Missing and Murdered Women

Constable details crass behavior of officers at missing women inquiry

2012-02-02T20:19:00.001-08:00

ROBERT MATAS
VANCOUVER – Globe and Mail
Thursday, February-02-2012

Two Vancouver cops involved in the missing women investigation made their office unlivable by recounting racist tales, such as dumping flour over the head of a Vietnamese man and joking that “now, you’re white,” the Pickton inquiry has heard.

During her fourth day of testimony, Detective Constable Lori Shenher told the inquiry Thursday that working in the office of the Vancouver police missing women unit was uncomfortable, especially after Detective Constables Doug Fell and Mark Wolthers recounted an episode of their role in an earlier drug arrest.

Det. Constables Fell and Wolthers told a story about searching a residence of a Vietnamese man. “At some point, they were going through the kitchen cabinets and they pulled out a bag of white flour,” she said.

“They are telling us this story, and they said they dumped it on this man’s head and said, ‘there you go. Now you’re white. What do you think of that?’ and they’re laughing,” Det. Constable Shenher said.

Det. Constable Alex Clarke, another officer working on the missing women case, was in the office with her at that time. They were “just absolutely stunned that [Det. Constables Fell and Wolthers] would do this, and that they would relate this stuff and think this is something we would find in any way acceptable or funny or anything else,” Det. Constable Shenher said.

“That was the climate in the room,” she said.

Det. Constables Fell and Wolthers were assigned to the missing women’s review team from May, 1999 to June 2000. They often used obscenities and discriminatory language when talking about sex trade workers¸ deputy chief Doug LePard has previously told the inquiry.

Their conduct impaired the investigation team’s ability to do their work but neither officer was ever disciplined, deputy chief LePard testified. He was not sure what managers at that time knew about them, he said.

The detectives are expected to testify at the inquiry later this year.

Det. Constable Shenher, who was working on the missing women case from July, 1998 to November, 2000, told the inquiry she spoke to her supervisor, Sergeant Geramy Field, about the incident involving the Vietnamese man but did not make any notes.

“I recall saying at the time, ‘I cannot believe you guys.’ Both [Det. Constable] Clarke and I were shocked,” she said.

Det. Constable Shenher, who had joined the Vancouver police force in 1991, said she did not feel she could challenge the two detectives, who had been police officers for much longer.

“I really, for the most part, tried to carry on without dealing with them,” she said.

Later Thursday, Det. Constable Shenher was critical of the two detectives for failing to tell her that three women from the Downtown Eastside had identified Mr. Pickton in photos that Det. Constables Fell and Wolthers showed them in April, 2000.

The inquiry has previously heard that the two detectives were showing photos of several men including Mr. Pickton to sex-trade workers in order to identify possible suspects in the case. At that time, the Vancouver police investigation had stalled and police mistakenly believed that women were no longer going missing from the Downtown Eastside.

The identification of Mr. Pickton by three sex-trade workers would have “kick started,” the investigation, she said.

However, Det. Constables Fell and Wolthers never said they found out that Mr. Pickton had been in the Downtown Eastside, she said.

The provincial inquiry was appointed in September, 2010 to look into why Mr. Pickton was not arrested before February, 2002. The inquiry has heard that police began receiving tips pointing to Mr. Pickton in 1998. Mr. Pickton is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of six women. He once said he killed 49 women.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/constable-details-crass-behaviour-of-officers-at-missing-women-inquiry/article2324575/

Lead VPD investigator’s book sought: Reposted

2012-02-02T17:36:00.001-08:00

http://www.cameronward.com/2012/02/mwci-lead-vpd-investigators-book-sought/

MWCI: Lead VPD investigator’s book sought

February 2, 2012 in Missing Women Commision of Inquiry
, News

The lead VPD investigator on the missing women investigation testified Tuesday that she wrote a book about her experiences investigating the missing women cases after Pickton was arrested. We immediately asked for production of the manuscript.

The manuscript was to be published

as a 320 page paperback by McLelland & Stewart in September of 2003. When the Globe and Mail and the Province newspapers reported in April 2003 that Shenher was writing a book about the case, VPD spokesperson Anne Drennan flatly denied

it.

David Crossin, Q.C. objected on the basis that it was irrelevant to the inquiry. So if we understand the argument, the lead investigator’s factual acoount of the missing women investigation is “irrelevant” to the Commission mandated to inquire into the conduct of the missing women investigations.

Mr. Crossin was directed to review the manuscript and determine whether it is relevant to the inquiry. We await the outcome of his review with interest.

posted by Cameron Ward

Officer’s award draws criticism

Missing women's relatives say medal is inappropriate

Amy O'Brian
Vancouver Sun

Friday, May 02, 2003

Some relatives of the dozens of women who have disappeared from the Downtown Eastside are outraged that the Vancouver police department awarded one of its officers an award for her work on the case.

Lori Shenher

Detective Constable Lori Shenher was given a chief constable's commendation Thursday for gathering evidence that showed that dozens of missing prostitutes in the Downtown Eastside had likely been murdered, and weren't simply missing.

Until the VPD and RCMP joined forces on the case, Shenher was the lead investigator.

But some relatives of the murdered and missing women say it is inappropriate to recognize an officer for her work before a conviction has been made and while there is still so much work to be done.

"Gimme a break," said Rick Frey, whose daughter Marnie vanished from the Downtown Eastside in August 1997.

"Done a great job of what? Covering up."

The Vancouver police department has been repeatedly criticized for not doing enough to investigate the disappearance of numerous women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Questions have also been raised about the length of time it took for police to act on a 1998 tip about Port Coquitlam farmer Robert "Willy" Pickton, who is now charged with 15 counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths.

The Vancouver Sun revealed in 2001 that the missing women's case was assigned to inexperienced or overworked officers without the time or resources to do a proper job.

Eventually, the investigation stalled, and a joint RCMP-VPD review team took over the file in the spring of 2001.

The first charges were laid against Pickton on Feb. 22, 2002.

Ernie Crey, whose sister Dawn disappeared from the Downtown Eastside in December 2000, said the VPD is premature in handing out any awards.

"The department, in doing so, appears as though it may be patting itself on the back," Crey told a CTV reporter.

"They're being self-congratulatory at a time when everybody in British Columbia knows and understands that there is a cloud still hanging over the VPD."

Rick Frey's wife, Lynne, said she does not disagree that Shenher was instrumental in getting charges laid against Pickton, but has mixed emotions about the award.

"I find it inappropriate. Especially at this time," Lynne Frey said. "I think it would be more appropriate after the trial is finished."

But VPD media liaison Constable Anne Drennan said it was high time Shenher was recognized for her dedication to the case.

"She did everything humanly possible at that time for one person to do with respect to trying to track down any kind of information that would lead us to find these women or lead us to find out what had happened to these women," Drennan said.

"She worked under very difficult circumstances and she struggled alone for quite a long time. We felt that the award was more than appropriate for the service that she provided."

Lynne Frey said that if awards are being given, members of the RCMP missing women's task force are just as deserving of recognition.

The Freys are also upset about reports that Shenher has or had a book deal for her first-hand account of working on the case.

Rick Frey believes the award is some sort of fancy damage control for media reports that Shenher is writing a book about the case. But Drennan said the awards were approved months ago and it is pure coincidence that reports about the book deal were made just weeks before the awards.

Drennan also said that Shenher told her last week she had been contemplating writing a book about the case, but had abandoned the idea and has no current plans to publish police details of the case.

"The whole thing smells a little," Frey said. "I think [the VPD is] trying to do a little [public relations] work here. How did they pick her [Shenher] out anyway?"

Erin McGrath, whose sister Leigh Miner is among the women still missing, commended Shenher for her work on the case and said she is deserving of an award.

"I think she has integrity," McGrath said. "I have no strong feelings about [the award]. I think that she [Shenher] is a good person and good people who do good work deserve awards."

Police, families play blame game at Pickton inquiry

2012-02-02T16:41:00.001-08:00

ROBERT MATAS

VANCOUVER – Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Feb. 02, 2012

Vancouver police’s lack of contact with the families of Robert Pickton’s victims was in response to requests from some family members to curtail their calls, the Missing Women Inquiry has heard.

The Vancouver police department has been repeatedly criticized for failing to take reports of missing women from family members and for not keeping family members informed about what they were doing to try to locate the women.

Detective Constable Lori Shenher, who pinpointed Mr. Pickton as a prime person of interest at least three years before he was arrested in 2002, told the inquiry Thursday that some families did not want regular contact with the police.

Maggie de Vries, whose sister Sarah went missing in April, 1998, was the spokesperson for the families and became her “normal contact” for information about the missing women investigation, Det. Constable Shenher said.

But at times, Ms. de Vries stepped back from her involvement and wanted to take a break, she said.

Ms. de Vries asked to be called only if something major happened, Det. Constable Shenher said.

Sarah de Vries’ mother felt the same way, she added.

“They liked to have a little bit of distance from the file, if you will. So they were happy with this level of contact,” Det. Constable Shenher said.

The de Vries were not unique, Det. Constable Shenher said. Other families told her they knew police were trying to find their missing relative and they wanted to be contacted onlyif something came up.

She said she stopped speaking with the family of another missing woman, Catherine Gonzalez, after her contact in the family moved away.

“He had substance abuse issues of his own, and I was not going to spend the bulk of my time searching for someone who was not missing, when I was looking for all these other missing people,” she said.

Contact with Helen Hallmark”s family was discontinued after the marriage of Ms. Hallmark’s mother dissolved. Her contact had been with Ms. Hallmark”s step-father, Det. Constable Shenher said. After the marriage ended, the mother would not take her calls.

