Sex worker says police did nothing after she was raped by Pickton

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE OCTOBER 31, 2011 7:35 PM

Susan Davis walks out of Federal Court in Vancouver Oct. 31 after testifying at Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.

Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG

A sex worker testified at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry on Monday that she tried three times to get Vancouver police to investigate her complaint of violent rape by the man she now believes was serial killer Robert Pickton.

Susan Davis, 43, said the fact that the VPD failed to follow up on her report of a sexual assault at knifepoint was a “major life-altering event” that forever undermined her trust in police.

“It haunted me,” said Davis. “I grew up in an upper middle-class home and I believed I’d get equal treatment from the police and I didn’t.”

Even though Davis now lectures at major universities, speaks to classes of new VPD recruits and sits on police advisory committees, she said “sex workers still don’t trust police, because of incidents like this.”

Davis, who has been a sex worker for 25 years, including three years in the Downtown Eastside, (DTES) said it was a snowy winter night in January, 1991, when she took a “date” out of financial desperation and drug addiction.

“He had wispy hair, a scruffy, dirty beard, a station wagon with the side all crushed in, all full of garbage and he just stank,” testified Davis.

The man took her to a parking-lot off Quebec Street, punched her in the face, pulled a knife “and raped me on the front seat, at knifepoint,” said Davis.

Then he took Davis back to her corner, but she took down the licence-plate number before he drove away.

Traumatized, she called the VPD non-emergency line and they told her to call 911. She waited, shivering in the cold for an hour, then gave up. She made two more appointments with the VPD, but no one ever took a statement from her.

Davis admitted that she has no proof the man who raped her was Pickton, who is now serving a life sentence for the murder of six women, although he boasted in jail to an undercover officer of killing 49 women in total.

She agreed with lawyer Cameron Ward, acting for the families of 18 murdered women, that had the VPD followed up on her report in the early 1990s, Pickton would have been on police radar sooner than his next police-involved violent assault of a sex worker in 1997.

The Inquiry is examining why it took police so long to catch Pickton between 1997, when he was charged with assaulting a DTES sex worker on his Port Coquitlam farm, and 2002, when he was finally arrested.

Davis said she is “fully empowered” as someone who sells sex from her own apartment, but is working to improve other sex workers’ safety and health.

Davis praised the more recent efforts of the VPD to liaise with, and protect, DTES women, particularly through the VPD sex-worker liaison Const. Linda Malcolm.

Davis said she has experienced no violence for seven years, and favours indoor sex prostitution where women control clients and work conditions.

She said police have progressed a great deal from the days when “vice officers would take Polaroids of us and [note] any distinguishing marks. They told us it was so they could identify our bodies when we were found dead.”

Davis agreed that although few sex workers now face Criminal Code charges, “street-level sex workers still have lots to fear from the police.”

There are also very few resources for women trying to exit sex work, she said, including inadequate detox and treatment and no job retraining.

Commissioner Wally Oppal, who has had his mandate extended until next June, thanked Davis for her “articulate and very helpful” evidence.

The inquiry will hear Tuesday from Elaine Allan, a former employee at the WISH women’s drop-in.

Before VPD Insp. Doug LePard’s testimony, the inquiry will hear motions from lawyer Jason Gratl to protect vulnerable witnesses and a motion from Ward for a week’s adjournment to process complex police evidence first.

sfournier@theprovince.com

© Copyright (c) The Province

MWCI: Our adjournment application explained

MWCI: Our adjournment application explained

October 31, 2011 in Opinion

As the media have had questions about our application tentatively set for Thursday, November 3, 2011, which was characterized as an application for an adjournment, we should clarify that we are applying for both further and better document disclosure and an adjournment for a reasonable period in order us to prepare to cross-examine D/C LePard and the other police witnesses who are apparently scheduled to testify during the week of November 7, 2011.

Counsel have been told to expect the receipt of a report from Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans, who has been reviewing the police files for about a year, by today, October 31, 2011.  The report is expected to a critical analysis of the missing women investigation, similar to the subject matter of D/C LePard’s anticipated testimony, but we have not yet seen it.

posted by Cameron Ward

http://www.cameronward.com/2011/10/mwci-our-adjournment-application-explained/

MWCI: Believe Pickton tried to kill me in early 90′s: witness

MWCI: Believe Pickton tried to kill me in early 90′s: witness

October 31, 2011 in Missing Women Commision of Inquiry, News

Susan Davis, an advocate for sex trade workers who herself worked on Vancouver streets between 1990-1993, testified that a client raped her at knifepoint in the early 90′s.  She managed to escape and got the licence plate number of her attacker’s vehicle.  She phoned 911 and was told to wait for a Vancouver Police Department to attend on a specified corner.  Ms. Davis waited for an hour but no police attended.  She tried twice more over the next three weeks to report the crime but again, Vancouver police failed to respond.  Years later, when Robert William Pickton’s photograph in the media appeared, identifying him as a suspect in as many as 49 murders of sex trade workers, Ms. Davis said to herself, “that’s the guy”.

Ms. Davis described the harsh life of street sex trade workers.  She said there is a general sense of distrust of the police on the part of sex trade workers but noted that she has had four regular clients who were members of the VPD and RCMP.  Her testimony continues.

posted by Cameron Ward

http://www.cameronward.com/2011/10/mwci-believe-pickton-tried-to-kill-me-in-early-90s-witness/

Sex trade worker believes she was raped by serial killer Robert Pickton

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 31, 2011 5:30 PM

Susan Davis, a sex trade worker, testified today at the Missing Women inquiry that she believes she was assaulted and raped by serial killer Robert Pickton two decades ago. She recalled she called 911 three times to report the matter but police never showed up.

Photograph by: PNG files, ...

VANCOUVER - A sex trade worker testified today at the Missing Women inquiry that she believes she was assaulted and raped by serial killer Robert Pickton two decades ago.

Susan Davis recalled she called 911 three times to report the matter but police never showed up.

She said she waited on a street corner for an hour for police to take her statement but finally left because it was cold.

"There was a blizzard," she recalled.

"There was snow every where. I had to hop over a snowbank to get into the car," Davis told inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal.

She said the incident occurred sometime around January 1991.

Davis said the man was driving a beat-up station wagon and took her to a location where he punched her in the face and raped her at knifepoint.

She recalled he had thin hair and smelled badly.

She said she called 911 to report it to police and was transferred to a police officer who said he would meet her at Second and Main Street.

She phoned the officer twice more when he didn't show and finally left.

She said the incident was reflective of the Vancouver police indifference to violence against sex trade workers.

It was also a common experience for sex trade workers, she said.

That's one of the reasons there has been a traditional distrust of police, but admitted there has been a change in attitude in the Vancouver police department, especially among the younger officers who try to make sure women working the street are safe.

Davis, 43, has been an advocate for decriminalizing street prostitution to make it safer. She has been a sex trade worker for 25 years.

"You have no way to protect yourself," she recalled about getting into a car with a stranger.

She said indoor sex work is safer because you can screen your clients and have control over your working environment.

Street sex workers used to rent hotel rooms in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside for $20 an hour, she recalled.

She suggested there needs to be more "exit" services for street sex workers if they want to get off the street.

Most street sex workers only make enough money to survive and pay for drugs, Davis said.

Davis added that street sex workers are preyed on by drug dealers.

"Everything you earn is the property of drug dealers," she testified.

She said drug dealers don't want street workers to die, they just want them to pay their debts.

But occasionally women get pushed out of windows, Davis said.

The inquiry is examining why Pickton wasn't caught sooner.

He was arrested in 2002 and eventually charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder, which were divided into two trials.

Pickton, 62, was convicted of six murders in 2007.

The Crown decided not to proceed on a second trial after Pickton exhausted all appeals.

The inquiry is also probing why the Crown stayed an attempted murder charge in 1998 against Pickton.

The charges stemmed from a 1997 knife attack on a prostitute, who ran naked and bleeding from Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam and was picked up by a passing motorist.

The inquiry will continue Tuesday with Elaine Allan, who worked at the WISH drop-in centre for street sex workers between 1998 and 2001.

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Relatives of Robert Pickton victims given $1.25 million

ROBERT MATAS
VANCOUVER – From Monday’s Globe and Mail

Published Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011

Family members of the victims murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton have received $1.25-million in support from the B.C. government, The Globe and Mail has learned.

The government has paid for counselling, funeral costs and travel expenses and hotels to attend Mr. Pickton’s trial and the current Missing Women’s Inquiry. The government has also paid out up to $10,000 to some of the victims’ family members as compensation for the death of their relative.

But the support has not quelled the demand for more.

Ernie Crey, one of the most outspoken family members, said he believes the government is trying to avoid court-imposed settlements to civil lawsuits that may be launched once the current government inquiry into the police investigation of Mr. Pickton is completed.

“They are trying to buy insurance against future legal action resulting from the botched investigation,” said Mr. Crey. His sister, Dawn Crey, vanished from the Downtown Eastside in November, 2000. Investigators found her DNA on Mr. Pickton’s farm and police have said that they believe Mr. Pickton killed her. “I’m very disappointed they are doing it,” he said in an interview.

Mr. Crey said he would not accept an offer of compensation if he was required to sign away his right to sue police and the government. “Many families are of modest means and the sum of money [offered by the government] may be appealing to these families,” he said. “I find it appalling.”

Others questioned why the government did not pay the same amount to all family members. Lori-Ann Ellis, sister-in-law to Cara Ellis, another Pickton victim, said some people received $10,000 while others were given $5,000. “We’re not quite sure why,” she said in an interview.

She has been the member of the Ellis family most involved in following Mr. Pickton’s fate and the government inquiry. As a sister-in-law and not an immediate relative, she was not eligible for compensation from the government, she said. However, she was puzzled why children from a previous marriage of Cara Ellis’s stepfather each received payments, she said.

Lilliane Beaudoin, sister of victim Dianne Rock, said Ms. Rock’s mother, sisters, brothers and five children each received compensation of various amounts. Four children were given $5,000 each and one child received $7,000, she said in an interview.

Rick Frey, whose daughter Marnie was among six women Mr. Pickton was convicted of killing, was critical of the government for making settlements in private with each family. “There are too many deals struck with individual families and no one knows what the hell is going on,” he said.

Mr. Frey said he feels the government should treat everyone equally. “What is good for one is good for everybody,” he said.

Attorney-General Shirley Bond was not available for an interview. However, an e-mail from ministry staff stated that government support totalling $1.25-million has been provided to family members during the police investigation, Mr. Pickton’s trial and appeals, and during the current inquiry.

The B.C. government’s crime victim assistance program provides financial assistance to immediate family members of victims of violent crime.

Compensation paid to family members was for pain and suffering, the ministry e-mail stated. Dependent children received payments for loss of love, guidance and affection. WorkSafe BC, the workers compensation board, adjudicated the claims, a ministry staff member said.

Several family members are currently attending the hearings of the government-appointed inquiry into why police did not arrest Mr. Pickton before February, 2002. Dozens of women disappeared in the years before Mr. Pickton was arrested. Mr. Pickton is serving a life sentence for the second-degree murder of six women. Investigators found DNA of 33 women on his family’s pig farm. He has said he killed 49 women.

© Copyright 2011 The Globe and Mail Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Marnie Frey's mom followed the trail of her missing daughter to Pickton's farm

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE OCTOBER 24, 2011

The family of Marnie Frey -- Joyce Lachance (L), Rick Frey (C) and Lynn Frey (R) hold a star blanket bearing Frey's photo at the First Nations healing circle supporting the families of the missing and murdered women in the intersection of Granville and Georgia on Oct. 17. Lynn Frey testified at the Missing Women inquiry on Monday, Oct. 24.

Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, PNG

Lynn Frey told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry that “as a mom from Campbell River,” she readily heard on Vancouver streets in 1998 about a farm where women disappeared into a wood chipper.

