. Wendy is jolted by an intense fear for her life. For a split second, she freezes, Then her body's trauma response activates, automatically, deferring to habits she learned earlier in life, and Wendy has always been a fighter. She punches and kicks him. She grabs a potted plant and whatever she can reach and

swings it at him. As he fights back, she finds herself backing toward that butcher knife she saw on the kitchen table. She grabs it and slashes the man across the neck. He roars as the blood starts flowing, but he grabs a cloth, holding it to the wound and keeps fighting. Now there's an intense struggle for the knife, and Wendy suddenly feels herself losing consciousness.

her moving with a singular focus escape. Terrified he's going to come after her, she limps across the street.

there would be more to come. Years later, when Robert Picton was identified as the man now considered Canada's worst serial killer, the remains or DNA of thirty three missing women would be found on that farm.

even grasp what they were hearing. This case has been described as a tragedy of epic proportions, leaving the families of all those women with a lasting legacy of grief, at least ninety eight children without their mother, and a lot of unanswered questions. In twenty twenty four, Robert Picton became a victim himself of prison vigilante justice. His death might have closed his chapter, but this story is far from over. The evidence suggests that others knew what was happening,

and worse, he likely did not act alone. This special four part series traces the case from the very beginning right up to where it stands today. From a disturbing childhood on the Picton family farm where cruelty and exploitation were normalized and morality optional, where Robert and his brother were shown that bad deeds can be covered up using privilege in intimidation, to the blatant police failures, systemic injustice, and deep rooted societal prejudice that enabled that violent culture

to continue long after the Picton parents were dead. Most importantly, this series centers the vulnerable women who would targeted, restoring their names, stories, and humanity through the personal accounts of those who loved and missed them, making space for the unanswered questions still being asked to this day. Robert William Picton was born in nineteen forty nine to parents Leonard

and Louise Picton. They were pig farmers who lived in pork Equitlam, a city in the Metro Vancouver area, about thirty five minutes drive from downtown.

into the Picton family homestead five years later. The couple had their first child, a daughter, Linda, in nineteen forty eight, then first son Robert, followed by second son David, a year apart. Linda and David were said to take after their mother Louise physically anyway, short with round faces. The middle child, Robert or Willie, as his family started calling him took after father Leonard. Tall and slim, with a narrow face and a long pointed nose. The Picton family

lived in Port Coquitlam, known as Poco by the locals. Today, the city has a population of almost sixty thousand people, but back in nineteen forty nine it was around three thousand. It was known for being rural farmland territory. Leonard Picton was reportedly a workaholic who had minimal interaction with any of his three children. He was not an engaged parent.

He specialized in livestock and the production of pork, and expected sons Robert and David to work on the farm as soon as they were able to, aiding in the slaughtering and butchering of pigs. Some accounts by neighbors and co workers paint Leonard as a violently abusive and abrasive man, all too ready to dole out punishment to his sons.

reasons for that label are not entirely clear. In town, residents reported hearing Louise nag and publicly sham Robert in front of other children. He became increasingly withdrawn, often remaining silent for long stretches, and hiding when he feared he was in trouble with either parent. The responsibilities of homemaking and child wearing fell to Louise, picked in by default, and she was not a nurturing or maternal presence to any of their three children.

apparent indifference to personal hygiene. The children were reportedly bathed only about once a week, which wasn't enough to remove the farm stench. Those same neighbors went inside the pict In home briefly and would describe it as dirty and foul smelling. Farm animals were allowed to work wonder freely through the farmhouse, relieving themselves indoors without consequence. Louise made little effort to clean, seemingly unfazed by the conditions. She

always wore men's rubber gum boots. Louise was strict and demanding. She required her children to spend long hours slopping pigs and caring for animals, sometimes even on school days. To outsiders, the Picton family appeared to be poor, living below the poverty line. As one local resident put it, everyone knew the Pictons and no one knew the Pictins. The reality was they owned the family homestead outright and some additional parcels of land, and the farm was profitable. They just

chose to live that way. It was said that the general attitude of the Picton family was that there was nothing wrong with a bit of mess or a life. Many of the memories Robert Pickton would recall from his childhood and early adulthood were disturbing if true. He would claim that one time his father left him sitting in his truck and he accidentally moved the gearstick into neutral, which caused the truck to start rolling down a hill and crash. Robert would claim his father beat him severely

for not stopping that truck. He was just three years old at the time. In another story, he recalled being about four years old when his mother, Louise, caught him smoking a cigarette. As punishment, she forced him to smoke a whole cigar, thinking it would cure him for good, and it did. Robert would say it was the last cigarette he ever had. He would also tell a particularly disturbing story later about a pet calf he had when.