Ms. De Vries did not respond Thursday afternoon to requests for an interview. However Det. Constable Shenher’s remarks were not well received by two family members in the hearing room. They said in interviews afterwards they were always interested in what police were doing in the investigation of their missing relatives and tried repeatedly to find out, but police did not keep them informed.

“You cannot tell me there is a family out there that does not care,” Lilliane Beaudoin, the sister of Dianne Rock, said in an interview outside the hearing.

“If they put in a report [that their relative is missing], they cared,” she said.

Family members were discouraged by the way police responded to the missing persons reports and the lack of information about what police were doing, she said.

“You do get tired being tossed around like that. To me, I cannot see any family members not wanting to find their loved ones,” she said.

The provincial inquiry was appointed in September, 2010 to look into why Mr. Pickton was not arrested before February, 2002. Mr. Pickton is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of six women. He once said he killed 49 women.

The inquiry has heard that police began receiving tips in 1998 pointing to Mr. Pickton as a possible suspect in their investigation into the disappearance of street prostitutes from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Ms. Gonzalez was last seen in March, 1995 and was reported missing 11 months later. Ms. Hallmark was not seen since June, 1997 and reported missing 15 months later. Her DNA was found on Mr. Pickton’s farm.

Clashing egos hampered Pickton probe, missing women inquiry hears

2012-02-02T16:27:00.001-08:00

BY SAM COOPER, POSTMEDIA NEWS FEBRUARY 2, 2012 4:07 PM

Det. Cst. Lori Shenher attends the missing women inquiry in Vancouver.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

VANCOUVER — The stories seem to come straight from a seedy TV cop drama.

"Cowboy" drug cops out for glory. Investigators with tunnel vision hiding information from colleagues. Investigations hindered by cops who can't stand one another.

If true, the stories heard Thursday at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry may explain the lack of direction and professionalism in the VPD's investigation into Robert Pickton and other suspects.

The inquiry has heard already of an allegedly disruptive pair of investigators who were "super racist."

On Thursday it heard the two allegedly hid important information about Robert Pickton while focusing on their own favourite suspect, according to the testimony of Det. Const. Lori Shenher.

Shenher testified that Const. Doug Fell and Const. Mark Wolthers had been added to her team of investigators in 1999 after they approached then-Deputy Chief Const. Brian McGuinness with a suspect.

Shenher said McGuinness was "excited" but her immediate superiors were not happy that he endorsed Fell and Wolthers and pushed them onto the team. Shenher testified she knew their reputation as two tall and brash Downtown Eastside cops who followed their own agenda, allegedly had low regard for sex workers, and didn't make many arrests despite going off the radar on solo missions without answering dispatch calls.

Shenher said she has learned the two officers canvassed the Downtown Eastside with photos of Pickton that were identified by three women in early 2000, suggesting the prime suspect was active under the VPD's nose, but allegedly the two didn't report that back to her. They had focused on their personal suspect, who was now in Alberta, she said.

Shenher said there were up to 31 missing women on file, but the two officers were not interested in Pickton, so they would only refer to 22 women. That was the number that fit with their timeline for the Alberta suspect, she said.

Shenher said the two made "grave" investigative errors and interfered with the team's focus. She said two valued investigators left her unit partly because they could not stand working with the two new cops.

As an example of the poisonous atmosphere in the small investigative unit, Shenher noted her "stunned" reaction to a story allegedly put forward by Fell and Wolthers.

The two spoke about a drug arrest of a Vietnamese man, Shenher said. She testified they said they went into his closet and took a bag of white flour and dumped it on the man's head, saying, "now you're white, what do you think about that?"

Shenher testified there was a meeting with the RCMP in early 2000 about sharing suspect information on the missing women, which was attended by the current RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson. She said Walthers embarrassed the VPD when he forcefully insisted his Lethbridge, Alta. suspect made the "hair on the back of my neck stand up" — although he could not tell Paulson any evidence to back up his suspicions.

At the time Paulson was a sergeant from Prince Rupert, B.C. with knowledge of the "Highway of Tears" cases, Shenher said.

A lawyer for Fell and Wolthers challenged Shenher's perceptions of their "cowboy" reputation and work on the file. Shenher allowed that they were hardworking and energetic.

The two are expected to testify.

Inquiry told of maverick cops out for glory instead of focusing on Pickton as suspect

2012-02-02T13:44:00.001-08:00

BY SAM COOPER, THE PROVINCE FEBRUARY 2, 2012 1:07 PM

People express their respect and condolences to families of the murdered women holding star blankets bearing their photos 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.

Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, PNG

The stories seem to come straight from a seedy TV cop drama.

“Cowboy” drug cops out for glory. Investigators with tunnel vision hiding information from colleagues. Investigations hindered by cops who can’t stand one another.

If true, the stories heard today at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry may explain the lack of direction and professionalism in the VPD’s investigation into Robert Pickton and other suspects.

The inquiry has already heard of an allegedly disruptive pair of investigators who were “super racist.”

Today it heard the two allegedly hid important information about Robert Pickton while focusing on their own favourite suspect, according to the testimony of Det. Const. Lori Shenher.

Shenher testified that Const. Doug Fell and Const. Mark Wolthers had been added to her team of several investigators in 1999 after they approached then-Deputy Chief Const. Brian McGuinness with a suspect.

Shenher said McGuinness was “excited” but her immediate superiors were not happy that he endorsed Fell and Wolthers and pushed them onto the team. Shenher testified she knew their reputation as two tall and brash Downtown Eastside cops who followed their own agenda, allegedly had low regard for sex workers, and didn’t make many arrests despite going off the radar on solo missions without answering dispatch calls.

Shenher said she has learned the two officers canvassed the Downtown Eastside with photos of Pickton that were identified by three women in early 2000, suggesting the prime suspect was active under the VPD’s nose, but allegedly the two didn’t report that back to her. They had focused on their personal suspect, who was now in Alberta, she said.

The perception was they were out for personal glory. Shenher said there were up to 31 missing women on file, but the two officers were not interested in Pickton, so they would only refer to 22 women. That was the number that fit with their timeline for the Alberta suspect, she said.

Shenher said the two made “grave” investigative errors and interfered with the team’s focus. She said two valued investigators left her unit partly because they could not stand working with the two new cops.

As an example of the poisonous atmosphere in the small investigative unit, Shenher noted her “stunned” reaction to a story allegedly put forward by Fell and Walthers.

The two spoke about a drug arrest of a Vietnamese man, Shenher said. They said they went into his closet and took a bag of white flour and dumped it on the man’s head, saying “ now you’re white, what do you think about that?”

Shenher testified there was a meeting with the RCMP in early 2000 about sharing suspect information on the missing women, which was attended by the current RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson. Walthers embarrassed the VPD when he forcefully insisted his Lethbridge suspect made the “hair on the back of my neck stand up” — although he could not tell Paulson any evidence to back up his suspicions.

At the time Paulson was a sergeant from Prince Rupert with knowledge of the “Highway of Tears” cases, Shenher said.

A lawyer for Fell and Walthers challenged Shenher’s perceptions of their “cowboy” reputation and work on the file. Shenher allowed that they were hardworking and energetic.

The two are expected to testify.

Police botched 1997 chance to nab Pickton

2012-02-02T08:30:00.001-08:00

QMI AGENCY

FIRST POSTED: MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 2012

If a woman Robert Pickton stabbed in 1997 had died, his conviction would have been a “slam-dunk,” said a Vancouver police constable who worked the serial killer investigation.

Instead, the charges were stayed and it’s believed Pickton went on to kill at least 10 more women before being arrested in 2002.

Det. Const. Lori Shenher — the first witness at the Missing Women Inquiry who was actually involved in the Pickton investigation — testified Monday she’d interviewed his stabbing victim shortly after being assigned to the missing persons unit in 1998.

The sex-trade worker’s horrific experience seemed to point to the pig farmer as a potential suspect.

But the woman, whose name is protected by a publication ban, told Shenher the charges against Pickton were dropped “on account of me being an addict.”

There was “nothing in my interactions with her that would make me question her credibility at all,” Shenher said.

The woman recounted how she’d been picked up in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) by Pickton, who offered her an outrageous amount of money before driving to his Port Coquitlam, B.C., farm.

She spoke of his strange quietude and feeling concerned upon seeing a bra on the floor of his truck.

At the farm, they had sex before he handcuffed her and stabbed her in the abdomen.

Shenher said she’d heard the woman’s heart had stopped on the operating table but was resuscitated.

“Had she died, which is as mortifying as it is, but had she died, we probably would’ve had a slam-dunk murder conviction without her testimony,” Shenher said.

Shenher said there was no mechanism back then if subordinates disagreed with superiors. Going over a superior’s head was “a bit of career suicide.”

Shenher also spoke of an “old guard” with an outdated perception of the sex trade in the DTES.

They believed the missing women were simply working a Western Canada circuit, even though she pointed out they hadn’t cashed their welfare cheques or contacted their children.

Asked why she didn’t insist more, Shenher said she didn’t want to be dismissed as a zealot.

“That’s something I’ve personally struggled with for 13 and half years now … I felt I had to walk that line,” she said.

Last Friday, the RCMP apologized for the force's failure to catch Pickton sooner.

Vancouver police issued an apology in July 2010 after the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Pickton’s appeal of his convictions. Previously, the RCMP had issued a statement stating its “deep regret.”

A Tribute to the Missing & Murdered Women of Downtown Eastside Vancouver...