Frey was searching for her beloved stepdaughter Marnie, who had the “disease” of drug addiction but called home every day — for the very last time on Marnie’s birthday on Aug. 30, 1997.

In her testimony at the inquiry Monday, Frey said she and Marnie were very close, and that Marnie was a “compassionate, caring” girl who began using drugs in her late teens, then moved to the Downtown Eastside. Lynn asked Marnie how she was paying for drugs there and Marnie told her, “I’m selling myself ... it’s really scary.”

Frey knew Marnie was in trouble and began calling hospitals and morgues. She pounded the Downtown Eastside streets, putting up posters and photos of her daughter.

Frey said she tried very hard to get Vancouver Police and the RCMP to help.

“They didn’t give a damn,” she said, adding that if Marnie had been from the University of B.C. or Kerrisdale and not a “low-class prostitute,” police would have looked for her. The inaction of police made Frey feel “lost, empty, like I was garbage,” she said.

Frey said Vancouver police officers failed to do the basic research she did, although she lived in a small town and was searching for Marnie while taking care of her dying mother, who lived in Mission, and Marnie’s daughter Britney.

One police officer joked that the heavily-addicted Marnie, who tried many times to kick her heroin habit, was “on a cruise,” Frey testified.

Frey began asking Downtown Eastside residents more questions about women going missing on a muddy farm, near a fast-moving river, 45 minutes from Vancouver, their bodies disposed of in a “chipper.”

Then a tip from Frey’s foster sister Joyce Lachance, who lived in Port Coquitlam, led her right to the front gate of the PoCo pig farm owned by now-convicted serial killer Robert Pickton. Frey even scaled the fence the first night she went there but retreated when dogs were set on her.

Frey visited the farm many times, often at night after a fruitless day of looking for Marnie. She even drove onto the farm once with Lachance, who babysat for the children of Pickton’s friend and sometime-housemate Gina Houston. Frey said she felt a strange premonition that “Marnie was there.”

But Pickton went on to kill a dozen more women until Coquitlam RCMP exercising a firearms warrant stumbled upon evidence of the missing women and arrested him in 2002.

After his arrest police began an exhaustive forensic search to the bedrock of the junk-and-vehicle-strewn farm where Pickton slaughtered pigs.

It was not until 2004 that a six-car cavalcade of RCMP officers came to the Campbell River home of Lynn Frey and her husband, commercial fisherman Rick Frey, who had a very close bond with Marnie.

They had found Marnie’s right jawbone and three of her teeth, not far from where Lynn had sensed her daughter’s presence on the gloomy, muddy farm of Willie Pickton.

Frey said she finally found a “caring, compassionate” police officer when Vancouver police detective Lori Shenher was assigned to Missing Persons.

Shenher would hug Frey, ask how she was doing, and even chided her for climbing the fence at the Pickton farm. Frey said Shenher was well-aware of Pickton, his farm and the avalanche of tips that he was picking up women on the Downtown Eastside and luring them to his PoCo farm with money and drugs. Some women never returned.

Frey did not know what Shenher did with the knowledge of Pickton, but no police agency went on the farm until 2002.

Pickton, 62, is serving a life sentence for the murder of six women, including Marnie Frey, but has been linked by DNA to the deaths of 33 women.

Charges involving 20 murdered women were stayed in 2010, after Pickton exhausted all legal appeals. Pickton himself boasted in jail to an undercover officer that he had killed 49 women in total.

Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal has pledged to hand in his report to the BC government by the end of 2011.

This week, the inquiry will hear from several family members, represented by lawyers Cameron Ward and Neil Chantler, about the lives of 18 women murdered by Pickton.

sfournier@theprovince.com

© Copyright (c) The Province

RCMP 'herded' native kids to residential schools - Canada - CBC News

RCMP 'herded' native kids to residential schools - Canada - CBC News:

'via Blog this'

Now What?

MWCI: Now what?

October 28, 2011 in Missing Women Commision of Inquiry, Opinion

The Vancouver Sun is reporting that Attorney General/Solicitor General Shirley Bond will announce today that the Missing Women Commisssion of Inquiry will have its term extended for another six months, presumably to June 30, 2012.

We have not received any confirmation of this yet and continue to struggle with the uncertainty surrounding the proceedings.  For instance, late yesterday Commission Counsel Art Vertlieb announced that next week’s scheduled witnesses -  RCMP C/Supt. Robert Morrison, Supt. Jim Gresham, C/Supt. Janice Armstrong , Mr. Max Xiao,  VPD  Superintendent Jeff Sim and Police Board representative Elizabeth Watson - would actually not be attending the hearings next week and may be coming at some later date.  That news caught us by complete surprise, as we had been busily preparing to cross-examine them on their evidence.

We’ve been told that the long-awaited report of Peel Deputy Chief Evans (who has been working with the files for a year) will be delivered by Monday.   Next week’s hearing schedule, at  least at this moment, is said to include testimony from Susan Davis and Elaine Allan, to be followed by an application for an order protecting vulnerable witnesses and some sort of hearing to deal with the RCMP and VPD lawyers’ concerns about publication of “sensitive” information.

We look forward to attempting to address these evidentiary issues in the hearings.  At this point, it appears to us that the RCMP and VPD are trying to keep the tightest possible lid on the evidence that might lead the public, and our clients, to the truth.  If this inquiry is to fulfill its mandate, the lid will have to be pried off to expose the entire story, however messy it may be, to the Commission’s scrutiny.

posted by Cameron Ward

http://www.cameronward.com/2011/10/mwci-now-what/

AG approves extension deadline for Missing Women inquiry

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 28, 2011 1:22 PM

The first community engagement forum for the Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry began Wednesday with a first nations prayer and songs to bless and welcome about 200 people.

Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann, PNG

VANCOUVER - Attorney General Shirley Bond announced Friday a six-month extension to the deadline for the Missing Women inquiry.

The inquiry was supposed to submit its report by Dec. 31 but only began hearings three weeks ago and isn't expected to wrap up until next spring.

The inquiry had asked for a one-year extension but Bond granted only a six-month extension of the deadline -- to June 30, 2012.

"This extension will be incremental to the commission's current budget," the attorney general ministry said today in a statement.

"To date, government has invested $2.5 million to support the commission."

The inquiry, which resumes Monday, didn't finish hearing all the testimony this week of the families of victims of serial killer Robert Pickton.

Some families have been told to expect to return in January.

The inquiry was commissioned by the provincial government last year to examine why it took police so long to catch Pickton, who was arrested in 2002.

There had been tips to police in 1998 about Pickton killing one woman and possibly being responsible for the disappearance of dozens more from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The inquiry's mandate includes probing the reasons why the Crown decided in 1998 not to proceed to trial on charges laid against Pickton in 1997.

Pickton had been charged with attempted murder, unlawful confinement and aggravated assault after he handcuffed a prostitute and stabbed her a number of times.

The woman slashed Pickton's neck with the knife and ran naked and bleeding from Pickton's farm to the street, where she was picked up by a passing car who took her to hospital.

Pickton ended up in the same hospital.

Police found in his pocket the key that opened the handcuffs dangling from the wrist of the woman.

His clothes were seized by police after the 1997 incident.

It wasn't until his arrest in 2002 that police decided to do DNA testing on his clothes and boots, which revealed the DNA of two missing women.

Police eventually found the DNA of 33 women on Pickton's farm.

He was charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder, which were split into two trials.

His first trial ended in 2007 with Pickton convicted of six murders.

He now is serving six life sentences.

After Pickton exhausted all appeals, the Crown decided it would not be in the public interest to proceed on the second trial involving 20 murders.

Pickton confessed to an undercover officer, posing as a cellmate, that he killed 49 women and planned to kill two dozen more.

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Reality check as first week of families’ testimony wraps up

MWCI: Reality check as first week of families’ testimony wraps up

October 27, 2011 in Missing Women Commision of Inquiry, News

The third week of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry concluded today with emotional testimony from Ernie Crey, Angel Wolfe and Lillian Beaudoin as they described losing sisters (Dawn Crey and Dianne Rock) and a mother (Brenda Wolfe) in unspeakable circumstances.

Dianne Rock: murdered, but charge against accused killer stayed in 2010

Both Mr. Crey and Ms. Beaudoin expressed their disappointment and anger about the Ministry of Attorney General’s 2008 decision that Robert Pickton would not be tried for additional murders if his six convictions were upheld on appeal.  They were referring to media reports like the one reproduced below.  The twenty outstanding murder charges were formally stayed by the Crown in a brief court appearance before Mr. Justice James Williams on August 4, 2010, after the Supreme Court of Canada had dismissed Pickton’s final appeal.

…..

Justine Hunter, The Globe and Mail, February 27, 2008:

Serial killer Robert Pickton will not face a trial on 20 first-degree murder charges unless he successfully appeals his first six murder convictions, B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal confirmed yesterday.

“It would not be in the public interest to proceed further against a person who is already serving six life terms with no eligibility of parole for a minimum of 25 years,” Mr. Oppal told reporters.

He acknowledged he will face criticism from some of the families of the 20 victims who have not had their day in court, but he insisted the cost of the trial was not a factor in the decision.

“We can’t put a price on justice,” he said. “The public interest here involves putting everybody through a second trial given the fact that no further punishment can be achieved by virtue of further convictions. He is now receiving the maximum sentence.”

Lori-Ann Ellis, whose sister-in-law Carrie Ellis is among the 20 outstanding cases, told the Canadian Press she wants the trial to go ahead.

“Six of the 26 were given justice, they were given their day in court,” she said. “The families had an opportunity to speak in public … on how it affected them. That’s something this family will never have.

“We want to know why the government feels that the murders and lives of these girls are not important enough to proceed with a trial.”

Ernie Crey wasn’t expecting to see justice for his sister Dawn. Although traces of her DNA were found on Mr. Pickton’s pig farm, no charges have been laid in her case.

But he said the decision is a terrible one for families.

“If my sister were amongst the 20, I would be camped out in Wally Oppal’s office right now until he reversed that decision,” he said in an interview yesterday.

Mr. Oppal said victim service workers have been working to contact about 200 family members connected with the 20 victims.

“I know the lawyers in the justice branch agonized over this decision,” he told reporters yesterday.

Mr. Pickton, 58, faced 26 first-degree murder charges in all, but the judge at his first trial divided them into two groups and the jury heard evidence on only six.

After an 11-month trial, he was convicted in December on lesser counts of second-degree murder in the killing of six women whose partial remains were found on his Port Coquitlam pig farm.

Peter Ritchie, lawyer for Mr. Pickton, said he wants to see the written reasons before he responds.

“We are not entirely surprised the Crown has said that, but we will not react until we have seen the documents.”

But Mike Farnworth, the New Democratic Party opposition’s justice critic, said he was disappointed with the decision.

“The victims and families deserve justice – all of them do – and the trial should go ahead.”

Mr. Oppal said the second trial could go ahead if Mr. Pickton wins his appeal. The case is back in court next week. If an appeal is granted, the Crown will pursue 26 charges of first-degree murder.

“These are very difficult cases to put together, they take a human toll on everybody involved,” he said.

With a report from The Canadian Press

posted by Cameron Ward

Government to announce extension deadline for Missing Women inquiry

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 27, 2011

The first community engagement forum for the Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry began Wednesday with a first nations prayer and songs to bless and welcome about 200 people.

Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann, PNG

VANCOUVER - Attorney-General Shirley Bond is expected to announce Friday a six-month extension to the deadline for the missing women inquiry.

The inquiry was supposed to submit its report by Dec. 31 but only began hearings three weeks ago and isn't expected to wrap up until next spring.

At the end of Thursday's hearing, commission counsel Art Vertlieb told inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal that he hopes to hear soon if the government will grant the inquiry a deadline extension.

The Vancouver Sun has learned that the government plans to extend the deadline by six months, to the end of June 2012.

The inquiry didn't finish hearing all the testimony this week of the families of victims of serial killer Robert Pickton.

Some families have been told to expect to return in January.