and he asked his family members, where's my calf. He was horrified when they suggested he look in the barn, knowing that's where the animals were slaughtered. It seemed his family wanted him to discover his pet calf hanging upside down in a shed, slaughtered and disembowed. Robert would tell investigators he was distraught at the site and refused to speak to his family for four days. They promised to buy him a new calf, but he didn't want an

He wanted his pet back. He was traumatized by the incident, and even as an adult, it was only something he would share with people he'd become close to. After that, he seemed to develop the sentiment that life goes.

according to Stevie Cameron's book on the Farm. When she was in grade nine, Linda decided to move in with relatives closer to Vancouver. She was away from the farm, and after that she reportedly had as little to do with her family as possible. Leonard and Louise purchased more land just a few kilometers away on Dominion Avenue and moved over there with their sons. This is the property that would come to define the Picton family far more

than they could have ever imagined. If Robert Picton were in school today, he might well have been diagnosed with a learning disorder and offered support and treatment. People who knew him would say he was far more intelligent than he was given credit for. But back in the nineteen sixties when he started high school, he was labeled slow and placed in special education classes at school. This embarrassed him and made him an easy target for bullies.

school and the farm. In October of nineteen sixty seven, fourteen year old Timothy Barrett left home at about eight pm to walk to a friend's place. It wasn't a long walk, just up the road and down Dominion Avenue, the same street as the new Pigton farm. Timothy put on his jacket and told his parents he'd be home later. He never returned home. After a few hours, his parents found out that Timothy never actually arrived at the friend's home.

They panicked and started checking in with neighbors to see if anyone had seen him or knew where he might be. At about one am, Timothy's parents reported him missing to the local RCMP, and the search continued throughout the night with no sign of him. In the early daylight hours, Timothy's father was still on Dominion Avenue searching alongside the road with a neighbor when he spotted a shoe on

the side of the road. It looked like Timothy's. About ten feet away was a deep ditch running alongside the road. He walked over and peered down. Submerged in several feet of water was his fourteen year old son. Timothy Barrett was dead. The RCMP quickly developed a theory that Timothy must have been walking along the road when he was struck from behind by either a car or a truck and then hurled over into the ditch. The car was probably speeding and Dominion Avenue was poorly lit. The houses

were sparse because it wasn't a developed area. As the body was sent for autopsy, the RCMP received a phone call from a local mechanic who said he'd seen the news reports of a hit and run and had something strange to report. He said the son of one of his regular clients had shown up the night before wanting a fast repair to an old, red, beaten up farm truck. Specifically, he wanted the smashed front indicator light repaired, along with a dent on the front fender, which he also wanted

to be painted over. The young man told him a log had fallen on the truck back at the farm, but the mechanic looked at the dent and was suspicious. Also, the entire truck was old and completely banged up. Why the sudden request to repair this one area. Hours later, that mechanic saw the news about Timothy Barrett and contacted the police, giving them the name of the young man who requested the repairs, David Picton. That's Robert Picton's younger brother.

At the time, David was sixteen and had just earned his driver's license. David Picton was charged in juvenile court with failing to remain at the scene of an accident. He would be placed on in definite probation and his driver's license suspended.

The autopsy confirmed Timothy suffered a fractured skull and a broken pelvis, but those injuries would not have been fatal.

to the red truck. Robert saw a new dent in the front right fender with marks and what.

look for the person that David hit. She later told her son, Robert, and at least one other person that she was driving down the road and around the corner when she spotted Timothy Barrett lying injured at the side of the road. He was there because of her son's actions, but instead of helping the fourteen year old, she said, she dragged him ten feet over to the water filled ditch and pushed him in. Robert and David Peckton were still teenagers themselves learning.

consequences for Louise Picton's alleged actions. By the time this all came to light decades later, she would be dead. Father Leonard was in his late seventies by this point. His health was deteriorating and he couldn't work.

not have much luck. He didn't smoke, drink, or do drugs, and He didn't hang out at bars or nightclubs like others his age, and even if his hygiene and appearance issues had been taken care of, which they weren't, he was socially awkward. He was never seen dating or with a girlfriend, but instead had penpals all over the country. He was starting to feel a certain way about one of them. Her name was Connie, and she lived in Pontiac, Michigan.