2012-02-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

Robert Pickton Victims Tribute (Fanshawe Project)

2012-02-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

Investigator questioned whether officials were warned Pickton was prime suspect

2012-02-01T17:42:00.001-08:00

BY SAM COOPER, THE PROVINCE FEBRUARY 1, 2012 4:55 PM

Det.–Cst. Lori Shenher on a monitor at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in Vancouver on Monday.

Photograph by: GLENN BAGLO, PNG

Cameron Ward, lawyer for 25 families of murdered women, grilled the VPD’s lead missing women investigator on whether B.C.’s top justice officials were warned that Robert Pickton was the prime suspect, at a series of meetings starting in April 1999.

Det. Const. Lori Shenher’s last two days of testimony at the Missing Women Commision of Inquirysuggested badly flawed efforts by the VPD and RCMP, which possibly allowed drug-addicted prostitutes to die needlessly.

On Wednesday Shenher testified that after she and RCMP investigators homed in on Pickton in the spring of 1999, an “inertia” fell onto the investigation, and somewhere up the chain in the RCMP a decision seemed to be made to halt the joint-forces investigation into Pickton in the fall of 1999.

In cross-examination, Ward suggested to Shenher that for five years Pickton was permitted to bring as many as 49, “maybe many more” women to his farm and kill them, and asked her why.

“I don’t believe it was a lack of management will at VPD,” Shenher said. She said it was “a total lack of someone picking up a phone and going to someone in authority in RCMP (to) move (the Pickton case) forward.”

Ward pressed Shenher for details about a meeting involving then Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh, a number of cabinet ministers and aides, plus a handful of the most senior officers from the RCMP and VPD, which occurred on April 9, 1999. Pickton was the focus at that meeting, as well as another multi-department meeting on May 13, 1999, according to Shenher.

Shenher in a previous statement said she believed her memo sent to Dosanjh and distributed at the April meeting, specifically included Pickton’s name, but that a copy of the memo that is reproduced for evidence in the current hearing appears to have been altered.

However, under cross-examination from Ward she said she now believes the memo was not altered.

Shenher said she can’t recall if the aides or officers present took notes of her presentation at the April meeting.

Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal clashed with Ward on the relevance of who attended the meeting and what was recorded at the meeting.

Ward charged that Oppal’s commission has so far failed to produce documents, and it is crucial to know whether the top justice officials in B.C. who were in attendance “all knew about Pickton but didn’t motivate any response.”

“This committee has had an ongoing duty to get the notes,” Shenher said. “We should have records of that meeting.”

Ward questioned Shenher on flaws in her own investigation, and why Pickton was not stopped sooner given what police knew about him.

Ward asked Shenher if Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Mike Connor, who investigated Pickton for years starting with an attempted murder charge in 1997, had told her that the RCMP knew that Pickton and his brother Dave were involved in illegal activity and associated with members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club.

Shenher said she was aware. She said that starting in July 1998 she drove by the Pickton farm with her source Bill Hiscox, and Connor, several times. She described a number of earth mounds on the property about 15 feet high and 30-40 feet across, and said she considered whether Pickton was keeping live women captive in the earth formations.

“It made me think of a bunker, torture chamber type place,” she said.

Ward suggested that Shenher had actually entered the property on one occasion with Hiscox, and she denied that she did.

Shenher was also asked why, when she claimed to have been traumatized by the case, she wrote a book on the case which was put forward to a publisher, and worked on scripts for the CBC crime show Da Vinci’s Inquest, prior to 2003.

Shenher said the writing was “cathartic.”

Ward said if the book manuscript is disclosed as he has demanded, he will ask to re-examine Shenher on the contents.

scooper@theprovince.com

twitter.com/scoopercooper

Officer traumatized by Robert Pickton wrote book and TV script, inquiry hears

2012-02-01T13:26:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN FEBRUARY 1, 2012 1:06 PM

VANCOUVER - An officer who testified she was traumatized by a serial killer investigation admitted today she wrote a book on the case and wrote a script for a local TV show.

Vancouver police Det-Const. Lori Shenher testified she was "utterly burned out and disillusioned" after working on the missing women case and having serial killer Robert Pickton in her sights for years.

Cross examined by Cameron Ward, the lawyer representing 25 families of murdered women, Shenher admitted she was "fried" after Pickton was arrested in 2002 and wanted to get as far away from the case as possible.

She agreed that she later wrote a book about the Pickton case, which was never published.

Shenher said she wrote the book while she was on maternity leave.

"I was terrified that I was going to be made the scapegoat," she recalled.

"I didn't feel that was fair or right," she added. "I wanted to write my story and get it down in its entirety."

She also agreed she wrote a script for the TV show DaVinci's Inquest and was the show's technical advisor between 2001 and 2003.

The show often focused on the missing women investigation.

"I was not very involved in the missing women scripts," Shenher recalled.

"I reviewed them for accuracy on police procedure and dialogue."

She admitted that she was upset that police failed to catch Pickton sooner and felt the RCMP blamed the Vancouver police for not doing more.

But the Mounties also had Pickton under investigation for years, Shenher said.

Ward pointed out the RCMP were well aware that Pickton and his brother Dave, who was co-owner of the farm property in Port Coquitlam and ran a party spot called Piggy's Palace, were involved in illegal activity and were associates of the Hells Angels motorcycle club.

"Yes, I was aware of that," Shenher said.

"Can you explain, for the satisfaction of my clients, why the police didn't do anything about these people?" Ward asked.

Shenher said she didn't know the answer to that.

She earlier testified the RCMP's Pickton investigation suffered from "inertia" because it never seemed to move forward.

Coquitlam RCMP had initially investigated Pickton for a 1997 knife attack on a Vancouver prostitute at Pickton's farm.

Shenher tracked down the woman and interviewed her on Aug. 21, 1998.

Shenher found the woman's story about the Pickton attack very credible and never understood why the Crown dropped charges in 1998 stemming from the attack - Pickton had been charged with attempted murder and unlawful confinement.

Shener recalled the woman said she never got a chance to testify because the Crown felt she wasn't credible because she was a drug addict.

Shenher recalled telling the woman: "I think you're the only one who got away."

The woman agreed, suggesting Pickton "must have done this before," Shenher said.

She said she also told the woman, based on the informant infomation, that Pickton tried to get others to lure the women to the farm so he could "finish her off."

Shenher testified she spoke to the late VPD Sgt. Larry Butler, who was a member of the outlaw motorcycle gang squad, about the Picktons because he had been a childhood friend of Pickton.

"He [Pickton] was allowed to get away with the attempted murder," Ward suggested, "and was permitted to bring 49 women to his farm and kill them."

"He wasn't stopped," Shenher agreed, acknowleding Pickton may have killed 22 of the women after May 13, 1999, when Vancouver police held a brainstorming session among women going missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

""Did you have a sense that he wasn't stopped because there were other law enforcement consideratiions that were more important and he wasn't stopped because of that?" Ward asked.

"I had no sense of that," Shenher replied during her third day of testimony.

RCMP Cpl. Mike Connor, who investigated Pickton for years, is expected to testify next.

Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal warned Ward that he was almost out of time for his cross-examination of the witness.

"I'm just asking you to get to the point," Oppal said.

The commissioner has tried to impose time limits on the cross-examination of witnesses because of the inquiry's looming deadline - the end of June to finish its report to the attorney general.

The inquiry began hearings on Oct. 11 and is expected to continue hearing evidence until the end of April.

The inquiry is probing why police, who became aware of Pickton as a suspect in 1998, failed to catch him sooner.

Pickton was arrested on Feb. 5, 2002, and was eventually charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder, which were divided into two trials.

He was convicted at his first trial in 2007 of six murders.

After Pickton lost all appeals, the Crown decided not to proceed on the remaining counts at a second trial, which upset the families of the victims.

nhall@vancouversun.com

Lawyer for missing women's families tries to get former investigator to name names

2012-02-01T13:15:00.001-08:00

BY SAM COOPER, THE PROVINCE FEBRUARY 1, 2012 12:07 PM

Det.–Cst. Lori Shenher on a monitor at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in Vancouver on Monday.

Photograph by: GLENN BAGLO, PNG

Cameron Ward, lawyer for 25 families of murdered women, is grilling the VPD’s lead missing women investigator on whether B.C.’s top justice officials were warned that Robert Pickton was the prime suspect, at a series of meetings starting in April 1999.

Det. Const. Lori Shenher’s last two days of testimony at the Missing Women Commision of Inquirypainted a very grim picture of policing in the Lower Mainland, suggesting badly flawed efforts by the VPD and RCMP, which possibly allowed drug-addicted prostitutes to die needlessly. She has suggested senior managers in the RCMP and VPD did not clue in to the need to fund a major investigation into Pickton, even while investigators in both forces believed Pickton was the main suspect as early as July 1998. And that, and after both VPD and RCMP investigators focused exclusively on Pickton in the summer of 1999, someone up the chain in the RCMP seemed to stop the investigation that fall, Shenher suggests.

Today Ward is attempting to get Shenher to name names, in terms of who knew what and when, among top officials. So far, Shenher is claiming a fuzzy memory about a meeting involving cabinet ministers, then Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh and top brass from the RCMP and VPD, which occurred on April 9, 1999. Shenher presented her findings and investigative theories, and Pickton was her prime suspect at the time, she admitted today.

Shenher in a previous statement said she believed her memo to Dosanjh included Pickton’s name, and that a copy of the memo that is reproduced for evidence appears to have been altered.

However, today she said she now believes it was not altered.

Ward suggested to Shenher today: “You felt some of the burden was lifted, (that) people at the highest levels of the RCMP, VPD, the provincial government knew first hand what you knew (after the meeting.)”

Shenher said she can’t recall if the aides present took notes of her presentation.