The inquiry was commissioned by the provincial government last year to examine why it took police so long to catch Pickton, who was arrested in 2002.

There had been tips to police in 1998 about Pickton killing one woman and possibly being responsible for the disappearance of dozens more from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The inquiry's mandate includes probing the reasons why the Crown decided in 1998 not to proceed to trial on charges laid against Pickton in 1997.

Pickton had been charged with attempted murder, unlawful confinement and aggravated assault after he allegedly handcuffed a prostitute and stabbed her a number of times with a knife.

The woman ran naked and bleeding from Pickton's farm and flagged down a passing motorist, who took her to hospital.

Pickton, who was also slashed in the neck by the woman, ended up in the same hospital.

Police found in Pickton's pocket the key that opened the handcuffs dangling from the prostitute's wrist.

His clothes were seized by police after the 1997 incident.

It wasn't until his arrest in 2002 that police decided to do DNA testing on his clothes and boots, which revealed the DNA of two missing women.

Police eventually found the DNA of 33 women on Pickton's farm.

He was charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder, which were split into two trials.

His first trial ended in 2007 with Pickton convicted of six murders.

He now is serving six life sentences.

After Pickton exhausted all appeals, the Crown decided it would not be in the public interest to proceed on the second trial involving 20 murders.

Pickton confessed to an undercover officer, posing as a cellmate, that he killed 49 women and planned to kill two dozen more.

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Inquiry witness was only eight when she began to learn the grotesque details of her mother's death

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE OCTOBER 27, 2011 4:05 PM

Angel Wolfe was only eight when told of her mother Brenda Wolfe's death. She learned the grotesque details of Robert Pickton and his victims from the media.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

Angel Wolfe, an 18-year-old Toronto student, told the Missing Women Commission of InquiryThursday she was only eight years old when police “very coldly” told her they thought her mother’s remains had been found on a pig farm.

Then police “interrogated” her and left her to find out from the media, as a child and then as a teen, all the “grotesque” details of the murder of her mother Brenda Wolfe and other women by serial killer Robert Pickton.

Today Angel is a strong, confident young woman, who read a statement to the inquiry calling for rights and redress for the children of the many missing and murdered women. The inquiry is addressing police handling of the cases between 1997 and 2002, when Pickton was finally arrested when Coquitlam RCMP stumbled over evidence of missing women while searching for firearms at the Pickton farm in Port Coquitlam.

Angel said the trauma of her mother’s disappearance and death was compounded by police “letting this monster” Pickton troll the Downtown Eastside for victims for decades “because my mother and many of the other women were poor, First Nations in the high-risk street sex trade.”

“I didn’t know what happened between when I was six and my mother’s last call to her death,” said Wolfe.

“I felt like I’d been punched in the face,” said Wolfe. “I didn’t know why no one wanted to protect these women.”

Wolfe ran away from an abusive Ontario foster home and at 15 found her own way back to the stepmother she’d lived with as a child, before her father abandoned the family.

Bridget Perrier, Angel’s stepmother, said she and Angel now give a course to social workers and police called “Sex Trade 101,” to gain respect for women forced into prostitution by poverty or addiction.

Angel is also outraged that last July, after Pickton’s life sentence was upheld for the murder of her mother and five other women, she finally got a visit from the Missing Women Task Force. They offered her $10,000 from the B.C. Criminal Injuries Compensation Branch for the death of her mother.

“The fine print though said you had to give up all future legal action and claims,” said Wolfe. She refused to sign, saying “No one can put a price tag on my mother’s death. She’ll never see me graduate, walk down the aisle or give birth.”

Wolfe is now lobbying for First Nations counsellors and other resources such as education benefits for the children of the missing women.

“I had a horrible childhood in some ways but I’m very lucky to live now with Bridget and a family that loves me,” said Wolfe, who is also a teen delegate to the aboriginal Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian residential schools.

Meanwhile, the Missing Women Inquiry is already running out of time and will require government action to extend its timetable.

Families of 18 murdered women who have travelled from other cities and provinces are upset that they will not get a chance to speak to the inquiry. Only four days have been set aside to hear the wrenching testimony of family members, some of whom have never spoken publicly of how, when and why their loved ones vanished and then how they found out those women had been murdered.

The majority of families of 33 murdered women linked by DNA to convicted serial killer Robert Pickton have never even found out details of their loved ones’ deaths, nor have 27 of those cases ever been heard in a court of law.

It will require an order-in-council from the B.C. government to extend the inquiry, slated to halt hearings on Dec. 1. Next week will begin a long roster of VPD and RCMP witnesses, who will take weeks. Some families have been told they may be recalled as witnesses in January, 2012, although Commissioner Wally Oppal had pledged to hand in his report by the end of 2011.

sfournier@theprovince.com

twitter.com/suzannefournier

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Racial stereotyping of victim hampered police investigation, Missing Women inquiry told

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 26, 2011

Angela Williams was killed in 2001.

Photograph by: Handout, Missing Women inquiry

VANCOUVER - A relative of a 2001 murder victim told the Missing Women inquiry today that racial stereotyping of the victim hampered a proper police investigation.

Margaret Green recalled when she reported Angela Williams missing to Vancouver police on Dec. 26, 2001, police seemed to focus on the fact that Angela was a first nations drug addict who dabbled in prostitution.

She said when Angela was found dead beside a rural road in Surrey, the RCMP initially assumed it was a drug overdose.

But an autopsy found only a trace of cocaine in Angela's system that was about a week old, so a second autopsy had to be done, which found evidence of bruising on the neck, she told the inquiry.

Green said she felt police never investigated the case properly.

"They seemed to have tunnel vision that Angela's case was part of that life," she testified.

"I really think this is another case of racial stereotyping."

And she was upset that there seemed to be no communication with the Vancouver police missing persons unit.

The inquiry heard that on Dec. 21, 2001, then Surrey RCMP Constable Tim Shields sent an email to the head of the missing women task force about the unidentified woman being found in Surrey on Dec. 13, 2001.

Green recalled she only learned about unidentified woman's body being found in Surrey from a street person in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, who had a read a newspaper article about it.

At the time, Green said, she was handing out posters with Angela's photo on them in the Downtown Eastside.

She said the RCMP initially said Angela's cause of death was undetermined.

Green, the legal guardian of Angela's two youngest daughters, recalled one of Angela's daughter's kept asking: How did mommy die? Why didn't they catch the person."

She said the last update from Surrey RCMP on the unsolved case was in 2007, when Green told police that one daughter wanted to visit the site where her mother was found.

Two officers then took Green and Angela's two daughters to the site, where the girls laid flowers.

"I want to know how mommy died," one of the girls asked the Mounties.

Green added that one of the officers pulled her aside and said: "It's pretty clear to us she died of manual strangulation."

And that was the first time police confirmed it was believed to be a murder case, she said.

"I want to know why no one cared enough to investigate properly," Ashley Smith, 21, one of the daughters of Angela Williams, told the inquiry today.

"Was it because she was native? It's been 10 years and I don't know how she died," she added.

The inquiry is continuing this afternoon.

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Police ‘have some accounting to do,’ testifies brother of Pickton victim Dawn Crey

Attempted murder charge against serial killer was dropped in 1998. A year later, Crime Stoppers call named Pickton

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 26, 2011 7:41 PM

Ashley Smith hugs her younger sister outside the Missing Women’s Inquiry in Vancouver on October 26, 2011.

Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost, PNG

VANCOUVER — The brother of a victim of serial killer Robert Pickton told the Missing Women Inquiry on Wednesday he is angry that authorities failed to prosecute Pickton for attempted murder after a 1997 knife attack.

Ernie Crey said he believes his younger sister, Dawn Crey, would be alive today if Pickton had been jailed then.

“I feel it failed my sister and failed my family and the other families,” Crey told inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal, a retired judge.

“Mister commissioner, I can’t begin to tell you how angry I am about that,” he added.

“The anger and frustration my family carried. I want people to understand how let down we feel by the system and how angry we are to this day.”

In 1997, Pickton was charged with attempted murder, unlawful confinement and other charges stemming from his knife attack on a prostitute from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, who ran naked and bleeding from Pickton’s farm and was picked up by a passing motorist.

The charges were stayed by the Crown in 1998. The reasons why will be probed later at the inquiry.

“We’re interested in discovering why this occurred,” Crey, with his sister Lorraine Crey, explained to reporters outside the inquiry.

“If the charges would have been proceeded to trial, this guy would have been in jail and he would have been off the streets,” he added.

“Police have some accounting to do. That’s why we’re here,” said Crey, 64, a prominent first nations leader and frequent critic of the police investigation that led to the arrest of Pickton in 2002.

“There were 18 women who went missing from the Downtown Eastside between 1997 and 2002 and one of those women was my sister,” he said. “We firmly believe she would be alive today.”

Cameron Ward, the lawyer representing 18 families of Pickton’s victims at the inquiry, had earlier read out portions of the Vancouver police report by Deputy Chief Doug LePard.

The report stated that a man called Crime Stoppers in July 1998 and said a man named Willie, whom the caller called a “sicko,” picked up prostitutes, had 10 purses and the identification of women in his home and had bragged that he could easily dispose of bodies by using a meat grinder to prepare food for his pigs.

The same caller, later identified as Bill Hiscox, called Crime Stoppers again on Aug. 5, 1998, giving the suspect’s full name, Willie Pickton. He said Pickton had a farm in Port Coquitlam, that he killed Sarah DeVries, one of the missing women, and that “he might be responsible for all the missing girls.”

Earlier in the day, Margaret Green testified that she believed that racial stereotyping of her relative, Angela Williams, had hampered a proper police investigation after Williams was found dead beside a rural Surrey road on Dec. 13, 2001.

Green recalled when she reported Angela missing to Vancouver police on Dec. 26, 2001, police seemed to focus on the fact that Angela was a first nations drug addict who dabbled in prostitution.

She said when Angela was found dead, Surrey RCMP initially assumed it was a drug overdose.

But an autopsy found only a trace of cocaine in Angela’s system, indicating she had used the drug a week earlier. A second autopsy found evidence of bruising on the neck, she told the inquiry.

“They seemed to have tunnel vision that Angela’s case was part of that life,” Green testified.

“I really think this is another case of racial stereotyping.”

She was also upset that there seemed to be no communication with the Vancouver police missing persons unit and the RCMP.

Green, the legal guardian of Angela’s two youngest daughters, recalled that one of Angela’s daughter’s kept asking: “How did mommy die? Why didn’t they catch the person?”

She said the last update from Surrey RCMP on the case was in 2007, when Green told police one daughter wanted to visit the site where her mother was found.

Two officers took Green and Angela’s two daughters to the site, where the girls laid flowers.

“I want to know how mommy died,” one of the girls told the Mounties.

One officer pulled Green aside and said: “It’s pretty clear to us she died of manual strangulation.”

That was the first time police confirmed it was believed to be a murder case, she said.

“I want to know why no one cared enough to investigate properly,” Ashley Smith, 21, one of the daughters of Angela Williams, told the inquiry.

“Was it because she was native? It’s been 10 years and I don’t know how she died,” she added.

Crey's testimony Wednesday came on his sister Dawn's birthday. She would have been 53, had she lived.

It was also Pickton's birthday Wednesday. He is 62.

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

‘If police had taken her death seriously from the beginning, I’d know what happened to her’

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE OCTOBER 26, 2011 5:27 PM

Ashley Smith hugs her younger sister outside the Missing Women COmmission of Inquiry in Vancouver Wednesday.

Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost, PNG

The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry heard this morning from the young daughter of an aboriginal woman whose 2001 murder devastated her family, but appears to have drawn little police interest.

Angela Williams, at the age of 30 with three young girls who adored her, disappeared just before Christmas in 2001.

Her photo is not on any missing women’s poster and her death did not appear to touch off any investigation by Vancouver police, not even after a woman’s body matching Angela’s description — a petite aboriginal woman with a distinctive rose tattoo on her back, was found beside a remote road in Surrey.