At twenty four years old, Robert decided it was time to take his first ever vacation so he could meet Connie in person. He booked a bus ticket and told his mother he'd be gone for six weeks. If Louise tried to stop him from leaving, it didn't work. By this point, Robert had gained some confidence and was able to talk back to her and assert himself when needed. The bus ride would have been close to forty hours one way, and it took Robert across America, stopping in

several cities along the way. He would later tell a different female penpal that at some point he was stopped by a scout and offered forty dollars an hour to be a male model, the equivalent of about two hundred and forty dollars an hour intoday's currency. It seems a pretty unlikely story, but he claimed he wasn't interested and turned the opportunity down. He eventually arrived in Pontiac, Michigan,

and met Connie. He claimed they were engaged by the time he caught the bus back to British Columbia, even calling her the love of his life. But Connie did not want to move to Pork Coquitlam and Robert could not leave the pig farm. That's as far as it went. He threw himself back into the farm while also dabbling in horses and truck driving to supplement his income. Robert still did not date, but his siblings had each found

partners and careers outside the farm. Older sister Linda was married and lived in a well to do area in Vancouver. She continued to avoid the farm and the family unless she was needed for business decisions. Brother David lived on the farm with his girlfriend and their two young children, while Louise had David's girlfriend working long hours on the farm. David was not interested. He was into truck driving, construction and demolition, and other women besides his girlfriend. They broke

up and she moved out with their kids. The next big family event was in nineteen seventy seven, when family patriarch Leonard was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died at age eighty two. A little over a year later, Louise also passed away from cancer age sixty seven. It was a shock for Robert to lose both parents so quickly, but perhaps the bigger shock was in his mother's will. The Picton estate included the farm and several other parcels of land, plus some cash. Leonard's idea of dividing it

among their children showed his preference. All Linda would receive was a lump sum payment of twenty thousand dollars, and everything else would be divided between the two sons. But after Leonard passed away, Louise changed things around, dividing the estate equally between the three children, but with a twist. Linda and David were each given about eighty eight thousand dollars immediately, but Louise's will stipulated her middle son, Robert, would have to wait until he was forty years old

to receive his share. For now, he was given an additional lump sum of twenty thousand dollars the way Louise structured this suggests she did not trust Robert with that money now, and he was devastated. At the time he was thirty years old. It would be ten more years until he turned forty, and even though in the end he'd receive more money than either of his siblings, he needed it now. They earned their own money and didn't

care for the farm. It was up to him alone to keep it going, which was not easy because a recent fire had destroyed one of their piggery barns along with six hundred pigs. The bar needed to be rebuilt. He'd be trying to do it himself, but would never finish. He saw the whole thing as a betrayal by his mother. Robert took his twenty thousand dollars and drowned his sorrows by purchasing a nearly new Ford truck. He got into junking old cars, selling the usable parts, separating the copper,

and selling it to scrap yards. Whatever he couldn't get rid of remained on the fire. Before long, there was a growing collection of old cars and machines, along with random scraps of wood and metal, cropped up around the outskirts in the meantime, Robert's brother David had seen an untapped opportunity to profit from the farm without actually having

to do farming work. The surrounding area of pork Equitlam was rapidly being developed into housing and shops, and there was strong demand for topsoil for landscape structure, and one place that had plenty of topsoil was the farm. David pied and started a business ripping up the farm with a bulldozer, collecting the topsoil and selling it to local developers. What was once a series of green fields was torn up. The farmland turned into dirt pits with trucks, bulldozers and

other heavy equipment. Fortunately, neither David nor Robert cared about esthetics. David had also started making friends with the Hawlls Angels. It was now the early eighties and the first Biker War was winding up. The Hawl's Angels had established dominance over rival club, the Outlaws, and were now focused on expanding across the country. David pict In had already started making friends with the new Vancouver chapter. He wasn't a biker himself, but he was keen to get in.