“I had an impression...that Mr. Pickton was discussed...I’m really hot able to say for certain whether he was discussed,” she said today.

More to come...

Officer's 'good job' wasn't enough - and she knows it

2012-02-01T07:17:00.001-08:00

Brian Hutchinson, National Post · Feb. 1, 2012 | Last Updated: Feb. 1, 2012 3:14 AM ET

She had serial killer Robert "Willie" Pickton in her sights "the whole time" yet failed to stop the deranged pig farmer from murdering more women. It's an awful truth that haunts Vancouver police officer Lori Shenher. She's bruised. It shows.

Detective-Constable Shenher broke down and sobbed during testimony Tuesday at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. The veteran cop was asked by commission counsel to recall the toll that Pickton's crimes - and bungled police investigations - had taken on her.

"Obviously, this has affected me a great deal," she said, her voice cracking. Then the floodgates opened. "I suffer from some trauma from this," she said between tears.

Her testimony had been dispassionate to that point, almost cold. Det.-Const. Shenher had led the Vancouver Police Department's efforts to solve missing women cases from July 1998 until November 2000, a period of intense activity for the murderous Pickton, as it happened.

Pickton was killing Vancouver's "low track" sex trade workers, women whom he had lured to his Port Coquitlam pig farm with offers of money and drugs. Det.-Const. Shenher cried because she has long known - and we all know now - that Pickton was throughout the period a "person of interest," then a "suspect," then a "prime suspect" in connection to the dozens of vanished women.

She composed herself. "I did a damned good job with what I had to work with," Det.-Const. Shenher told the inquiry. Clearly, that wasn't enough. Det.-Const. Shenher had no experience with major crimes, let alone homicides, when assigned to investigate the missing women files. She worked from a minuscule room inside a VPD building on Main Street, in the heart of the Downtown Eastside.

Another, more experienced officer worked alongside her. Between them, they had their notebooks. Not a vehicle, not so much as a cellular telephone. A civilian clerk was assigned to keep records and take missing women information from concerned relatives and friends, but she seemed a bad fit. According to some missing women relatives who approached her, the clerk was dismissive and rude.

Det.-Const. Shenher chased tips, interviewed sources and liaised with RCMP officers in Coquitlam, the closest detachment to Pickton's messy pig farm. She wrote memos, attended meetings, engaged with other officers in a big "brainstorming session." And the killings continued.

Police efforts went "nowhere," according to Det.-Const. Shenher. She ran into indifference from superiors, which she admits she didn't really challenge. She encountered negative attitudes, racist comments, sexism and homophobia. She let those slide. The inquiry has also heard about incompetent RCMP investigators, infighting among officers, clashes of egos. All things that derailed investigations.

Det. Const. Shenher "burned out" in late 2000, she testified.

"I had been doing way too many things. I was so completely disillusioned with police work, I was just done." Despondent, sickened by failure, she "contemplated leaving policing." She took four months leave from the VPD and was then transferred to another unit. She went through the motions. The passion was gone, she suggested to the inquiry. But she had the drive in 2002 to write a 320-page manuscript about her ordeal with the Pickton investigation, and Canadian book publisher McClelland & Stewart announced its intention to market the effort. The project was shelved after concerns were raised by relatives of Pickton's victims.

Cameron Ward, lawyer for families of 25 missing and murdered women, asked late Tuesday that the manuscript be disclosed to inquiry participants. Inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal deferred ruling on the matter.

It was also in 2002 that an RCMP colleague called. The Mounties were searching Pickton's farm, he told Det.-Const. Shenher, who might have been overjoyed. She was not. "Anybody but him," she remembered thinking. Better it was someone smarter than the pig farmer, "someone tricky," she told the inquiry. Someone whom she'd never heard of before.

Not Pickton, she recalled thinking. "He was in my sights the whole time."

Det. Const. Shenher's testimony continues Wednesday.

bhutchinson@nationalpost.com

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Officer+good+wasn+enough+knows/6082337/story.html

Police had a tip that Robert Pickton was a serial murderer years before he was arrested.

2012-01-31T16:55:00.001-08:00

Published On Tue Jan 31 2012

The heartbreak just never ends for family and friends of Robert Pickton’s murder victims. This week Vancouver Police Det. Const. Lori Shenher provided some of the most graphic testimony yet that police had Pickton squarely in their sights as a potential serial killer for years before he was finally charged.

The force got Crime Stoppers tips back in 1998 about a pig farmer named Willie Pickton who might be responsible for the missing women, 3 ½ years before he was arrested in 2002, Shenher told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry headed by former British Columbia Attorney General Wally Oppal. The tipster said Pickton claimed he could dispose of bodies by putting them through a grinder on his farm in Port Coquitlam.

“When I heard grinders, I thought Bingo! This is the kind of guy we’re looking for,” Shenher testified. Women from the city’s shabby Downtown Eastside were going missing, but no bodies were turning up. This was a chance to put a serial killer out of business.

It didn’t happen. Even though police had Pickton in plain sight, he kept on luring sex trade workers to his farm and killing and butchering them until his arrest. Ultimately Pickton was convicted in 2007 of six murders and sentenced to life. The remains or DNA of 33 women were on his farm. He also told an undercover cop he killed 49 in all.

Const. Shenher’s testimony came just days after Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Craig Callens formally apologized for letting the families and victims down. “With the benefit of hindsight … the RCMP could have done more,” he acknowledged. Vancouver police, too, apologized back in 2010.

Given all this, what’s the point of raking over old wounds? Because it’s important that the inquiry determine exactly why the two police forces failed to stop Pickton sooner. There’s a tangled tale to unweave of police not taking the disappearances seriously enough, of discounting leads, of under-resourced and poorly coordinated investigations, of police crudely dissing victims and dismissing witnesses as not credible, of bungling and of investigators being reassigned.

Victims’ families deserve the truth, however painful. And the public needs to know that police have learned the appropriate lessons.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1124387--police-had-a-tip-that-robert-pickton-was-a-serial-murderer-years-before-he-was-arrested

Officer 'grief-stricken' over Pickton probe delay, inquiry hears

2012-01-31T15:25:00.001-08:00

BY SAM COOPER, POSTMEDIA NEWS JANUARY 31, 2012 3:06 PM

Det. Cst. Lori Shenher attends missing women inquiry, in Vancouver on Monday, January 30, 2012.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

VANCOUVER — After detailing a broken police culture in the Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP that may have allowed women to die needlessly in the city's Downtown Eastside, Vancouver Police Det. Const. Lori Shenher broke down on the stand at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry Tuesday.

After completing her testimony, Shenher gave an emotional personal impact statement. Shenher told the hearing about her personal grief and shock upon hearing that Robert Pickton's pig farm was finally being searched, long after an investigation into him apparently had gone stale due to communication problems, a lack of resources and turf wars within the VPD and the RCMP, according to her testimony.

Shenher, who started as a lone investigator into Vancouver's missing women in 1998 and left the unit in the fall of 2000, said when she heard Pickton's farm was being searched in February 2002, she "went through a very difficult phase."

"I can't even tell you how in shock I was. (I thought) anyone but him," Shenher said. "If it had been someone tricky or skilled. But the fact it was this person that was so in my sights . . . all the time."

"I was counting how many women went missing (after) we closed in on him (in summer 1999)," Shenher said. "I felt very grief-stricken."

Shenher said she hopes police culture in general will be changed so that "out of the box" thinkers will be able to work within a system that she has described as rigid and close-minded.

She was to be cross-examined later Tuesday.

scooper@theprovince.com

Officer 'shocked' when detectives didn't believe key witness in Robert Pickton case

2012-01-31T13:30:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 31, 2012 12:47 PM

Vancouver police Const. Lori Shenher attends missing women inquiry, in Vancouver on Monday, January 30, 2012.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

VANCOUVER - A Vancouver police investigator in the missing women case testified today that she was shocked when detectives interviewed a key witness and made a decision that derailed Robert Pickton as a serial killer suspect.

"I was shocked," Const. Lori Shenher told the Missing Women inquiry.

"We were frustrated."

She said the Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Mike Connor was also upset after two detectives from the Unsolved Homicide Unit interviewed Lynn Ellingsen and believed her story that she never saw Pickton with the dead body of a woman.

Shenher recalled she had interviewed a police informant, who said Ellingsen had told friends she had been at Pickton's farm one night and walked into a barn and was horrified to find Pickton butchering a woman's body.

The informant also told Shenher that Ellingsen was extorting money from Pickton to stay quiet about what she saw.

Ellingsen told the detectives that she never saw a woman's body in the barn, so the detectives concluded that they didn't believe the veracity of the dead-body story.

After that, Shenher said, the investigation of Pickton as a suspect stalled and lost momentum.

"We felt it died and we couldn't understand why," she told the inquiry, which is probing why police didn't catch Pickton sooner.

Connor is scheduled to testify next at the inquiry, which began Oct. 11.

Shenher testified earlier that the Vancouver police felt Pickton was the most compelling suspect.

"We couldn't say this man wasn't responsible for all the missing women," she recalled about Pickton.

Shenher received tips from informants in 1998 and 1999 who suggested Pickton may be a serial killer.

They said Pickton had bloody clothing in bags, women's identification and purses, and he had bragged about how he could dispose of bodies.

Vancouver police passed along the information to the RCMP because Pickton lived in Port Coquitlam, the jurisdiction of the RCMP.

Shenher saId the decision regarding Ellingsen affected the morale of the investigators working on the missing women case.

Women continued to go missing until Pickton was arrested on Feb. 5.

Pickton, now 62, was eventually charged with killing 27 women.