“It’s 10 years later and I don’t know how my mother died,” said Ashley Smith, 21, a small, attractive woman and a mother herself, of a two-year-old toddler.

Looking straight at Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal, her voice breaking, Smith said “If police had taken her death seriously from the beginning, I’d know what happened to her.”

Oppal responded, “I don’t know if we’ll ever be in a position to find out what happened to your mother. We have to sit back and listen. Listening to relatives coming to this inquiry shows us that women on the Downtown Eastside were real human beings like anyone else.

“They were mothers, they were daughters, they were aunts, they had people who loved them,” said Oppal.

“I’m terribly sorry about what happened to your mother, it’s something you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life, not knowing what happened.”

Outside the courtroom, Ashley said that only two weeks ago, more than a decade after her mother’s death, she was shown an RCMP report that said her mother had bruising on her throat consistent with manual strangulation.

“All I was ever told was that her heart stopped before she stopped breathing, but I was only 12 years old, I didn’t know what happened,” said Ashley.

“Even now I wake up in the night and I see her lying beside me in a white dress.”

“The police seemed to have tunnel vision, they only wanted to know if she was native, a prostitute and a drug-user — that was entered in block letters on the Missing Person form,” said Margaret Green, who became a guardian of the two girls.

“Every page of the police report says drug addict, prostitute, native: I wonder if that’s what the police see in every report and if that itself shaped how they think of the missing women and why they were so poorly investigated for so long?” said Green, who worked in the Downtown Eastside.

Although she is non-native, Green said she became a guardian of the two youngest girls after Williams’s death.

Eventually, Surrey RCMP officers reached out and took Green and Williams’s daughters to the sight where Williams’s body was found, along Coldbrook Road.

“The girls took photos and laid flowers there,” said Green, saying the daughters had a need for information and a sense of closure.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s in 2001 was agonizing for the family, which papered the Downtown Eastside with posters of Williams.

Finally, a Surrey RCMP officer told the VPD that a body had been found dumped at the roadside— a young aboriginal woman who matched Williams’s description.

Although the family was told Williams’s death was a “presumed overdose”, a later autopsy showed she had little drugs in her system.

A sympathetic B.C. coroner finally told Green that Williams was murdered by “manual strangulation.”

The grief and pain felt by Williams’s daughters, siblings and extended family reverberated through the family, said Green.

VPD lawyer Sean Hern made a point of apologizing for the loss of Williams to Green and Williams’s two daughters sitting in the courtroom.

One of Williams’s nieces, Kayla Williams Lalonde, is believed to be one of the victims of a convicted sex offender.

Lalonde’s body was found on the same night as that of her friend Martha Hernandez, dumped in different parts of the Lower Mainland.

On the stand for the rest of Wednesday will be Sto:lo leader Ernie Crey and his younger sister Lorraine Crey whose sister, Dawn, disappeared at the end of 2000.

She would have been 53 on Wednesday.

Dawn’s DNA was confirmed in 2004 to have been found at the Port Coquitlam farm of Robert William Pickton, who was convicted in the death of six women.

The inquiry is also investigating the case involving charges against Pickton in 1997, linked to a violent altercation at his farm with a Downtown Eastside prostitute.

Charges in the case were stayed, and Pickton’s killing spree continued, picking up women under the noses of the VPD and killing them at his farm, scattering evidence throughout the property, very close to the Coquitlam RCMP detachment.

Outside court, Crey said that he believes that “if police had only investigated the 1997 assault of this woman and taken a serious look at Mr. Pickton, the lives of at least 18 women, including our sister, would not have been lost.”

Crey told the inquiry he feels deep grief and anger about his sister’s death, and the societal forces that combined to keep Dawn, a woman afflicted by severe mental illness, who grew up in foster care, confined by poverty and later addictions to the Downtown Eastside.

Crey said that after all of Pickton’s legal appeals were exhausted, in July 2010, the RCMP and Victims Services workers went to his Chilliwack home to give him more information about Dawn’s death, information withheld throughout Pickton’s lengthy preliminary hearing and inquiry.

Police told Crey that Dawn’s DNA was found on an undergarment in Pickton’s trailer. The police were clear that they felt Dawn was murdered by Pickton.

Still, neither Pickton nor any other person has ever been charged in connection with Dawn’s death.

Crey said that he still does not know if his sister’s death still is, or ever will be, the subject of an ongoing and thorough investigation, one that might include other possible suspects, including a woman who Dawn’s acquaintances say recruited victims for Pickton on the Downtown Eastside.

The inquiry is hearing this week from the families of 18 murdered women, who are represented at the inquiry by lawyers Cameron Ward and Neil Chantler.

RCMP lawyer Jan Brongers has indicated he will not be cross-examining any of the family members, but lawyers for the VPD, the Vancouver Police Union and even an individual officer, VPD Const. Lorin Shenher, have cross-examined some of the family members who have testified to date.

Oppal is supposed to end in his final report to the B.C. government by the end of 2011.

sfournier@theprovince.com

© Copyright (c) The Province

Mother continues search for her missing daughter

BY CHERYL ROSSI, VANCOUVER COURIER OCTOBER 26, 2011 2:07 AM

Molly Dixon never dreamed when she walked in women's memorial marches that she'd return to Vancouver a dozen years later to search for her own daughter.

"I couldn't imagine that ever happening and it's happening," Dixon said last Thursday.

Even as the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry grabs headlines, Dixon and community workers who are helping her believe her daughter's disappearance isn't receiving sufficient police attention.

Dixon is searching for Angeline Eileen Pete, also known as Angie, a 28-year-old Gusgimukw woman most recently known to reside in North Vancouver.

Dixon last spoke to her newly engaged daughter May 19. North Vancouver RCMP witnessed Rob Calden, her fiance, assaulting Pete, May 20. They arrested him and released him on conditions. The charges were ultimately stayed and police report Calden and Pete continued contact after this incident. Dixon says her daughter and Calden physically abused one another and that her daughter sought help for alcohol abuse.

When she initially didn't hear from her, Dixon assumed Pete had gone to work for a carnival as she had done in the past. She then reported Pete missing to North Vancouver RCMP Aug. 8. North Vancouver RCMP issued a missing person alert for Pete Aug. 16.

Dixon says Calden had moved and left his job as a youth worker when police checked. Dixon, who is on welfare, said the RCMP in her hometown of Prince Rupert wouldn't help her contact the North Vancouver detachment. The Salvation Army let her make long distance calls, and her Quatsino Band near Port Hardy paid for Dixon to bus to Vancouver Oct. 2 to advance the search.

The Downtown Eastside Women's Centre found her a place to stay and provides bus tickets. Dixon wishes her husband could join her. She has been following every lead and contacted multiple organizations, including those that serve aboriginal people.

Dixon and longtime community victim services worker Carol Martin complained Oct. 20 about police not returning Dixon's calls. "I don't see much improvement and it's reflected in the lack of resources, housing, detoxes, places for women to go, especially if they're trying to leave abusive relationships, financial problems," Martin said.

North Vancouver and Vancouver police committed Oct. 21 to updating Dixon and Pete's family, including her brother and grandmother who's raising Pete's seven-year-old son, in Port Hardy, weekly.

An Oct. 3 news release from North Vancouver RCMP notes its serious crime unit is handling the investigation. Pete has an outstanding warrant for her arrest but "everybody's primary concern at this time is that Pete returns home safely," it states.

She hasn't used Facebook or her bank accounts since she disappeared. According to police, Pete may have hitchhiked and may have been spotted in cities that include Port Hardy, Kamloops and Grand Prairie, Alta. "We take all files of all missing people, regardless of gender or race, seriously," said Cpl. Richard De Jong, North Vancouver RCMP spokesperson. "These files, because there are so many loose ends, we attack as many of them as we can."

Dixon wants police to find Calden.

"They were engaged, that means something. They were supposed to be married on Oct. 31," she said. "She's missed and loved by many family and friends and her son needs to know where she is and if she's alright."

Anonymous tips can be made to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or at bccrimestoppers.com.

crossi@vancourier.com / Twitter: @Cheryl_Rossi

© Copyright (c) Vancouver Courier

Elsie Sebastian was last seen in July, 1992

Relative of murder victim slams Vancouver police for failure to properly investigate

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 25, 2011 4:54 PM

Cara Ellis, one of Robert Pickton's vicitms.

Photograph by: PNG files, ...

VANCOUVER - A woman whose sister-in-law disappeared in 1997 slammed police today for failing to do a proper investigation.

Lori-Ann Ellis testified Tuesday at the Missing Women inquiry that she came to Vancouver in 1998 to search for her husband's sister, Cara Ellis, a heroin addict and sex trade worker in the Downtown Eastside.

She recalled her family became worried when they hadn't heard from Cara for six months.

Unable to find Cara along East Hastings, Lori-Ann Ellis finally called Vancouver police to report Cara missing.

She recalled spending about an hour on the phone with an officer from the Missing Persons section, answering questions.

She said no Vancouver police officer ever called to get more information or provide an update on the investigation.

"I sat and waited and hoped," Ellis told Commissioner Wally Oppal.

About a month later, Ellis recalled, she phoned the missing persons unit.

"I got a woman on the phone who was a bitch," she added.

"She said if Cara wants to be found, she'll be found. Why don't you leave us alone and let us do our job."

As a final insult, the woman suggested that Cara was probably on vacation, Ellis said.

"This woman should have never been given that job," she told the inquiry.

She said she did make a list of 36 things that might assist police in their investigation to try to find Cara, but no one ever asked for the information.

One of the things on the list was the fact that Cara had once said she would get out of town and stay with a man on a farm who lived like a pig.

Ellis recalled Cara said the man would give her drugs if she cleaned his place.

Ellis, who lives in Calgary, said when Robert Pickton was arrested in 2002 she submitted Cara's name as a possible victim to the missing women task force.

Then, on Jan. 26, 2004, her sister-in-law's birthday, the doorbell rang and it was two people from the Missing Women task force.

'I said, 'You're here to tell me that you found Cara at the farm'," Ellis recalled saying.

Yes, they said.

Ellis said her treatment by Vancouver police was shameful and disrespectful.

"It pissed me off - and everyone in my family feels the same way," she told the inquiry.

"I want to see changes made so this never happens again to another family," she said.

Ellis also was critical of the RCMP for "shuffling paper work" and accidentally stumbling on Pickton, instead of catching him sooner.

"These women were taken, one by one, right under the noses of the Vancouver police and the RCMP," she said.

"Shame on them for all they did and shame on them for all they could have done and instead turned the other way," Ellis added.

"Lives were lost that could have been saved."

The DNA of Cara Ellis was eventually found in a tiny bone found on Pickton's farm.

Her DNA was also found on Pickton's jacket, which had been seized in 1997 after a knife attack on another woman who Pickton tried to kill -- the woman escaped, running naked and bleeding from Pickton's farm and was picked up by a passing motorist.

Police charged Pickton with attempted murder, unlawful confinement and other charges, which were stayed by the Crown in 1998.

Pickton's jacket was in a police storage locker for seven years until it was tested, revealing the DNA of Ellis.

The DNA of another missing woman, Andrea Borhaven, was also found on Pickton's boots.

Pickton, now 62, was convicted in 2007 of the murder of six women and faced a second trial on another 20 murder charges, but the Crown decided not to hold another trial.

Another witness to testify Tuesday at the inquiry, Donalee Sebastian, recalled she tried to report her mother Elsie Sebastian missing to Vancouver police in 1992 and was "shrugged off" to a VPD native liaison worker.

She said her mother struggled with alcohol and drug addiction in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, but maintained phone contact with her three children and other relatives.

But the calls suddenly stopped in the summer of 1992, she said.

Like other families, the young woman, now in a nursing program in Victoria, went looking for answers about her missing mother in the DTES.

She never found out what happened to her.

No trace of Elsie Sebastian was ever found on Pickton's farm, even though she remains on the poster of 61 missing women.