cock fights and selling illegal cigarettes and alcohol. The Picton brothers became known to local gangs and other crime syndicates in Port Equitlam, and soon the police were eyeing them up too. They came out to investigate rumors that the farm was being used as a Halls Angels chop shop, but ultimately decided to focus on a more urgent priority, catching a psychopathic serial killer who'd been preying on local

children in the area. Clifford Olson was arrested in nineteen eighty two and would confess to murdering eleven children and sexually assaulting others. For a time, he was known as Canada's most prolific serial killer. That is until another took his place. In the nineteen eighties, Indigenous women were showing up dead in Vancouver's Downtown east Side at an increasing rate. Many were sex workers. It was too easy for the

police to dismiss each death as lifestyle related. This is one of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, just east of the Financial District, and once described by the Vancouver Sun as.

housing for people with nowhere else to go. Instead of investing in safety, housing and social supports, government and city officials looked away once the bustling city center, the downtown east Side was now treated as a containment zone of poverty, trauma, and marginalization. Then came World Expo eighty six, Expo eighty.

in the Downtown east Side, the police were apathetic. Just another naked body in a low rent hotel room with no visible injuries and dangerously high blood alcohol levels. The police perceived it as the proverbial trash taking itself out. What was really happening was darker than anyone could imagine. A sadistic man was targeting vulnerable women, and he thought

no one would miss. He would pick up an Indigenous woman at a bar, take her to a cedy hotel, pay her for sex, and then pay or force her to drink lethal amounts of alcohol until she died of alcohol poisoning, and then he would slip away unnoticed. In nineteen eighty eight, the police finally caught up with him.

Several women had been mutilated with a knife. Some had been viciously stabbed, strangled, and beaten by a killer who was clearly out of control. The police would describe it as overkill.

sex worker. They were loved and cherished by someone. A nineteen eighty nine feature article included profiles of nineteen women who had been murdered in the Vancouver area since nineteen eighty two, Some had been sexually assaulted, all unsolved at the time. The authors pose the question, is there a Ted Bundy or Green River style killer on the loose

preying on women? A spokesperson from Vancouver Police's Major Crimes Unit was quoted reiterating the task forces conclusion that there was no evidence to suggest another serial killer was running a mark in the area. This was seen by some as a baffling comment. The victims were all women, and most were sex workers living on the margins of society. Many were Indigenous, and many struggled with hazardous substance use.

The more likely story was that these vulnerable women were thought of as expendable, not worth the resources needed to investigate their cases properly. Back in pork equitlam. Robert Picton had taken on the full weight of the farm operations since his parents passed away in the late seventies, from managing the pigs and maintaining equipment to slaughtering and butchering

and servicing the client list. After all the parts of the animal that could be used for profit were removed, the carcass and other animal waste needed to be disposed of. Sometimes he would bury it in pits on the farm, but as the eighties progressed, Robert started disposing of the waste at a rendering plant in Vancouver called West Coast Reinsduction. This plant processed the remains and retained the grease to

reuse in products like soap, candles, and plastics. Best practice for storing biological waste is to keep it secure, cool and contained and sealed containers to prevent leaks, odours, pests, and contamination before it can be hygienically disposed of. Robert Picton didn't do that.

West Coast Reduction happened to be right next to a certain Vancouver neighborhood known as the Downtown east Side, and Robert Picton had heard all about it from David and his halls Angel's friends. They spoke often about going to biker bars there and taking their pick of the women on the streets engaged in survival sex work. Robert was still a massive loaner and he was intrigued, so he

started to develop a little routine. After driving into Vancouver to dump his waist at West Coast Reduction, he would treat himself to a drive around the Downtown east Side before returning to pork Equitlam women continued to go missing. Teressa Anne Williams grew up in Semiamo First Nation and gave birth to twin sons in nineteen eighty eight when she was just fourteen. Years old. She ran away soon after,

leaving her baby sons with her family. Just a few months after that, in early July of nineteen eighty eight, Teressa phoned home to say she was planning to catch a bus home to see her sons. That was the last time her family ever heard from her. She was just fifteen years old when she disappeared. About a month later, a local park groundskeeper made a horrific discovery. He found a plastic bag that contained a decomposed section of human thigh and bone. The park was Grandview Park, which happened

to be right next door to West Coast Reduction. Years later, through DNA advances, those remains were confirmed to belong to Teressa Ann Williams. The Vancouver Police Department would later state that while there was no tangible evidence linking these and other disappearances to Robert Picton, he cannot be ruled out. The following year, nineteen eighty nine, thirty four year old