He was convicted at his first trial in 2007 of six murders and now is serving a life sentence.

After Pickton lost all his appeals, the Crown decided not to proceed on a second trial on the remaining murder charges.

Pickton once told an undercover officer that he killed 49 women.

nhall@vancouversun.com

A 'paper squad' and the missing women

2012-01-31T13:25:00.001-08:00

by The Canadian Press - Story: 70376
Jan 30, 2012 / 7:59 pm

A Vancouver police officer who raised red flags about women disappearing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside says her concerns were dismissed by the "old guard" within the department.

And Det. Const. Lori Shenher told the inquiry into the investigation of serial killer Robert Pickton that a group formed to look into the missing women was merely window dressing.

"There were a lot of things that were going on at that time under chief (Bruce) Chambers that were on paper and I felt this was very much a paper squad," she testified.

"It was a bit of a shell game. I don't think it was really going to turn into actual investigators actually doing this work."

Shenher, who was working the missing persons unit at the time, testified she communicated to her superiors that these women weren't seeing their families, weren't picking up their cheques and there was a problem.

"So that was hard because somehow that message just wasn't getting (through to the) old guard, if you want to call it that. That was definitely a problem," Shenher told the inquiry.

"It seemed as though the more experienced people there were around the table, the less appreciation there was that we were dealing with a serial killer."

The theory was brushed off as if those raising the possibility had read too many detective novels or seen too many movies, she said.

Shenher said then-Det. Insp. Kim Rossmo was a good example of how senior officers dismissed an opinion if that person bypassed the chain of command.

Rossmo told the inquiry last week that his serial killer theory was dismissed by an "arrogant" and "egotistical" Vancouver Police Insp. Fred Biddlecombe.

Shenher said she involved Rossmo in some of the theories of the missing women case knowing that she would get a hard time from some of the other investigators.

"But I felt like those were the kinds of stones we need to not leave unturned, we need to try and use the resources that we have.

"I took that risk knowingly and thought that if anything good were to come from his information, then it was worth the risk."

One of Shenher's first jobs was working in the Downtown Eastside, trying to make contact with the prostitutes in the area while also conducting undercover operations to arrest men trying to buy sex.

Shenher got to know many of the women, and made a special connection with Sereena Abotsway and Angela Jardine, two of the women who would later appear on the missing women's list.

It was their disappearance that really cemented her suspicions, she said.

"These were people who were very much of a fabric of the Downtown Eastside. They drew all their support and sustenance from the community and I couldn't conceive of either one of them voluntarily leaving that community."

A tip in July 1998 led Shenher right to Pickton's door.

She began investigating the Port Coquitlam, B.C. pig farmer and found that a charge of attempted murder had been stayed against him.

A sex-trade worker told police she was picked up in the Downtown Eastside and offered $100 for sex back at Pickton's farm. The woman was attacked and stabbed, but made it out to the road where a couple passing in a vehicle helped her.

"Honestly, my thought was this is the kind of guy we were looking for," she said. "The idea that he had a large property and that he had what seemed quite clear to me was the ability to dispose of bodies."

Shenher said she was very mindful that they weren't finding any bodies up to that point, so they were looking for someone who could get rid of the evidence. Her tipster told her Pickton had a "grinder" to get rid of the bodies.

"I thought 'bingo."

Shenher later interviewed the woman who was allegedly attacked by Pickton and was even more convinced that he should be moved to the top of the suspect list.

The woman, whose name is protected by a publication ban, told Shenher that Pickton clapped a handcuff on her wrist while they were in his trailer and she began fighting for her life. The woman slashed Pickton and then he stabbed her before she ran to the road for help.

"It was exactly the kind of scenario I had envisioned. It was frustrating as well."

The woman told Shenher she was told the charges were stayed because the woman was a drug addict.

But Shenher said she never came to know the true reasons for why the charges were stayed against Pickton in connection to that attack.

"I'm sure this commission will find that out."

She recalled discussing the case with the investigating RCMP officer and learned that the woman had almost died on the operating room table a few times during surgery.

"As morbid a thought as it is, had she died, we probably would have had a slam-dunk murder conviction without her testimony."

The Canadian Press

B.C.'s Pickton inquiry reveals an epic tale of police bungling | Full Comment | National Post

2012-01-31T12:14:00.000-08:00

B.C.'s Pickton inquiry reveals an epic tale of police bungling | Full Comment | National Post:

'via Blog this'

'This is what a serial killer looks like,' VPD officer tells Missing Women inquiry

2012-01-30T20:08:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 30, 2012 5:25 PM

Vancouver police Const. Lori Shenher attends missing women inquiry, in Vancouver on Monday, January 30, 2012.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

VANCOUVER -- The first Vancouver police officer assigned to investigate the missing women case testified today that when she received informant tips suggesting Robert Pickton may be a serial killer, she felt the information was very credible.

"I was thinking 'This is what a serial killer looks like," Const. Lori Shenher told the Missing Women inquiry, which is probing why the serial killer wasn't caught sooner.

She said she was told by informants that Pickton lived on a farm, had the means to dispose of bodies and had bags of women's bloody clothing, identification and purses at his home, located on a farm in Port Coquitlam.

One of the informants said Pickton had said he had a meat grinder to dispose of bodies, she said.

"When I heard about the meat grinder, I thought, 'Bingo. This is the kind of guy we're looking for'," Shenher testified.

Another informant said she was told by a friend that she stumbled on Pickton one night butchering a woman's body in a barn.

The informant said one woman had escaped in 1997 and Pickton was wanting someone to lure her to the farm so he could kill her.

Shenher said she talked to Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Mike Connor about Pickton's 1997 knife attack on the Vancouver prostitute who survived.

She tracked down and interviewed the woman on Aug. 21, 1998. At the time, the woman was in jail after stealing a police car and crashing it in Gastown; Shenher heard about the incident over the radio and heard the woman's name.

She found the woman's story about the Pickton attack very credible, she told the inquiry.

The woman, whose named is banned, recalled that Pickton stabbed her after he tried to put handcuffs on her and she resisted and fought for her life.

The woman stabbed Pickton, then ran to the street and flagged down a passing car.

Pickton was charged with attempted murder and unlawful confinement but the charges were dropped by the Crown in 1998.

Shenher recalled the woman said she never got a chance to testify because the Crown felt she wasn't credible because she was a drug addict.

"I found it incredibly frustrating that her evidence was never heard," Shenher testified.

She recalled telling the woman: "I think you're the only one who got away."

The woman agreed, suggesting Pickton "must have done this before," Shenher said.

She also told the woman, based on the informant information, that Pickton tried to get others to lure the woman to the farm so he could "finish her off."

Shenher recalled that the woman who survived the knife attack by Pickton actually died on the operating table at hospital but was revived.

"Had she died, we probably would have had a slam dunk murder conviction," she told the inquiry.

Shenher said she passed along the information to Connor, a seasoned investigator who had handled a number of homicides.

She testified when she was first assigned to the Missing Person unit in July 1998, a detective told her: This could very well turn into a serial killer investigation."

Shenher recalled she had previously tried to develop relationships with prostitutes when she was the liaison officer working with the street sex trade, which also involved posing undercover as a prostitute in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside as part of a "John" sting

that targeted prostitution customers.

One night while working undercover, posing as a sex trade worker, she recalled getting a scare as she was grabbed by a man in a car.

The man wouldn't look at her while he talked to her, Shenher said, and when they had negotiated sex for $50 through an open window of the man's car, she recalled looking away to signal other officers nearby working as her "cover team" when the man grabbed her arm.

It shocked her, even though she had a gun under her coat, she said.

When the man was arrested, police found the man had a gun on the front seat of the car and was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for robbery, Shenher said.

She also talked to many of the women working the street sex trade.

"It's a very lonely life, a very difficult life," Shenher recalled about street prostitution. "Standing in the shadows in industrial areas."

Most women working the survival sex trade become drug dependent "because of the day to day horror of this work," she told the inquiry.

Shenher said she developed relationships with some of the women working the streets, including Angela Jardine and Sereena Abotsway - two of the women who disappeared.

"When the two of them went missing, I knew very definitely that we had a problem," she testified

By August 1998, she wrote a memo to then detective-inspector Kim Rossmo, a geographic profiler and expert in serial crime.

In her memo, Shenher suggested the women who had gone missing may have met foul play and the person responsible "has the means to dispose of bodies."

She testified that she tried to relay her concerns about a possible serial to her superiors, who felt the missing women would eventually show up.

The male police managers had an outdated view of the sex trade in Vancouver, believing the women worked a circuit in Western Canada, Shenher said.

But she told the male managers that the missing women hadn't cashed their welfare cheques, hadn't contacted their children and "they weren't at the Calgary Stampede."

She was asked what would have happened if she had banged on the table and told her bosses "There's something serious going on here."

"I've thought about that for 13 and half years," Shenher said.

She said she didn't want to be dismissed as a zealot and felt she had to work hard to try to find the evidence.

She also saw how Kim Rossmo was treated when he wanted to issue a public warning that a serial killer may be responsible for the dozens of women who had gone missing from the Downtown Eastside.

Rossmo, a former Vancouver police serial crime expert now teaching at Texas State University, testified last week that the inspector in charge of major crime, Fred Biddlecombe, who also oversaw the major crime squad, which included the missing person unit, had a temper tantrum when Rossmo wanted to issue his press release.

Instead, Biddlecombe directed Shenher to locate the missing women.

Shenher said she felt she would be treated the same way as Rossmo because she was not very experienced, so continually consulted with more seasoned homicide detectives.

"I probably drove the homicide detectives crazy, running things by them," she told the inquiry.