The daughter said she last saw her mother in July 1992 at a relative's house at the University of B.C.

At one point, she recalled, she was told by Vancouver police that her mother probably didn't want to be found or was probably on holiday.

The daughter said her file was eventually closed by police because police believed that Elsie was still alive and had been seen drinking rice wine in Oppenheimer Park.

"That was a mistake," Sebastian testified, adding the rice wine woman apparently looked like her mother.

The daughter said her mother had suffered beatings and isolation in an Indian residential school.

"She was separated from her culture," she told the inquiry.

Donalee recalled she was born in Prince George and lived with her mother and brother until age 12, when her mother's drinking caused the children to be taken away by family services.

Donalee said she went to live with her father's relatives in Hazelton, about a five-hour drive northwest of Prince George.

Sebastian turned to the head of the inquiry and urged: "Find my mother for me."

She began to cry as she added: "Please, let's find her. Let's bring her home."

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Statement read by Lori-Ann Ellis

OCTOBER 25, 2011 3:06 PM

Statement read by Lori-Ann Ellis

October 25, 2011

I would like to start by thanking Wayne Leng he was the first person who helped our family when we were seeking answers. He has kept his vancouver missing web site going offering advice to all who seek it.

I would also like to thank Cameron Ward and Neil Chantler who were the very first people I have met that were willing to stand up and help us. They were willing to the help make the Vancouver police department and the RCMP be accountable and help the truth to be known.

I would like to offer my apologize to my children. I am sorry that in order to find the truth about their Aunty Cara I stole time from you. I can not give that time back to you. That is one of my deepest regrets. To my children I say I am very sorry.

This from my diary entry from

November 12 2010...

Today I prepare to close another chapter in the trial. I am going to meet with

Owen Court the coroner and he is going to hand over the remains of Cara. That

sounds so final. Remains. Yesterday I took some time and made a bag out of

cotton. The pattern was pink and had a print of a mother and baby on it. I have

eaten slept and dreamed of bringing Cara home and now that the moment has

arrived it seems surreal. I am going to be taking the small pink bag empty and

full only of Vancouver's salty air. And bring home the only small remaining part

of the person who used to be Cara Ellis. A life cut short by a madman. He lived

his life in muck and mire and picked off one life at a time only stopping when he

was caught. The small piece of bone that I will be carrying home to her Mothers

arms is smaller than a baby finger nail. The memories are something that Pickton

can not steal from us but he took the rest. We remember her as she laughed

cried and loved. He remembers her as she fought for her life a battle she lost. In

those last moments what was she thinking. Was she remembering her Mom or

Dad and Brothers? Did she think she would win against this crazy man. Did she

pray to God? Did she ask for his help. When she knew her earthly time was over

did she lay in the loving arms of her heavenly father. As her life slipped away did

she think that no-one would ever find her. She died all alone fighting for her

every breath and all who loved her were far away. We went on we went about

our day. We had no way of knowing what had happened. Cara died at the hands

of this killer he stripped of her clothes and treated her as nothing but meat. She

was nothing to Pickton she was just another body. When he was finished with

her he threw her away and went on to the next girl.

He has no remorse for what he has done. He went on living every day like the

last in the filth of the farm until he felt the need to take another life. The poor

girls did not see it coming. And so I sit here and I prepare to go and start the

first step of Cara's journey home. I will place the urn in the cotton bag. I will tie

it closed with loving hands. I will pause and remember. I will remember the life

that was lost. I will remember all that could have been. I will morn. I will pray for

her soul. And then I will cry yet again. I will remember all the tears I have shed

before. I will let them flow. I will hold her to my heart and I will start to say

goodbye. Many years ago I promised my husband I would find his sister and

today I am going to bring her home. I will carry her with pride. I sit here now

and I have a heavy heart. when you love you love with all yourself. You open

your heart and let your love have wings. You shower your love upon the person

and hope it will come back to you. I did that with Cara I opened myself to her. I

prayed that we could be friends. I hoped she would trust me. From that short

time we were first together until now the love I felt was one sided. She was

unable to build our relationship because she was taken. She was taken much to

young. She loved so many things. She loved cheese cake she loved calamari she

loved the color yellow. And she loved her family. She adored her brothers. They

were older but when they were together she was the boss. She called the shots.

She loved them with all her heart. To see her was to know that. She may have

kept secrets from the family but one thing she could not hide was her love.

I still cannot believe that she is gone. I think today when I hold her in my hands

I will understand. I will feel her life force in my embrace and all will be well.

There are so many families who will not know this feeling. Pickton was so careful

to dispose of any evidence that this person walked this earth. I remember at the

trial they kept saying he was slow. Just a pig farmer. A slow person would not

take the care that he did to hide his crimes. A person like that planned what he

was going to do. He hunted these women stocked them really. He worked his

way into the lives of these women. He became a fixture to the downtown east

side. It was normal to see him in their zone. These girls had rules they set for

them selves. They knew that every day could be their last. They knew that even

though they had to do deplorable things for that next fix they had to be careful.

They had regular guys they would go with. They had a comfort zone. As long as

things went well they were able to stay in their comfort zone. There were

however times when they got sick. Not just the flu or a cold like you or me. They

got drug sick. They would shiver and puke they would ache to their very soul.

They needed a fix and were now willing to do anything to get it. They would step

out of their comfort zone and take chances they would not normally take. They

would make bad choices. They would go on dates that were to say the least

risky. When they were not sick they would never think to go out with bad dates.

When the drug sickness hit they would take their chances. The bad date list is

out there the girls know it the cops know it. But the list means nothing when you

are sick. Just enough to take the edge off. Just one more hit and then I will be

ok.

I have said this many times you take the drugs to be able to do the next trick

and do the next trick to be able to do the drugs.

I remember the first time that I saw Hastings. I was really not prepared for what

I saw. As the bus rounded the corner I saw sadness. I was looking for Cara and

was well prepared to jump off the bus if I saw her. I remember seeing sleeping

bags on the ground up by the buildings. There were people sleeping in them.

The sidewalks were littered with small pieces of paper. There were people

leaning against the walls. They were dirty and poor and looked very sad. I did

not want to over react when I saw this squalor. I had my children with me and

did not want them to see me so disappointed with Vancouver. How could a

country like Canada a proud nation like ours allow this to happen. As the bus

moved along the street I could not take my eyes of the sidewalks as they slipped

by I knew these people had all started off with their families. They had made

twists and turns in their life that had brought them here. You could see drug

dealers working right under the noses of the police. The police in Vancouver

downtown eastside had gotten tired. They had gotten tired of the filth and crime.

The sob stories and the death. They see the people when they are lowest. They

see them at their worst. they don't see them as they were at 7-8-9 at birthday

parties. they don't see them at the prom. They don't see the children they left be

behind. They see anger depression. They see despair and longing. The loss of

spirit is a great loss. The people on the DTES are sad. They have given their

lives over to a power a force so big it envelopes every fibre of their being. The

drugs they crave are real it will take away their pain. It will numb them for even

a few minutes. The drugs they take are just a small pause a small moment when

they do not have to feel the pain loss and hurt...

It can be a dark and dismal place. I always thought Vancouver was a great

place to visit yet when you look closer it is a city with many dark corners. You

can live the high life here you can live the dream. But you can live in decay and

squalor as well. The people who live in higher class neighborhoods seem to have

it all beauty money a house on a hill. The houses look welcoming they look like a

home. They call to you and yet the flip side of the coin is Hastings. A side walk,

an alley, a doorway. We all live in different kinds of homes. We take it for

granted that it will always be there for us. When the day is over and we head

from our workplace we have a destination. We can go home. We have a warm

bed. We have a door we can lock to close out the world. We can close things out

or close ourselves in. But we are home. For some of the people in Hastings a

doorway is home. They have a blanket if they are lucky they can curl up and

sleep a cold lonely sleep. They never make the mistake of sleeping soundly

because to do so is dangerous. You can never sleep deeply because at any

moment something could happen. You have to be ready for whatever life hands

you. You do not have a kitchen to cook a warm meal. Or a washroom to clean

yourself or do your business. You have to make do.

You eat at WISH or one of the kitchens in the area. You shower at the church.

Thank God for WISH and places like it,it is a home for many of the girls. They

can shower there or eat put on there makeup. Maybe find a change of clothes

from the donations. For many of the girls this is their only home. Here they are

safe from harm. They can come to this place and relax they can let down their

guard. They can let life just happen. When they walk out the door it is very

different story. They have to have eyes on the back of their heads. There is

always some one worse off then you are. They want what you have and will do

anything to get it. The girls of Hastings are protective of what they have because

they have so little.

.... I am home now and my heart is racing I know that I have in a bag the

remains of my Husbands Sister. I know that I will have to give this bag to a

Mother knowing this is all that is left of her daughter. It is so final to place this

urn in the hands of her mother. A life that you bring into the world and this is all

there is left. A tear comes into my eye as I place this pink bag in the hands of

her Mother. There is nothing left to say. All over the country this story is being

repeated oh the names are different but the story is the same. The police could

have done more a lot more to stop this. We all put our faith in them and they let

us down over and over. When the truth is told the world will know that they

dropped the ball. The world will know that they did not do their job. The world

will know our pain the world will know the girls story the world will know the

truth. The world will know we were lied to mistreated mislead and manipulated.

We know the real story and finally the world will listen to what we will say what

we needed to say for so long. I have little faith that the police and RCMP will tell

the truth. Why will they tell the truth they have so much to hide. Shame on them

for all they did and shame on them for all they could have done and instead

turned the other way. Lives were lost that could have been saved. Lives were

ended that should have carried on. If there is to be answers in this inquiry the

truth needs to be told. A truth we know because we lived it. A truth the women

that were murdered deserve. A truth we carry in our hearts and a truth that died

with our loved ones. I keep thinking how the police made themselves sound so

big and important when they arrested Pickton. In fact they just stumbled into

this murderer. While they were sitting in an office shuffling paper work and

making lists an informant was looking for a deal and lead them by the nose to

Pickton. Sure they took their bows and had their moment in the lime light but

the truth is they did not find Pickton they tripped over him because someone told

them where to look. Sure they did interviews and restructured themselves many

times. They did not find Pickton he was handed to them on a silver platter. I feel

the inquiry will do its best to seek the truth but in the end I am sure this time we

spend today and all we have done to get the truth will be lost. Things will not

change. Hastings doorways will not sit empty. Drugs will still be dispensed by

dealers like human pez dispensers. The johns will still drive the streets looking

for a quick release and the sex trade workers will turn their next trick. The sun

will rise and fall and the police will turn there gaze away from what needs to be

looked at the most. Shame on all that looked the other way when we needed

them the most. The police must know they are the last hope for us and they

looked the other way shame shame shame if they carried even half our pain they

would have done their jobs. To all that helped us thank you to all who looked

away..... well I hope you never ever have to know our pain.... I hope you never

have to depend on someone the way we depended on you....I hope maybe they

will listen to you.... no I hope things will change and me wishing bad things on

you make me just as bad and sad as you are and that would be wrong so

wrong.....

what should we learn from all this?

Listen take the families seriously.Don't write these girls off. Tell the truth learn

from this if we don't learn from this nothing will change. Learn you can be wrong

and correct things. Learn to not make a second group of victims by victimizing

the families as well. Treat those seeking answers with respect. We put our trust

in you and you let us down. Learn from this and maybe just maybe things can

change and move foreword. If we stay with the all boys club the police have

become and stay cloistered in your all blue uniform world sitting above everyone

things will never get better. Try dropping to your knee to lend a hand or give

some hope if not you are no better than Robert Pickton who took lives and the

predators who still remain on your streets stalking the women who need your

help more than ever. Take a step toward change admit your errors and learn

from them. We could not possibly think any less of you than we do right now.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Missing Women inquiry spectators cheer suggestion of police cover-up

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 24, 2011 4:12 PM

Marnie Frey went missing in 1997. Robert Pickton, 62, was convicted of killing Frey and five other women.