Elaine Dumbar dropped off the face of the earth. A white woman originally from Regina, Saskatchewan, Elaine was troubled and she began using drugs at around the age of fourteen. She moved to British Columbia in the early nineteen eighties and lived in pork Equitlam with her common law partner and their new baby daughter. Elaine's sister moved in with them and would report that Elaine was struggling with hazardous

use of heroine. The couple broke up, and after returning to Saskatchewan for a few years with their daughter, Elaine came back to live with her sister and pork Equitlam once again, but that stability did not last. At some point, Elaine left and began spending time in Vancouver's Downtownee Side. The sisters lost contact. Elaine Dunbar was last seen in nineteen eighty nine at a liquor store in North Vancouver.

She was thirty four years old. Her sister and father looked for her in the downtown Knee Side, but there was no trace. That same year, thirty year old Ingrid's sowet disappeared. She was a white woman from Vancouver with a long history of mental health issues. She'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was a known drug user who had recently given birth and placed the baby for adoption. In nineteen eighty nine, Ingrid was living in one of the

seedy hotels on the Downtown Knees Side. That is, until she got evicted. She visited her family and told them she was going to visit someone else. After months without contact, her mother reported her missing in December nineteen ninety. There have been no confirmed sightings of Ingrid Seward since nineteen eighty nine. The women of the Downtown east Side were terrified. They banded together to share information about bad experiences with clients and warn each other of men to be wary of.

This was the start of what would be known as the Bad Trick List. At this point, Robert Picton did not appear on the list. The women passed these bad Trick Lists over to the police and started lobbying for more action. When they suspected someone else had gone missing, they checked in with the police. They asked for more updates, and generally tried to keep the situation top of mind.

The Vancouver Police decided to try again and see what they could uncover with criminal profiling, a new investigative technique at the time. Criminal profiling is the process of examining crime scene evidence for patterns that might help predict an unknown offender's personality. Behavioral and demographic characteristics, particularly in cases of serial offenses, in the hope it will lead them

to the offender. Criminal profiling is widely used today and often assumed to be effective, but it should be noted there is actually little scientific evidence to support its accuracy. Research has found that much of its credibility is anecdotal, built on selective success stories and vague predictions that only seem accurate in hindsight, and all reinforced by pop culture portrayals like mind Hunter. Critics note that much like polygraph tests,

profiling can mislead investigations. When treated as reliable science rather than a limited investigation tool, it can delay the identify of the real offender and even contribute to wrongful convictions. It should be approached with caution. In nineteen ninety one, the Vancouver Police Department put together a team of criminal profilers alongside existing homicide detectives and tasked them with analyzing twenty five unsolved cases of women murdered in and around

the downtown Knee Side. The team was called Project Eclipse and grew to include several profilers from the FBI, as well as a young Canadian from the Vancouver Police department named Kim Rossmo. He had eight years experience in the downtown Knee Side and was described as a brilliant analytical thinker, skilled at math and working with computers. Rossmo was developing a new practice known as geographic profiling, which involved analyzing the crime locations and connecting them in an attempt to

learn more about a predator. His theory was that serial killers worked in areas they were familiar with and felt comfortable in. Project Eclipse gathered for a week long conference to analyze the known data and information, reportedly the first time a group of international profilers had brainstormed together to

try and advance an investigation. The team sorted the murdered women into different groups and found that with a cluster of four linked murders, there was at least one serial killer at work, with a possible two others out there as well. They presented their findings to the Vancouver Police Department, who owned the jurisdiction, hoping that there would be action

taken based on it. It fell flat. Kim Rossmo would later say he believed this response stemmed from laziness and lack of resources and time, but he also suspected the department had no eye idea what to do with this information. It was unprecedented research and required out of the box thinking. It appears, the police effectively put it in the too hard basket and went back to business as usual. As