Shenher worked on the case tirelessly until she was granted a transfer in 2000 out of the missing person unit.

Women continued to go missing until Pickton was arrested on Feb. 5, 2002. He was eventually charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder.

Pickton, who now is serving a life sentence, once admitted to killing 49 women.

Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard, who did an analysis of the police failures in the case, blamed senior managers for not taking the case more seriously and devoting more human resources.

The VPD had repeatedly apologized for not catching Pickton sooner.

Last Friday, the commanding officer of the RCMP in B.C. apologized for the Mounties not doing more.

Two key RCMP investigators - Connor and Don Adam - are expected to testify this week.

nhall@vancouversun.com

VPD officer testifies of frustration at casual dismissal of her serial killer suspicions

2012-01-30T19:29:00.001-08:00

BY SAM COOPER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 30, 2012 4:50 PM

Det. Const. Lori Shenher testifies at the Missing Womens' Commission of Inquiry on Jan. 30, 2012.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

The lone investigator in Vancouver’s missing women cases testified Monday that she still can’t understand why evidence from the one victim who escaped Robert Pickton — a drug-addicted sex worker — was discarded by the justice system.

Det. Const. Lori Shenher told the Missing Womens’ Commission of Inquiry that as a junior constable she was given the whole job of investigating a number of women missing from the Downtown Eastside in 1998, having never investigated a murder or led a major investigation. No one else even applied for the job, and there was little or no strategic oversight, according to her testimony.

Shenher said as soon as she started investigating in July 1998 she came across a tip that made her say “bingo.”

The tip came from Bill Hiscox, a man who had done some work for Pickton and his brother Dave Pickton in their demolition business P & B Salvage.

Hiscox said one of the missing women on her list, Sarah de Vries, was killed by Pickton. Pickton was picking up prostitutes in Vancouver and taking them to his Port Coquitlam farm, Hiscox said, where he kept women’s purses, bloody clothing and ID.

Hiscox told both the VPD and later Coquitlam RCMP that Pickton had been heard saying he put bodies through a grinder.

Hiscox said he knew that Pickton had tried a year earlier to kill a Vancouver Downtown Eastside sex trade worker, and was still trying to hire people to find her and bring her back to be killed. The woman — known to the inquiry as “Ms. Anderson” — broke free from handcuffs at Pickton’s trailer and escaped after a bloody knife fight with him.

RCMP collected Pickton’s blood-spattered clothing, a used condom, handcuffs and bandages, but never had them tested for DNA. Charges of attempted murder were stayed.

Shenher said she interviewed the woman in July 1998, and she said “they told me I wasn’t credible ... on account of me being an addict.”

“I’ve never come to know why these charges were stayed,” Shenher said. “I felt it incredibly frustrating that her evidence wasn’t heard.”

Shenher testified that in August 1998 she wrote her first memo on the investigation to brass, indicating she believed a serial killer was at work, but management did not respond.

In September 1998 a nascent missing women “working group” involving up to 14 investigators with specified tasks got cancelled after several tense meetings.

Shenher was left in charge, but “old guard” investigators didn’t think the serial killer theory was worth exploring, she said.

Asked what would have happened if she “banged the table” in meetings and warned something serious was occurring, Shenher said: “I have struggled with that for 13.5 years. I felt that if I had banged the table, I don’t think I would have been taken seriously.”

It would be like “you’ve read too many detective novels.”

Shenher admitted that she did not specifically refer to her source information from Hiscox in early meetings. Her testimony continues this week, and the hearing continues daily until April.

scooper@theprovince.com

twitter.com/scoopercooper

Police ignored sex worker's Pickton warning, cop tells inquiry

2012-01-30T19:25:00.001-08:00

BY SAM COOPER, POSTMEDIA NEWSJANUARY 30, 2012 6:44 PM

Vancouver police Const. Lori Shenher attends missing women inquiry, in Vancouver on Monday, January 30, 2012.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

VANCOUVER — The lone investigator in Vancouver's missing women cases testified Monday that she still can't understand why evidence from the one victim who escaped serial killer Robert Pickton — a drug-addicted sex worker — was discarded by the justice system.

Det. Const. Lori Shenher told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry that as a junior constable she was given the whole job of investigating a number of women missing from the city's Downtown Eastside in 1998, having never investigated a murder or led a major investigation. No one else even applied for the job, and there was little or no strategic oversight, according to her testimony.

Shenher said as soon as she started investigating in July 1998 she came across a tip that made her say "bingo."

The tip came from Bill Hiscox, a man who had done some work for Pickton and his brother Dave Pickton in their demolition business P & B Salvage.

Hiscox said one of the missing women on her list, Sarah de Vries, was killed by Pickton. Pickton was picking up prostitutes in Vancouver and taking them to his Port Coquitlam, B.C., farm, Hiscox said, where he kept women's purses, bloody clothing and ID.

Hiscox told both Vancouver police and later Coquitlam RCMP that Pickton had been heard saying he put bodies through a grinder.

Hiscox said he knew that Pickton had tried a year earlier to kill a Vancouver sex trade worker, and was still trying to hire people to find her and bring her back to be killed. The woman — known to the inquiry as "Ms. Anderson" — broke free from handcuffs at Pickton's trailer and escaped after a bloody knife fight with him.

RCMP collected Pickton's blood-spattered clothing, a used condom, handcuffs and bandages, but never had them tested for DNA. Charges of attempted murder were stayed.

Shenher said she interviewed the woman in July 1998, and she said "they told me I wasn't credible . . . on account of me being an addict."

"I've never come to know why these charges were stayed," Shenher said. "I felt it incredibly frustrating that her evidence wasn't heard."

Shenher testified that in August 1998 she wrote her first memo on the investigation to her superiors, indicating she believed a serial killer was at work, but management did not respond.

In September 1998 a nascent missing women "working group" involving up to 14 investigators with specified tasks got cancelled after several tense meetings.

Shenher was left in charge, but "old guard" investigators didn't think the serial killer theory was worth exploring, she said.

Asked what would have happened if she "banged the table" in meetings and warned something serious was occurring, Shenher said: "I have struggled with that for 13 1/2 years. I felt that if I had banged the table, I don't think I would have been taken seriously."

It would be like "you've read too many detective novels," she said.

Shenher admitted that she did not specifically refer to her source information from Hiscox in early meetings. Her testimony continues this week, and the hearing continues daily until April.

Officer who investigated missing women got scare while posing as prostitute

2012-01-30T12:31:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 30, 2012 12:18 PM

Vancouver police Const. Lori Shenher attends missing women inquiry, in Vancouver on Monday, January 30, 2012.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

VANCOUVER - The officer first assigned to investigate the missing women recalled today that got a scare while posing undercover as a prostitute.

Vancouver police Const. Lori Shenher said she did "John" stings in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and, while posing as a sex trade worker, was grabbed by a man in a car.

The man wouldn't look at her while he talked to her, Shenher told the Missing Women inquiry.

And when they had negotiated sex for $50 through the open window of the man's car, she recalled looking away to signal other officers nearby working as her "cover team" when the man grabbed her arm through the window.

She said it shocked her, even though she had a gun under her coat.

When the man was arrested, Shenher said, police found the man had a gun on the front seat of the car and was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for robbery.

She also talked to many of the women working the sex trade on the street.

"It's a very lonely life, a very difficult life," Shenher recalled about street prostitution. "Standing in the shadows in industrial areas."

Most women working the survival sex trade become drug dependent "because of the day to day horror of this work," she told the inquiry.

Shenher said she also developed a relationship with some of the women working the streets, including Angela Jardine and Serena Abotsway -- two of the women who disappeared.

"When the two of them went missing, I knew very definitely that we had a problem," she told the inquiry, which is probing why it took so long to catch serial killer Robert Pickton.

Shenher was assigned to the VPD's Missing Person in July 1998, when she had seven years with the force.

By August 1998, she wrote a memo to then detective-inspector Kim Rossmo, a geographic profiler and expert in serial crime.

In her memo, Shenher suggested the women who had gone missing may have met foul play and the person responsible "has the means to dispose of bodies."

She testified that she tried to relay this to her superiors, who felt the missing women would eventually show up.

She said the male police managers had an outdated view of the sex trade in Vancouver, believing the women worked a circuit in Western Canada.

But Shenher stressed to the male managers that the missing women hadn't cashed their welfare cheques, hadn't contacted their children and "they weren't at the Calgary Stampede."

She was asked what would have happened if she had banged on the table and told her bosses "There's something serious going on here."

"I've thought about that for 13 and half years," Shenher said.

"I was thinking 'This is what a serial killer looks like. It's not a man with horns."

She said she didn't bang on the table because she didn't want to be dismissed as a zealot.

She felt she had to work hard to try to find the evidence.

She also saw how Rossmo was treated when he wanted to issue a public warning that a serial killer may be responsible for the dozens of women who had gone missing from the Downtown Eastside.

Rossmo testified last week that the inspector in charge of major crime, Fred Biddlecombe, who also oversaw the missing person unit, had a temper tantrum when Rossmo wanted to issue his press release.

Instead, Biddlecombe directed Shenher to locate the missing women.

Shenher said she felt she would be treated the same way as Rossmo because she was not very experienced, so continually consulted with more seasoned homicide detectives.

"I probably drove the homicide detectives crazy, running things by them," she told the inquiry.

She recalled the missing person files were all on paper, in binders and were not computerized.

Shenher recalled she had to ask for a computer to organize the files.

She also handled three key informants who contacted police in 1998 and 1999, who suggested Pickton had killed one and possibly all of the missing women.