Photograph by: Handout, ...

VANCOUVER - Members of the public gallery at the Missing Women inquiry cheered and applauded when police were accused of being involved in a cover-up.

Lynn Frey, the stepmother of Marnie Frey, was testifying how she had been told by women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside that her daughter may have ended up on a pig farm owned by someone named Willy.

She recalled her foster sister, who lived in Port Coquitlam, suggested Willy might be Robert Pickton, who had a farm in Port Coquitlam.

Frey said they went to Pickton's farm that night, which she thought was sometime in September 1998.

Frey said she told Vancouver police Detective Lori Shenher about Pickton and going to the farm.

But under cross-examination by lawyer David Crossin, who is representing the Vancouver police union and Shenher, suggested Shenher had absolutely no note of the conversation.

"You could be mistaken?" Crossin asked.

"No. I think there is a big cover-up here," Fry testified.

"Right on," someone from the public gallery said. Others cheered and applauded.

"Who do you think is covering up?" Crossin asked.

"I don't know," she replied.

Frey recalled she went to the farm many times after that, looking for evidence that Marnie had been to the farm.

She recalled Shenher telling her about visiting the Pickton farm: "Be careful. Don't go investigating and let police do their job."

Testimony from the families of vicitms of serial killer Robert (Willie) Pickton is expected to take all week.

The inquiry now is entering its third week.

In addition to Lynn Frey, the family members expected to testify are:

Ernie Crey, whose sister Dawn Crey was killed; Lorraine Crey; Lori-Ann Ellis; Margaret Green; Ann-Marie Livingston; and Lilliane Beaudoin.

In earlier testimony today, Lynn Frey recalled Marnie would call home to Campbell River at least once a day.

Marnie's dad, Rick Frey, is a fifth-generation commercial fisherman from Campbell River.

Lynn told the inquiry that Marnie fell in with a bad crowd in her teens and started smoking pot and later got into cocaine.

She moved out at 18, when Marnie was pregnant with her daughter, which Lynn and Rick adopted at six months old and raised.

Marnie moved to Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in 1995, when she got into herion.

Lynn Frey recalled Marnie phoned home every day and was a loving, caring mother.

She usually came home twice a year to see her daughter.

Lynn recalled Marnie was very open and told her stepmother she worked in the sex trade to pay for her drugs.

"She was addicted and had no other choice," she told Commissioner Wally Oppal.

"She was ashamed and upset that it hurt me. She was very ashamed it hurt her father," she recalled.

Marnie went into drug treatment three times, she said.

Marnie went missing in 1997.

Pickton, 62, was convicted of killing Marnie and five other women.

Lynn Frey recalled the last time she talked to Marnie was on her 24th birthday on Aug. 30, 1997.

She said she had sent a birthday package to Vancouver, which was supposed to arrive on Marnie's birthday.

The package contained new clothes, home-made bread and $50 cash.

Marnie was supposed to pick up the package, she said.

But Frey said she became concerned when she didn't hear from Marnie for a couple of days.

"I got a weird feeling that someting was wrong," Frey told the inquiry.

She said she tries reporting Marnie missing to the Campbell River RCMP, which suggested she wait a few more days.

"They just didn't care," Frey said.

"I knew something was wrong and so did her dad."

She contacted RCMP again weeks later and again after Nov. 5, 1997, which was Lynn's birthday. Marnie always called Lynn on her birthday.

Lynn Frey said she began phoning hospitals, checking to see if they had a Jane Doe who had been killed.

She also said she continued contacting the RCMP, which finally sent a missing report to Vancouver police in January 1998.

"The RCMP didn't care because she was a low life prostitute," Frey testified.

Frey eventually went to Vancouver and began searching for Marnie.

Vancouver police suggested Marnie may have gone on a cruise, which Frey felt was absurd.

"A drug addicted woman waiting for her next fix didn't go on a cruise," Frey testified.

She added she began meeting other families looking for their loved ones on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

She eventually talked to two women who had a tape recording of a man who suggested the missing women had been taken by "Willy."

Frey's foster sister, who lived in Port Coquitlam, said it was probably Willy Pickton, who had a pig farm.

Frey said she went to Pickton's farm that night and she tried climbing a fence but was chased by two dogs on the farm.

This was in September 1998, she said.

She recalled reporting the tape and Pickton to Vancouver police Detecive Lori Shenher, who knew about Pickton and was compassionate.

But she had some harsh words for former Vancouver mayor Phillip Owen, whom she said showed no interest in the missing women.

"If it was his daughter, you can be your bottom dollar he'd be looking for her," Frey told the inquiry.

"I wish they would have taken it seriously."

Earlier Monday, the lawyer for the RCMP, Jan Brongers, said the force was sorry for the loss of the loved ones of the families.

"It takes an enormous amount of courage to be here," Brongers said.

"We do not want to add to your pain, so we'll not be cross-examining you."

Before the families began their testimony, Oppal said he appreciated their willingness for coming forward to share their experiences.

"We can only have effective change if you come foward and tell us what happened to you and how we can change the system, if the system needs to be changed," he said.

The inquiry heard today that Vancouver Deputy Chief Doug LePard is expected to testify next week.

The inquiry can hear the first nations drummers and singers who are gathered outside at Georgia and Granville, which has blocked traffic.

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Family of missing woman to make their point outside missing women inquiry

BY IAN AUSTIN, THE PROVINCE OCTOBER 23, 2011 3:13 PM

Molly Dixon, who’s daughter Angeline Eileen Pete has been missing since May 2011, spoke at the Union of BC Indian Chiefs meeting in Vancouver earlier this month.

Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG

When the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry reconvenes Monday, family members of modern-day missing woman Angeline Pete will ask police to renew their efforts to find her.

Like many of the inquiry’s missing women, Pete is aboriginal, originally from the Quatsino First Nation.

Like many of the inquiry’s missing women, not much has been said nor heard about the 28-year-old’s disappearance.

“Angeline always stayed in contact with her family, particularly her grandmother in Port Hardy,” said her mother, Molly Dixon. “She would never just disappear.”

Dixon will join family members and advocates for a 9:30 a.m. news conference Monday outside the inquiry at 701 W. Georgia St.

“It is once again disturbing that not only has another aboriginal woman gone missing, but that another mother of a missing aboriginal woman needs advocates to get any attention paid to the circumstances of her daughter’s disappearance,” said victim services worker Carol Martin.

“We were witness to the system’s gross negligence as well as racism and sexism in investigating the missing women in the 1990s, as we are today.”

Pete went missing in May.

North Vancouver RCMP sent out a missing-person bulletin in August, along with a description: 5-foot-4, 150 pounds, long dark hair (known to occasionally dye it), brown eyes (wears contacts), with a butterfly tattoo on her chest.

In October, police issued a follow-up news release, along with quotes from Dixon.

“I am reaching out to anybody who knows my daughter for her safe return home,” Dixon was quoted in the second release. “We just need to know that you are safe and sound and well looked after.

“Please call home. We love you princess.”

The October release also had an update on Pete’s possible trail since her disappearance:

“Information has surfaced that Pete may have hitchhiked her way north through the province and possibly into Alberta, but investigators have not yet been able to corroborate this information,” read the release. “The fact that Pete may have hitchhiked through B.C. naturally raises the concern for her safety.”

The release also gave many possible B.C. locations for Pete’s whereabouts: Kamloops, Surrey, Cranbrook, Sparwood, Alert Bay, Port Hardy, and Prince Rupert, as well as Grande Prairie, Alta.

iaustin@theprovince.com

twitter.com/ianaustin007

© Copyright (c) The Province

Missing Women–CTV.ca links

Results From:

News

Special Reports

CTV.ca Special Reports

The Pickton Case: Will the second trial proceed?

Some key dates in the Pickton case

26 women at heart of case had complex lives

Missing Women

Jury selection begins for trial of Robert Pickton

The break in the 'missing women' case

CTV.ca News (113 results)

1. Many Vancouver sex workers have PTSD, inquiry told (10/20/2011)

   Many women working as prostitutes in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside have lives so marred by poverty, abuse and violence, they are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a public health nurse testified Wednesday.

2. Experts question anti-prostitution laws at Pickton inquiry (10/19/2011)

   Canada's prostitution laws have quickly become the focus of the public inquiry into the Robert Pickton case, not the police investigation that failed for years to catch the serial killer.

3. Police tactics put sex workers at risk: expert (10/14/2011)

   A combination of the law, police tactics and bad attitudes among officers has forced street-level sex workers out of sight where they are easy prey for predators such as Robert Pickton, a prostitution expert told the public inquiry into the serial killer's case on Thursday.

4. Police urge Pickton inquiry not to judge them in hindsight (10/12/2011)

   The failed investigations that allowed serial killer Robert Pickton to spend years murdering sex workers before his arrest shouldn't be viewed through the prism of hindsight, lawyers for the Vancouver police and the RCMP told a public inquiry into the case Wednesday.

5. Police 'culpable' in Pickton case, lawyer says (10/11/2011)

   Vancouver police and the RCMP are "culpable" in the deaths of vulnerable women at the hands of Robert Pickton, a lawyer for the victims' families said Tuesday, as an inquiry into the handling of the case got underway.

6. Officials to search lake for victims of sex torturer (10/10/2011)

   David Parker Ray boasted that he was responsible for about 40 victims of sexual torture. On Tuesday, FBI agents and police will search the land and caves in southern New Mexico where they think he buried some of them.

7. Public inquiry into Pickton murders to begin Tuesday (10/10/2011)

   On Tuesday, the process aimed at understanding how serial killer Robert Pickton was able to conduct such a prolific killing spree for so long will get underway.

8. Groups urge premier to save embattled Pickton inquiry (09/29/2011)

   A powerful coalition that includes family members of Robert Pickton's victims is warning B.C. Premier Christy Clark that the missing women inquiry is in serious jeopardy of failing before it has even started.

9. Another group pulls out of B.C.'s missing women inquiry (09/21/2011)

   Another group has pulled out of the inquiry into missing and murdered women in British Columbia because of a lack of funding for women's organizations.

10. Sobbing women demand justice at missing women inquiry (09/12/2011)

    Aboriginal women whose mothers and daughters vanished in B.C. are tearfully telling stories of loss to the provincial inquiry into missing and murdered women.

    Results From:

    News

    Special Reports

    CTV.ca News (117 results)

    1. More than half of Pickton inquiry participants sitting out (08/09/2011)

       The lawyer for the families of Robert Pickton's victims says he's concerned an inquiry examining the case will be hamstrung as a growing number of advocacy groups refuse to participate.

    2. B.C. government denies funding for sex workers' groups (05/24/2011)

       The British Columbia government has rejected a recommendation to fund groups representing sex workers, aboriginals and residents of Vancouver's troubled Downtown Eastside in the forthcoming public inquiry into the Robert Pickton case.

    3. Families, aboriginal groups get standing at B.C. inquiry (05/04/2011)

       A lawyer representing family members of several women murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton, as well as others for whose murders he will never face trial, will have full standing at a public inquiry into the missing women case.

    4. B.C. to expand terms of missing women inquiry (03/29/2011)

       The provincial government has expanded the terms of an upcoming public inquiry into the B.C. missing women case.

    5. RCMP pays out reward money in deaths of Alta. women (03/04/2011)

       RCMP have paid out reward money offered in an investigation into the deaths of women in Alberta who lived high-risk lifestyles.

    6. Expand inquiry into B.C. missing women's cases: Oppal (03/03/2011)

       The head of a sweeping public inquiry into the Robert Pickton investigation wants to give those most hurt by the disappearances a greater voice during upcoming hearings.

    7. RCMP seek help identifying woman tied to Pickton farm (02/19/2011)

       RCMP want the public's help in solving the 16-year-old mystery of a woman whose partial remains were found on serial killer Robert Pickton's farm.