women continued to be targeted. Back on the Picton farm, Robert and David continued their association with the Howls Angels, and the dishevelled property became a central meeting place. There were parties, barbecues, lots of drinking, and lots of women, but Robert remained an outsider. By this point, the brothers were in their early forties, and while David had had a lot of different girlfriends, Robert never dated anyone. He

didn't even interact much with their biker friends. He was often seen tending to the barbecue and the pig roasts that seemed to be where he was comfortable. He'd become friendly with a Filipino immigrant named Pat Casanova, who helped him butcher pigs on the farm and had a very good recipe for barbecued pork. Together, they started a profitable side business. The local RCMP continued to keep an eye on the Picten brothers as rumors persisted about a Howl's

Angels chop shop on the farm. David Picton drew additional attention of his own. He was a bad driver who had racked up a lot of traffic incidents, including several crashes where he was at fault and sued for damages. He was also known to cruise the downtown east Side to bring women back to the farm. Many people would later say that while David Picton acted like well a dickhead, underneath it all he was quite intelligent. He ran several successful businesses by this point and would often bid on

large demolition jobs in Vancouver and surrounding areas. He frequently won those contracts. In August of nineteen ninety one, a young woman named Nancy Clark disappeared, but she was far from Vancouver's downtown east Side. She went missing from Vancouver Island the city of Victoria. Twenty five year old Nancy was a caring and sensible woman, as described by those who knew her, and a devoted mother to two daughters,

aged eight and almost one. She was also an outside sex worker, providing for her children by soliciting clients from a street corner in Victoria.

Clark was the earliest to disappear. This number is only a reflection of what could still be found by that point. The following year, David Picton found himself on the police's raidar yet again.

for more opportunities to visit. When his brother got a demolition contract in North Vancouver, he saw his chance. He would be driving near the downtown Eese Side on the way, and with just a slight detour, he could buy himself the company of a sex worker or two. But after a while Robert got tired of the daily commute. He had an old motor home parked on the farm, so he gave it a tune up and drove it to

the demolition site. He lived there for the duration of the job, saying he was acting as a site security officer.

the downtown east Side was becoming a crisis. Sex workers were organizing to try and keep themselves safe. They gathered at the Women's Information Safehouse, also known as WISH, a non profit organization that operated a drop in center on the downtown east Side, right in the middle of the main strip, where sex workers could get a hot meal, a space to rest and get ready, and access nursing.

murder during a shooting stemming from cocaine use. She gave birth to two young children with a common law partner in Vancouver, but the couple had recently separated and Kathleen was relying on sex work to help makends meet. In June of nineteen ninety two, thirty nine year old Kathleen Watley left her two young children with a babysitter and went to meet a client on the downtown east Side.

replace it with the Western culture of European settlers. Thousands of students were subjected to physical and sexual abuse and experimentation, and thousands died right on their school grounds. According to the Truth and reconcs Conciliation Commission, the Residential school system is often associated with Canada's early history, but these schools actually ran for more than a century until the last

one closed in nineteen ninety six. Elsie Sebastian Jones suffered repeated physical abuse during her years at residential school, leaving lasting emotional scars that shaped most of her adult life. She gave birth to the first of four children when she was just sixteen. She also struggled with depression, substance use disorder, unstable relationships, and many periods of instability in

her life. After attending several treatment programs followed by relapse, her children eventually went to live with relatives and Elsie moved to Vancouver. Her daughters would say she always kept in touch with them, later describing their mother as a smart, beautiful woman who endured racism throughout her life and fell through the cracks of a system that failed to support her. One night in nineteen ninety two, Elsie cooked dinner for her daughters, then left to get drugs. She was never

seen again. She was forty years old. The following year, Teresa Louise Triff vanished. Very little is known about Teresa, other than the fact that she was a thirty one year old white woman with blonde, curly hair and blue eyes. All in all, fifteen women had vanished from the downtown east Side in the fourteen years between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen ninety three. By this point, the Picton brothers

were not getting along at all. Their living arrangements had always been tumultuous, with both Robert and Da David living in the rambling farmhouse sharing the one bathroom. In many respects, they were different. David was the short and stocky brother, thought of as a foul mouthed jerk who liked having lots of people over to party, whereas Robert was lanky and slim, not very social, and he often creeped people out. They both had bad tempers and bad hygiene, although Roberts