One of the informants told police that a woman had witnessed Pickton with a body of a women in a barn on the Pickton farm in Port Coquitlam.

Shenher passed along the information to the Coquitlam RCMP, which had jurisdiction to investigate possible murders on the Pickton farm.

Shenher worked on the case tirelessly until she was granted a transfer in 2000 out of the missing person unit.

Women continued to go missing until Pickton was arrested on Feb. 5, 2002.

Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard, who did an analysis of the police failures in the case, blamed senior managers for not taking the case more seriously and devote more human resources.

The VPD had repeatedly apologized for not catching Pickton sooner.

Last Friday, the commanding officer of the RCMP in B.C. apologized for the Mounties not doing more.

Two key RCMP investigators - Mike Connor and Don Adam - are expected to testify this week.

nhall@vancouversun.com

Missing women cases dismissed by 'old guard,' officer tells inquiry

2012-01-30T12:12:00.001-08:00

By: The Canadian Press

Posted: 01/30/2012 1:28 PM | Last Modified: 01/30/2012 1:33 PM

VANCOUVER - A Vancouver police officer who raised red flags about women disappearing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside says her concerns were dismissed by the "old guard" within the department.

Det. Const. Lori Shenher, who was working the missing persons unit at the time, says she communicated to her superiors that women weren't seeing their family, weren't picking up their cheques and there was a problem.

But she told the public inquiry looking into the police investigation of serial killer Robert Pickton that the information wasn't taken seriously by her superiors.

Shenher says she got to know two of the victims on the missing women's list well and says when Sereena Abotsway and Angela Jardine vanished, she knew something was definitely wrong.

Shenher says those women were such a part of the fabric of the community, she couldn't conceive of them voluntarily leaving the Downtown Eastside.

She told the inquiry she never bought into the notion held by some officers that these women — in the so-called survival sex trade — were off to ply their trade elsewhere.

Missing women inquiry enters new phase

2012-01-30T07:52:00.001-08:00

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980)
Marcella Bernardo | Email news tips to Marcella
1/30/2012
A public inquiry aimed at finding out why serial killer Robert Pickton wasn't caught sooner enters a new phase Monday.

Most of the evidence heard so far has been analytical.

The next witness is expected to provide details about the early days of the Vancouver Police investigation... when dozens of women were disappearing from the downtown eastside.

Lori Shenher, who's testimony should last all week, was a member of the missing persons unit in 1998.

That year, she received a tip about victims being butchered at Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam, which falls under the RCMP's jurisdiction.

It's believed more than a dozen victims were killed between 1998 and February of 2002 when Pickton was finally arrested.

On Friday, nearly ten years after Pickton's arrest, BC's top mountie issued a formal apology for the RCMP's failure to catch Pickton sooner.

Assistant commissioner Craig Callens also talked about lessons learned in the past decade.

"Anyone who understands the business knows that at the conclusion of a major criminal investigation, you will almost always be able to identify things that you could have done differently and you use those to inform future practices."

Former RCMP corporal Mike Connor is slated to testify after Lori Shenher.

In 1998, she met with him to discuss the tip she received about Pickton.

Missing Women Commission of Inquiry

One woman's disappearance became a focus

2012-01-29T19:49:00.001-08:00

Doug Ward

Vancouver Sun

CREDIT:

Sarah de Vries is shown here reading to her daughter, one of her two children.

" Will they remember me when I'm gone, or would their lives just carry on? "

From the journal of Sarah de Vries, 29, who vanished in the spring of 1998.

She had worked as a prostitute on the Downtown Eastside and was last seen on the corner of Princess and Hastings.

- - -

She wasn't forgotten.

The quote from her journals kicked off a feature in The Vancouver Sun on March 3, 1999 -- a two-part story by reporter Lindsay Kines about de Vries and the disappearance of sex-trade workers.

The fate of de Vries and of other missing women on the Downtown Eastside eventually shocked a city and a nation.

A cluster of disappearances sparked a police investigation and media coverage that culminated in the 2002 arrest of Robert (Willie) Pickton, who is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 22 for the murder of six women. He is to face a second trial in connection with the first-degree murder of 20 additional women.

Prostitutes have always experienced violence in Vancouver, and newspaper accounts about murdered sex-trade workers were not uncommon in the '70s and '80s.

But de Vries' disappearance in 1998 was part of an alarming rise in the number of missing sex-trade workers. She was one of 16 women reported missing in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

Kines's first stories on missing prostitutes were about Janet Henry, who vanished in 1997. A year later, Kines wrote a news story about other missing women, including de Vries.

A friend of de Vries, Wayne Leng, told Kines there was growing concern in the Downtown Eastside about the disappearance of many other women involved in drugs and the sex trade.

"This was the first hint I had that there were more missing women. It's what prompted me to start asking around the Downtown Eastside," Kines, who is now a Victoria Times Colonist reporter, said in an interview Monday.

"Then I found that the police were concerned about the number who were missing."

In September 1998, the Vancouver police department set up a team of officers to review unsolved missing women cases dating back to 1971. Vancouver police geographic profiler Kim Rossmo began reviewing missing women files.

And the media, including The Vancouver Sun, began to profile prostitutes who had disappeared. The phrase "missing women" became a familiar phrase as reporters attempted to give the alarming statistics some humanity.

In a two-part report in 1999 entitled Missing on the Mean Streets, which included his profile on de Vries, Kines reported: "With each passing month, the list of the disappeared continues to grow.

"Vancouver police have 20 outstanding files on missing 'street-involved' women since 1995 -- 11 from last year alone."

Kines's stories were confirming what was being said on the street, recalled Elaine Allen, who worked at a drop-in centre for prostitutes in the late '90s.

"The women at the drop-in centre were talking back in 1998 about friends and relatives who had gone missing."

And they were talking with a sense that nobody was listening, recalled Allen.

"There was no sense that help was on the way or that anybody in authority was listening."

But reporters such as Kines were listening and their coverage helped turn the case of the missing women into a major issue.

"There's no question that the stories put tons of pressure on the mayor and the police chief," Allen said.

DeVries' friend Leng similarly said that Kines's early coverage helped place the spotlight on the missing women and the police investigation.

Leng praised Kines and other Sun reporters for "handling the issue carefully and not sensationalizing it." He said The Sun helped the public see the victims as "missing women" as opposed to prostitutes with drug habits.

"Many people looked at prostitutes as throwaways who deserved what they got. But those of us who knew them -- we knew they were so much more. Sarah [de Vries] was a wonderful person."

In 1999, the police added detectives to a team of officers investigating the disappearances and sought assistance from authorities involved in major serial killer cases in the U.S. Also that year, the Vancouver police board approved a $100,000 reward to aid in the probe.

America's Most Wanted did a show on the missing women case in 1999.

But progress was slow, women continued to disappear and many in the Downtown Eastside believed there would have been a greater public outcry and police response if the missing women had been middle-class rather than prostitutes working in Vancouver's most impoverished neighbourhood.

THURSDAY: The number of missing women continued to climb in the new century. An 11-part Vancouver Sun series in 2001 examined the police investigators' lack of progress. Shortly after the series, more officers were attached to the probe.

You can now listen to every Vancouver Sun story on our new digital edition.

Free to full-week print subscribers or sign up for a 7-day free trial. www.vancouversun.com/digital.

PRELUDE TO PICKTON TRIAL

First of 11 parts

Stolen lives: The stories of three women

2012-01-29T19:45:00.001-08:00

Lori Culbert

Vancouver Sun

CREDIT: Richard Lam, Canadian Press, files

A photograph shows Mona Lee Wilson as a young girl. She is among 26 women Robert (Willie) Pickton is accused of killing.

CREDIT: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun, files

Georgina Papin was remembered by friends and family at a service in September 2002 at First United Church.

Mona Lee Wilson hated wearing dresses or putting her hair in ribbons to go to church.

As a young girl, she much preferred playing with the animals on her foster family's hobby farm in Langley, and even tried to smuggle chicks into her bedroom to sleep with them.

"She'd lay right down in the mud with them, and play with them, and have them in her pockets. You had to check her when she came in the house because in her coat pockets there would be a couple of chicks, and in her boot you'd have another," Greg Garley said with a kind laugh as he recalled his late foster sister.

"We'd take her to church but, oh, getting Mona into a pink dress -- that was an ordeal. Frills and bows weren't for her . . . . She didn't like being a girl. When she got home [from church], off came that dress and on went the jeans and boots."

Wilson is one of 26 women whom Port Coquitlam pig farmer Robert (Willie) Pickton is accused of killing. His first trial on six of those murder charges begins Jan. 22.

On the opening day, the public will hear for the first time the Crown's grim allegations of how these six women died: Sereena Abotsway, who vanished just days before her 30th birthday; Marnie Frey, who was 24 and left behind a young daughter; Andrea Joesbury, who was 23 and trying to straighten out her life; Georgina Papin, who was 37, outgoing and had many friends; Brenda Wolfe, who was 30, kind and well-liked; and Wilson, who disappeared when she was 26 years old.

The trial judge, Justice James Williams, warned the jurors selected in December that the evidence they will hear will be "graphic and distressing."

That disturbing information will dominate headlines and newscasts for months. What should not be forgotten during that time, say the victims' relatives and friends, is that the women had moments of youthful innocence and adult accomplishments that should be celebrated.

Many faced challenges in their lives that undoubtedly led them down the turbulent road to drug addiction and, in most cases, prostitution to support their habits.

But along that journey, they left behind many positive memories and touched the lives of people who continue to grieve for them today.

---

Mona Wilson was a terrified eight-year-old girl when she came to live with the Garley family: Mom Norma, dad Ken, their four biological children, and so many other foster kids that Greg lost count over the years how many there were.