    8. Missing women remembered during Vancouver march (02/15/2011)

       A prolific serial killer who butchered women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside will likely be locked away until he dies, and yet a former sex worker who knew Robert Pickton says that reality has hardly stemmed the atrocities that continue in the blighted neighbourhood.

    9. Charles Foran wins Charles Taylor prize (02/14/2011)

       Author Charles Foran has won the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for his biography of Mordecai Richler.

    10. Advocates doubtful of B.C. missing women's inquiry (01/20/2011)

        Critics are voicing doubts that a B.C. inquiry will adequately probe the issues surrounding the scores of women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood from 1997-2002.

    21 groups apply to participate at Pickton inquiry (12/08/2010)

11. Twenty-one groups have applied for standing at a public inquiry into the disappearance of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside between January 1997 and February 2002.

12. Israeli wanted for training Colombia militias goes home (11/20/2010)

    Yair Klein, an Israeli wanted in Colombia for training militias that killed hundreds of people, returned home Saturday after he was released from a Moscow jail.

13. Project launched for Vancouver's most vulnerable (11/01/2010)

    Women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside have long been known as some of the country's most vulnerable citizens, and now the city's police force has developed a multipronged plan to protect them.

14. Lawyer steps in to help Pickton murder victims' family (10/21/2010)

    A well known victims' rights lawyer is stepping in to help families connected to serial killer Robert Pickton in their attempt to wade through the upcoming Missing Women Inquiry.

15. Missing, murdered women gain attention of ministers (10/15/2010)

    Some of Canada's most vulnerable women have for decades disappeared or been found dead, and now the country's justice ministers admit it's an epidemic that hasn't received the attention it deserves.

16. Legal aid, missing women, RCMP on justices' agenda (10/14/2010)

    Canada's legal system should be one of the pillars of the country's social safety net, but instead it is withering from a lack of resources, say legal aid advocates.

17. Oppal heads inquiry into Robert Pickton case (09/28/2010)

    A former B.C. attorney general and Appeal Court judge who has also conducted a past inquiry into policing in the province has been named to head the probe into the investigation of serial killer Robert Pickton.

18. Pickton inquiry should focus on missing women, advocates say (09/12/2010)

    The public inquiry into the case of serial killer Robert Pickton must be about more than just the failure of police to catch him if it hopes to prevent the same thing from happening again, advocates say.

19. B.C. orders public inquiry into Pickton case (09/09/2010)

    The B.C. government has ordered a full public inquiry into the flawed police investigation that allowed serial killer Robert Pickton to continue hunting sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

20. Changes needed to prevent another serial killer: expert (08/23/2010)

    Changes are needed at British Columbia's police forces if they are to prevent another serial killer, such as Robert Pickton, from appearing in the province, a criminal profiler predicts.

     

21. Women's relatives demand Pickton inquiry (08/21/2010)

    Relatives of missing women believed to have been victims of serial killer Robert Pickton say they are outraged at the findings of a report into the flawed investigation into the murders and are pressing for a full inquiry into the case.

22. B.C. to review police handling of Pickton case (08/20/2010)

    The B.C. government will review how police investigated cases of missing women on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside before serial killer Robert Pickton was finally apprehended, the province's acting solicitor-general says.

23. Pickton book explores role of cops, killers in deaths (08/15/2010)

    Author Stevie Cameron says a public inquiry is necessary to determine what police knew about the activities of Robert Pickton before he was arrested and eventually convicted of multiple murders in British Colubmia.

24. Women tell tales of escape from Robert Pickton: book (08/14/2010)

    A new book reveals the stories of women who say they escaped the clutches of convicted serial killer Robert Pickton, before he was caught by police.

25. Tapes offer a glimpse into the mind of a killer (08/06/2010)

    While the motives behind Robert Pickton's grisly crimes remain incomprehensible, freshly released police recordings may give the public some insight into the mind of Canada's worst-ever serial killer.

26. Robert Pickton won't face 20 remaining murder charges (08/04/2010)

    Twenty first-degree murder charges against Robert Pickton were formally stayed Wednesday, ensuring the serial killer won't stand trial for the deaths of most of the women whose remains were found on his sprawling farm.

27. Father in custody; mother, girl found alive in Regina (07/07/2010)

    Regina police have taken a local man into custody in connection with the suspected abduction of his daughter and his estranged partner, both of whom were the subject of a day-long Amber Alert.

28. Missing or murdered native women list grows to 582 (04/21/2010)

    A new report has added 62 more names to a growing list of missing or murdered aboriginal women and girls.

29. Crowd gathers to remember missing Vancouver women (02/14/2010)

    More than a thousand people took time off from Olympic celebrations Sunday to remember women who have gone missing, honouring them with a march through the city's gritty Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.

30. Families of missing people In Cleveland urged to give DNA (11/05/2009)

    Pastors urged the families of missing people Thursday to provide DNA samples that could help the coroner's office identify the remains of 10 people found in a home, and they claimed nearly two dozen others are still missing in the community.

     

31. Police probe deaths of women found in N.D. pond (11/04/2009)

    Investigators are trying to determine why three North Dakota university softball players ended up dead, the day after their bodies were found inside a jeep submerged in a rural farm pond.

32. No agreement yet at meeting on aboriginal issues (10/29/2009)

    The federal, provincial and territorial governments agreed Thursday to work closely with aboriginal organizations to help improve the quality of life for Canada's First Nations, but there's still no agreement from Ottawa for a first ministers meeting on aboriginal issues.

33. Vigils honour missing or killed aboriginal women (10/04/2009)

    Dozens of people held hands at a Halifax friendship centre today and quietly reflected on the hundreds of aboriginal women who have been murdered or are missing in Canada.

34. RCMP seek mystery man in Nicole Hoar case (08/30/2009)

    The RCMP have released a description of a man they would like to speak with as part of their investigation into the disappearance of Nicole Hoar, a 25-year-old tree planter who went missing near Prince George, B.C., in 2002.

35. RCMP expand search for remains of missing woman (08/29/2009)

    The RCMP have expanded the area near Prince George, B.C. they're scouring for clues about the disappearance of a 25-year-old woman several years ago.

36. B.C. Mounties search land near Highway of Tears (08/28/2009)

    The RCMP scoured a swath of wooded land near Prince George, B.C., on Friday, trying to unearth clues in the case of a missing woman who disappeared seven years ago.

37. Man. launches task force for missing, murdered women (08/26/2009)

    Manitoba is forming an integrated police task force to review dozens of cases of murdered and missing women, many of them aboriginal.

38. Task force tackles cases of missing and murdered women (08/26/2009)

    Manitoba is forming an integrated police task force to review dozens of cases of murdered and missing women, many of them aboriginal.

39. Calls grow for task force on missing Man. native women (08/24/2009)

    Calls are growing for a task force on missing Manitoba native women. The body of a young aboriginal woman was discovered last week on the outskirts of Winnipeg.

40. Hundreds rally for missing women in Vancouver march (02/14/2009)

    Hundreds of people snaked through the Downtown Eastside to the beat of aboriginal drumming to highlight the dozens of women, many aboriginal, who have died or gone missing from Vancouver or B.C.'s so-called Highway of Tears.

     

41. Lawyer says client jailed on wrongful rape conviction (01/12/2009)

    A defence lawyer for a man who's spent 25 years in jail for a series of rapes says there is overwhelming evidence to suggest his client was wrongly convicted just like several other Canadians who struggled for decades to clear their names.

42. Hundreds search for missing Manitoba women (11/01/2008)

    Hundreds of volunteers are searching for two young women who have seemingly disappeared without a trace in separate incidents in Manitoba.

43. Two missing women met up at Edmonton mall: RCMP (02/17/2008)

    RCMP investigators have discovered that two British Columbia women who disappeared three years ago were last seen in West Edmonton Mall.

44. Man charged with 2 murders suspected in 6 others (02/08/2008)

    An Alberta man charged with murdering two prostitutes was a suspect in the deaths of six other women and the disappearance of two others.

45. Pickton connections touch wide range of lives (12/30/2007)

    Scores of people whose jobs aren't linked to the criminal justice system were connected to the case of serial killer Robert Pickton. It's a cruel twist on the parlour game of "six degrees of separation."

46. Pickton victim families want inquiry into police (12/15/2007)

    With serial killer Robert Pickton convicted of murdering six women, families say a public inquiry is needed to get to the bottom of why the Vancouver Police Department waited so long to launch an investigation.

47. Witness stands by Robert Pickton trial testimony (12/10/2007)

    Robert Pickton acquaintance Lynn Ellingsen maintains she saw the convicted killer standing next to a slain woman on his property, in an exclusive interview with CTV News.

48. The Pickton Case: Will the second trial proceed? (12/09/2007)

    As police escorted convicted killer Robert Pickton from a B.C. courtroom and families of his six victims marked the trial's end, Crown lawyers were already thinking about the 20 counts of murder for which Pickton still faces trial. But will it ever happen?

49. Pickton jurors warned of tricky witness testimony (11/29/2007)

    The judge in the Robert Pickton murder trial has reminded jurors about a bit of petty crime the accused serial killer talked about before being charged with murdering women.

50. Judge in Pickton trial begins instructions (11/27/2007)

    Jurors deciding whether Robert Pickton is guilty of killing six women must put aside their knowledge of the 20 other first-degree murder counts the suburban pig farmer faces, the judge at his trial said Tuesday.

     

51. Crown says Pickton misled police in statements (11/23/2007)

    Witness testimony linking Robert Pickton to the murders of six Vancouver women can't be dismissed as the guesswork of liars, the lead Crown prosecutor in the case said Friday.

52. Punk band enrages families with Pickton album cover (11/10/2007)

    A Vancouver punk band has incited outrage by featuring accused serial killer Robert Pickton in their lyrics and on their album cover.

53. List of women on 'Highway of Tears' doubles (10/12/2007)

    The RCMP on Thursday doubled the list of women who have gone missing on a notorious British Columbia road known as the "Highway of tears."

54. Vigil highlights plight of abused native women (10/04/2007)

    Nearly 50 people stood in a circle on Thursday, with candles in hand, at the teepee to remember the missing and murdered women.

55. Justice officials trying to protect vulnerable women (09/23/2007)

    Justice officials across Canada are quietly crafting strategies to protect society's most vulnerable women from serial killers.

56. Mechanic on Pickton's property never saw handguns (09/17/2007)

    A mechanic who worked on the Pickton farm told the jury at Robert Pickton's murder trial he only ever saw one gun but no ammunition on the property.

57. Native group wants police unit for missing women (09/05/2007)

    The killing of a young sex trade worker in Winnipeg has prompted aboriginal groups to call for the creation of a task force dedicated to the cases of murdered and missing women in Manitoba.

58. Pickton defence team to begin laying out case (08/26/2007)

    Whether jurors will hear Robert Pickton defend himself against accusations that he's Canada's worst serial killer could soon become clear after his defence lawyers begin laying out their case Monday.

59. Excerpt from 'The Pickton File' by Stevie Cameron (08/20/2007)

    An excerpt from "The Pickton File." by Stevie Cameron.

60. Project Kare: How a missing women's task force works (07/22/2007)

    RCMP Cpl. Wayne Oakes speaks to CTV.ca about Project Kare, an investigation devoted to "high risk missing persons" and homicides in the Edmonton area.

     

61. Crown witness in Pickton trial denies he's a liar (07/19/2007)

    The Robert Pickton case has caused "horrendous'' damage to Andrew Bellwood's life and the Crown witness insists he has no reason to lie about his crucial testimony.

62. Ex-Pickton friend feisty during cross-examination (07/17/2007)

    A former friend of Robert Pickton aggressively defended himself Tuesday from a lawyer's suggestions that he's a liar, a day after he gave a chilling account of Pickton describing how he killed women.

63. Pickton's lawyer questions witness for fifth day (07/04/2007)

    The key witness at the Robert Pickton murder trial didn't mention see Pickton with a body in his pig slaughterhouse in two statements to police in 1999, a defence lawyer suggested Wednesday.