was said to be much worse. Overall, it was not working in the farmhouse. There was no privacy in no escape from each other. After a massive blow up, Robert decided to move into the old motor home on the other side of the property, and David stayed in the farmhouse. Despite the filthy conditions, they always seemed to have women around that needed housing and were willing to do domestic work like laundry and cleaning if they could stay on

the farm. A woman named Tanya would testify that she needed a place to stay and knew the Pictons because her stepfather worked on the farm slaughtering pigs. Robert ushered her into his motor home and allowed her to stay there with him. Tanya described their relationship as like uncle and niece. They slept in separate areas in the motor home and there was no sex. She liked and trusted Robert so much that she ended up staying there for

a year and a half. Tanya said there was a constant stream of people coming and going from the farm, and she often returned to the motor home very late at night to find that Robert wasn't there. She would testify she just assumed he was working late. She had no idea that he was meeting sex workers on the downtown east Side. The list of missing women continued to grow. Lee Minor grew up near San Francisco, one of four children. Her family would describe her as charismatic and fiercely loyal,

with striking auburn hair and a magnetic personality. As a teenager, Lee's life was uphended when her father died suddenly of a heart attack, and years later her own husband would die by suicide in her arms. The compounded grief left her devastated, and she began using heroin to cope. Lee became a mother in nineteen eighty six and moved to Edmonton for a fresh start. She tried to stop using drugs, but it proved difficult, and her child eventually went to

live with family. In nineteen ninety three, she moved to the Downtown east Side and engaged in sex work to survive and fund her substance use disorder. That December of nineteen ninety three, thirty four year old Lee phoned her sister to ask for money to visit their mother for Christmas. Her family waited for her all day, gifts unopened, but

she never arrived. At first, they assumed she just hadn't kept her promise, but when weeks went by with no word, Lee's mother went looking for her on the downtown east Side and reported her missing. She would later say the police showed little interest. Then there's Angela Arsenal, who was just seventeen years old when she disappeared. Angela grew up with her mother and stepfather, moving several times before eventually settling in the Vancouver area. Angela reportedly started using drugs

in high school and dropped out in grade nine. Her mother would later tell The Surrey Leader that she left home and briefly became involved in sex work on the downtown Knees Side, but her boyfriend helped her get off the streets. Angela was street smart and capable of looking after herself, but she was also being harassed by a pimp who wanted her to return to sex work. In August of nineteen ninety four, Angela spoke with her mother on the phone, making plans to go shopping for shower curtains.

She was living with her boyfriend by this time, and that night they met downtown for dinner and shopping with another friend. She caught the bus home by herself for some reason. When her boyfriend arrived home later, Angela's purse, ID, cash and shopping bags were there, but the seventeen year old was missing. She was never seen again. During this time, Robert Picton had continued his trips into West Coast Reduction

to dump his barrels of waste and remains. Sometimes he wasn't able to make the trip himself, and West Coast would send a truck out to.

off every piece of meat they could find. That's where the money was, but Robert Picton was just throwing it away. Thanks for listening. In Part two, there's an alarming spike and vulnerable women going missing from the downtown Knee Side. Two would live to tell their stories. We'll circle back to Wendy, who escaped from the farm after a vicious knife fight with Robert Pickton and was rushed to emergency surgery,

still with the handcuffs he put around her wrist. Meanwhile, the Picton brothers become officially wealthy and opened the infamous party venue known as Piggy's palace, serving alcohol and barbecue pork to bikers, sex workers, and even local city officials. The next episode will be available in a week. You can listen ad free and early on our premium feeds.

For the full list of resources, sources, research studies, and anything else you want to know about the podcast, see the show notes or visit Canadian Truecrime dot caa we donate monthly to those facing injustice. Proceeds from this series are going to the Wish Drop In Center, society supporting street based sex workers on Vancouver's downtown east Side since nineteen eighty four. Special thanks to Danielle Parody for family outreach and additional research. Audio editing was by Crosby Audio

and Eric Crosby voiced the disclaimer. Our senior producer is Lindsey Eldridge and Carol Weinberg is our script consultant. Research writing, narration and sound design was by me and the theme songs were composed by We Talk of Dreams. I'll be back soon with another Canadian True Crime episode.