64. Man who lived on Pickton farm saw nothing unusual (06/20/2007)

    A young man who lived on Robert Pickton's farm never saw Pickton with any of the women he's accused of murdering and testified Tuesday that his former boss was a hard-working and caring man.

65. Pickton's friend says no one was harmed at farm (06/04/2007)

    A man who learned how to kill and butcher pigs from accused serial-killer Robert Pickton says he never murdered anyone at Pickton's farm nor saw anyone harmed there.

66. Pickton spoke of bodies, double suicide: witness (05/29/2007)

    Accused serial killer Robert Pickton told a close friend there were several bodies on his farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., the woman testified Tuesday.

67. Pickton trial bogs down after three months (04/22/2007)

    The trial of accused serial killer Robert Pickton began, as two legal observers noted, with a "bang" and "trumpets blaring."

68. Audio tape made by Pickton released by B.C. court (03/30/2007)

    Some were curious and others insisted they could care less, but everyone was able to hear for the first time Friday how accused serial murderer Robert (Willie) Pickton sounds when he speaks.

69. Jury hears testimony about Pickton's fingerprints (03/21/2007)

    A fingerprint belonging to the younger brother of Robert Pickton was found in a toolbox on top of a freezer holding human remains, Pickton's trial was told Wednesday.

70. Jury hears Pickton's 1991 'audio memoirs' (03/07/2007)

    He grew up poor and worked hard, but accused serial killer Robert Pickton wanted more out of life than his farm could give him.

     

71. Crown witness in Pickton trial denies he's a liar (07/19/2007)

    The Robert Pickton case has caused "horrendous'' damage to Andrew Bellwood's life and the Crown witness insists he has no reason to lie about his crucial testimony.

72. Ex-Pickton friend feisty during cross-examination (07/17/2007)

    A former friend of Robert Pickton aggressively defended himself Tuesday from a lawyer's suggestions that he's a liar, a day after he gave a chilling account of Pickton describing how he killed women.

73. Pickton's lawyer questions witness for fifth day (07/04/2007)

    The key witness at the Robert Pickton murder trial didn't mention see Pickton with a body in his pig slaughterhouse in two statements to police in 1999, a defence lawyer suggested Wednesday.

74. Man who lived on Pickton farm saw nothing unusual (06/20/2007)

    A young man who lived on Robert Pickton's farm never saw Pickton with any of the women he's accused of murdering and testified Tuesday that his former boss was a hard-working and caring man.

75. Pickton's friend says no one was harmed at farm (06/04/2007)

    A man who learned how to kill and butcher pigs from accused serial-killer Robert Pickton says he never murdered anyone at Pickton's farm nor saw anyone harmed there.

76. Pickton spoke of bodies, double suicide: witness (05/29/2007)

    Accused serial killer Robert Pickton told a close friend there were several bodies on his farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., the woman testified Tuesday.

77. Pickton trial bogs down after three months (04/22/2007)

    The trial of accused serial killer Robert Pickton began, as two legal observers noted, with a "bang" and "trumpets blaring."

78. Audio tape made by Pickton released by B.C. court (03/30/2007)

    Some were curious and others insisted they could care less, but everyone was able to hear for the first time Friday how accused serial murderer Robert (Willie) Pickton sounds when he speaks.

79. Jury hears testimony about Pickton's fingerprints (03/21/2007)

    A fingerprint belonging to the younger brother of Robert Pickton was found in a toolbox on top of a freezer holding human remains, Pickton's trial was told Wednesday.

80. Jury hears Pickton's 1991 'audio memoirs' (03/07/2007)

    He grew up poor and worked hard, but accused serial killer Robert Pickton wanted more out of life than his farm could give him.

     

81. Pickton's brother not a suspect, trial hears (03/05/2007)

    A Vancouver cop says Robert Pickton's brother is not a suspect in connection with the disappearance of women from Vancouver.

82. Pickton's brother remains a suspect, jury hears (03/02/2007)

    Robert Pickton's younger brother remains a suspect in the ongoing investigation into missing women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Pickton's trial was told Thursday.

83. Media focuses on missing Mich. woman (03/01/2007)

    The disappearance of Tara Grant -- whose husband says he last saw her getting into a waiting sedan in their driveway -- has captivated local news and is drawing comparisons to such media-saturated stories as those of Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway.

84. Pickton crime scene expert tells disturbing story (02/27/2007)

    An RCMP crime scene investigator told the jury in Robert Pickton's murder trial about some similar injuries and marks he saw between a slaughtered pig found on the Pickton farm and on one of the murder victims.

85. Crime scene expert testifies at Pickton trial (02/22/2007)

    A crime scene expert told the Robert Pickton jury Thursday he found the heads, hands and feet of two women in a freezer on Pickton's property.

86. Pickton jury hears more about search of property (02/20/2007)

    A veteran police officer who spent almost two years searching the property of accused murderer Robert Pickton says the bisected head of Mona Wilson, her feet and hands and other decomposing body parts, were found in the slaughterhouse used by Pickton.

87. Pickton jury hears about holes in police files (02/16/2007)

    An RCMP officer found holes in Vancouver police files on women missing from the Downtown Eastside, Robert Pickton's murder trial was told Thursday.

88. Pickton's personality emerging as trial goes on (02/10/2007)

    Robert Pickton often refers to himself as just a plain old pig farmer, but after five years of obscurity, the public and the jury are getting an unadulterated view of his history, his habits, his thoughts and even his hygiene.

89. Gun raid on Pickton farm led to sinister discovery (02/07/2007)

    A dramatic night-time weapons raid screeched to a halt when police found a different kind of smoking gun on Robert Pickton's farm.

90. Officer, Pickton lawyer spar over interrogation (01/30/2007)

    Robert Pickton's defence lawyer and the lead police investigator in the serial murder case sparred incessantly Tuesday, arguing over whether investigators were biased and lied and badgered Pickton into exhaustion.

     

91. 3 others arrested in probe, Pickton jury told (01/29/2007)

    Three people besides Robert Pickton were originally arrested as suspects in the investigation in the murder investigation, the lead RCMP investigator in the case testified Monday.

92. Stakes of Pickton trial meant strategy essential (01/28/2007)

    The Crown's decision to start off with the explosive allegations included in an 11-hour videotaped police interview with Pickton was a deliberate attempt to do just that, say courtroom experts.

93. On tape: Pickton tells police he got 'sloppy' (01/25/2007)

    Jurors in the Robert Pickton trial have heard the accused tell police he got "sloppy" cleaning up, near the end of an interrogation as police grilled him about DNA found on his farm.

94. Jury hears police tapes of Pickton interview (01/24/2007)

    For the second straight day a jury watched footage of a lengthy police interview with Robert Pickton, some transfixed as the interrogator tried a more threatening tone.

95. Pickton remembered face of missing woman (01/23/2007)

    Robert Pickton couldn't say whether any women in photos police showed him had ever been on his property. However, he noticed one -- a woman who went missing in 1998.

96. Crown says Pickton confessed to killing 49 (01/22/2007)

    The Crown will present evidence that Robert Pickton confessed to an undercover police officer that he killed 49 women and wanted to commit one more murder, a B.C. court heard.

97. Pickton emotionless as his trial gets underway (01/22/2007)

    Robert Pickton was largely still and emotionless as he sat in the prisoner's box to hear opening arguments in his murder trial. However, sobs could be heard at times from the families of his alleged victims.

98. 26 women at heart of case had complex lives (01/19/2007)

    Many of the 26 women Robert Willy Pickton is accused of killing appear in a police poster as mug shots -- blank eyes cratered into sallow, ravaged faces, hair pushed out of the way. Now and again a smile peeks through, out of focus or blurry because a friend or relative didn't quite get the exposure right.

99. Sereena Abotsway: Life was always about hope (01/19/2007)

    The cold, dark ocean waters of Burrard Inlet offered Sereena Abotsway the spiritual home she sought but never found on the hopeless streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

100. Marnie Frey: A father remembers her generosity (01/19/2007)

     Rick Frey never knew what his daughter Marnie would be wearing when she'd stroll through the front door of the family home after a long day at school.

      

101. Andrea Joesbury: Taught baby sister dance moves (01/19/2007)

     Andrea Joesbury was reported missing by her doctors in June 2001 after she stopped picking up her methadone treatments in Vancouver. She had been trying to kick drugs in an effort to clean up her life and win back custody of her daughter.

102. Georgina Papin: Connected others with her culture (01/19/2007)

     One whiff of sage and Georgina Faith Papin's memory comes alive for her daughter. Burned during First Nations rituals, its scent brings Kristina Bateman back to a 1997 powwow in Mission, B.C.

103. Mona Wilson: From Disneyland to Downtown (01/19/2007)

     Blocks away from where she sold herself in the last years of her life, Mona Wilson's brother tries to sell her in death. Sitting at a Vancouver Starbucks, he offers report cards, photographs of her son, full access to the story of her often cold, hard life in exchange for cold, hard cash.

104. Brenda Wolfe: A 'guardian angel' on the streets (01/19/2007)

     Brenda Wolfe liked country music and jazz, liked to dance, liked a joke. Ray Robertson was surprised to learn her name was on a list of women whose remains were found at Robert Pickton's farm.

105. Children of missing Vancouver women share a bond (01/14/2007)

     A different kind of family has formed around the Robert Pickton -- the generation of children born to the woman that the Port Coquitlam, B.C. man is acccused of murdering.

106. Groups say they won't use Pickton's name (01/13/2007)

     It's time to stop conferring celebrity-like status on a man accused of murdering 26 women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and continuing to repeat his name doesn't help, says a coalition of agencies.

107. Two more bodies found in U.K. serial killer probe (12/12/2006)

     British detectives believe they are dealing with a serial killer after the bodies of five women, three confirmed as prostitutes, have been found.

108. Jury selection begins for trial of Robert Pickton (12/09/2006)

     Jury selection began in the trial of Robert Pickton. Jurors will start hearing evidence next month related to the deaths of the six women from Vancouver's east side.

109. The break in the 'missing women' case (12/08/2006)

     Kathy Tomlinson recalls the big break in the Pickton case --a story that had been percolating for years in B.C.'s Lower Mainland, without much attention from police or the public.

110. Jury picks to begin in B.C. serial murder trial (12/02/2006)

     Vancouver sex workers are preparing for a media onslaught as jury selection begins in the murder trial of a man accused of preying on sex workers in Canada's poorest neighbourhood.

      

111. RCMP: Pickton suspect in death of Victoria woman (10/12/2006)

     Accused serial killer Robert Pickton is a suspect in the discovery of a missing Victoria woman's DNA at his notorious pig farm near Vancouver, the RCMP said Thursday.

112. Van. woman missing since 1991 turns up in Sask. (06/23/2006)

     The children of a woman once presumed missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside were reunited with their mother in Saskatchewan on Friday, 15 years after she first disappeared.

113. Pickton jury trial could pose major challenge (05/07/2006)

     The possibility that a jury trial for accused serial killer Robert Pickton could last as long as two years will test the jury system and be an overwhelming burden on those selected, experts say.

114. Conference to examine 'highway of tears' (03/29/2006)

     It's dubbed the Highway of Tears and families whose loved ones have been murdered along it or disappeared in the area say it's time for action.

115. New suspicious death along 'Highway of Tears' (02/14/2006)

     An autopsy was conducted Tuesday on the remains of a woman found on the side of Highway 16, east of Prince George, B.C. on Friday. Police say they are treating the case as a suspicious death.

116. Remains ID'ed as those of missing Regina woman (02/01/2006)

     RCMP have identified the partial skeletal remains found north of Regina shortly before Christmas as those of a Regina woman missing since last summer.

117. Pickton pleads not guilty at pre-trial hearing (01/31/2006)

     Nearly four years after his arrest, accused serial killer Robert Pickton pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of first-degree murder.

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