After enduring horrific sexual and physical abuse as a child, Wilson was seized from her family and received psychiatric care in a hospital. The Garleys were her first long-term foster parents, and she lived with them until age 14.

"I'll tell you, of all the kids she stayed in our hearts and our minds," said Greg Garley in a recent interview.

That scared girl grew to love playing with the dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys and peacocks on the hobby farm.

"She was sort of like a tomboy," said Greg Garley, who was a few years older than Wilson. "Digging in the garden, feeding the chickens, getting the eggs."

Attending school and other regular childhood routines were sporadic for Wilson in her earliest years, but in the Garleys' home she went to class and was taken on family vacations -- including one to Disneyland.

"There was nothing she liked better than going camping, going fishing," Garley said. "An awfully good girl. We just absolutely love her."

The Garleys operated an "emergency" foster home, which meant they took in some of the most troubled children -- many of them babies born with drug addictions.

Wilson's behaviour started to worsen at puberty, but Greg Garley said his family was upset when the ministry removed the troubled teen from their house. At her new foster home, Wilson's problems increased, Garley said.

She was placed in "independent living" when she was about 16 years old, which meant the government found her a place to live in east Vancouver and gave her some money to live, he said.

"A survivor of such horrors -- and then they just gave her a cheque and let her loose in Vancouver. What did anyone think would happen to a vulnerable girl like that on her own in a big city?" Garley asked.

He said Wilson phoned his parents regularly, even after they retired to the Okanagan.

"She stayed in touch with us until her death, every single month we got a phone call from her and it was just wonderful. She was always going to come and visit, but always had an excuse as to why she couldn't."

Garley said his family didn't know anyone involved in drugs or prostitution, but would have tried to help Wilson if they'd known she was mixed up in that world.

"I try not to think about that stuff because that's not who we knew. The way she talked on the phone, she was still the Mona we knew. So, right up until the month before they found her . . . she was still pretending to be the same girl."

Wilson was 26 years old when she was reported missing by her boyfriend in November 2001.

Foster mother Norma Garley was concerned something was wrong when she didn't receive her monthly phone call that December.

Then in February 2002, the family was horrified when Wilson was named in one of the first two murder charges against Pickton.

"My parents are in their mid-70s and I've watched them visibly age through this whole thing. So many sleepless nights, and nightmares, and not eating, losing weight," Greg Garley said.

Garley, who now lives in Parksville, is upset about the process that was set up to help the victims' families prepare for and attend the trial.

He said it favours biological relatives, and doesn't treat foster families equally.

"She's as close to blood as you can get. I went through my teen years with her, we loved her as much as anyone else," said Garley.

"It's just a very difficult thing to imagine this happening to someone you know and love."

- - -

Maggy Gisle is haunted by the memory of the last time she saw her friend Georgina Papin in March 1999. They were both drug-free and at a baby shower in Mission, where Gisle was celebrating the birth of her daughter.

But Papin, 37, was in a less celebratory mood. The mother of at least six children, she was devastated by a recent court ruling prohibiting her from getting custody of her kids, who were in government care.

"She said she was going to go downtown. I asked her to stay overnight with me . . . I was really, really upset. And I told her that I had lost many friends when they had relapsed," recalled Gisle, who now lives with her daughter on the Sunshine Coast, where she works as a nurse.

"She insisted that she wasn't going to use drugs, that she was just going to drink. And she was going and I couldn't stop her. I told her if she had to [then] be safe and come back. And she didn't come back," Gisle said, her voice breaking with emotion.

"About a week and a half after she left, she just disappeared off the face of the Earth."

Gisle, who spent 16 years on the streets of the Downtown Eastside before getting sober in 1998, checked with drop-in centres and needle exchanges but found no sign of her friend. The police would not accept a missing person report from her because she was not a relative.

The heartache of losing a friend was not unfamiliar to Gisle, who says she knew 54 of the 65 names on the police list of those missing from the Downtown Eastside.

Papin had a troubled life growing up in Alberta, bouncing from foster homes to group homes to residential schools. She began experimenting with drugs at age 11, and was under the control of a pimp shortly thereafter, her brother Rick Papin said in an interview in 2001.

She moved to Las Vegas, got married and had a baby girl in her early 20s, and then returned to Canada, where she had at least five more children. However, she struggled with relationships, drugs and incarceration.

Gisle first met Papin in 1994 at a recovery house in New Westminster, where they were roommates. Gisle was drawn to Papin's honesty, boundless energy and constant offers of assistance to vulnerable women.

"She was very outgoing, she was very motherly, and she took people underneath her wing," Gisle said in a recent interview. "She taught me about native culture, she drummed, she sang. . . She did traditional beading and native crafts."

They remained friends through the 1990s, when they both struggled through cycles of getting clean, then falling back into drugs again.

However, even in her darkest hours, Gisle said, Papin did not live in the Downtown Eastside, as she kept an apartment in Mission. She also maintained that Papin was not a sex-trade worker but instead an "opportunist" who would use her outgoing personality to get alcohol or drugs from others.

Gisle said Papin was a good mother who phoned her children and had regular visits with them when they were in care -- which made her disappearance all the more suspicious.

"When she relapsed, her getting clean was always about her kids. That's why I was so adamant about looking for her sooner because I knew it wasn't in her character to let go of her kids and have absolutely no contact," she said.

Gisle's faint hope of finding her friend alive was dashed in 2002 when Pickton was charged with her murder.

- - -

Jack Cummer, a kind retired salesman from Nanoose Bay, remembers vividly his last phone call with his beautiful granddaughter

Andrea Joesbury, who ran away from a difficult childhood on Vancouver Island to the Downtown Eastside when she was just 16 years old.

The conversation was just before Joesbury disappeared in June 2001, at the age of 23. In those seven years on the streets she had experienced a lifetime of pain, but she was upbeat on the phone because she was completing a methadone program to kick her heroin habit and was hoping to move back to the island.

"She was a very happy young lady whose life was in a starting mode. .... Our conversation ended with our love to each other," Cummer wrote in a recent e-mail to The Sun.

"I did say goodbye."

But he did not realize then it would be for the last time.

Joesbury loved drama and sports as a young girl, but struggled in school. She mostly lived with her troubled mother, and occasionally stayed with her grandparents, Jack and Laila Cummer.

She had a good relationship with her grandparents, but they couldn't stop the vulnerable teenager from running away to pursue her dream of finding a husband and having a baby.

"She went to Vancouver because she was looking for love. And she found this guy, and she fell in love with him. She's a young, naive girl, 16 years old, not knowing what's going on," Cummer said in an earlier interview.

"Eventually she phoned and let me know he was 15 or 20 years older than she was, so it gave her two things: A man she loved and a father figure. [But] she was put on the streets because he was a drug dealer."

Cummer tried to convince his granddaughter many times to come home, but she stubbornly said it was the life she had chosen and wouldn't leave Vancouver until she was ready, he recalled.

Joesbury did have the baby she yearned for, and Cummer came to visit after the birth. He said his granddaughter was "worn to a frazzle" trying to provide for the baby on a limited budget, but the little girl was healthy and receiving good care.

However, social services would eventually seize the child and put her up for adoption, which caused Joesbury to spiral back into her life on the streets.

"She tried to make a new life for herself and baby but was forced to give up her child and [had] nowhere else to return to but the man causing all her heartbreak," he said in his e-mail.

In that final phone call, Joesbury told Cummer she had the support of a caring Downtown Eastside doctor who was helping her with the methadone, and would come home to Vancouver Island when she was clean of her habit.

"Her dream was to come and search for the baby," Cummer wrote.

But she disappeared before ever seeing her daughter again.

Joesbury kept in regular contact with her grandfather through her collect calls, so when the phone didn't ring again, Cummer knew something was wrong.

The Cummers were devastated when police knocked on their door in 2002 to say Pickton had been charged with her murder.

"She is missed by the family and dearly loved," Cummer wrote in his e-mail. "Our Andrea is safe in God's arms and He is a wonderful, understanding person. He is helping us to be the same."

Saturday: Relatives, foster families and friends remember Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey and Brenda Wolfe.

lculbert@png.canwest.com

Lives remembered

2012-01-29T19:42:00.001-08:00

The Sun's Lori Culbert writes about the lives of three women, cut tragically short

Lori Culbert

Vancouver Sun

CREDIT: Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun

Sereena Abotsway earned a trip to Holland from her foster parents.

It was the trip of a lifetime.

Especially for someone whose turbulent life was cut short so early.

Sereena Abotsway was a "furious" four-year-old when she was sent to live with Anna and Bert Draayers, but the veteran foster parents soon learned to love the troubled girl despite her tendency to act out at school.

So Anna Draayers issued a challenge to the outspoken child -- one she never thought Abotsway could achieve: She promised to take her to Draayers's home country of Holland if she completed her entire Grade 6 year without getting into any serious trouble at school.

"I said to her, 'If you can manage for the whole year to be okay . . . then we'll take you to Holland.' And she did," Draayers said proudly in a recent interview. "Nobody ever thought that she was going to make it, but she did."

Abotsway, who was raised by the Draayers from age four to 18, learned to speak Dutch on that trip and maintained her knowledge of the language throughout her troubled adult years.

"When she would phone me daily when she was in the [Downtown Eastside], she would say to me in Dutch, 'Hi mother. How are you? How are the children?'" Draayers recalled. "I would answer in Dutch and she would know what I was saying.

"I miss her an awful lot."

Abotsway is one of the six women whom Port Coquitlam pig farmer Robert (Willie) Pickton will be accused of killing when his trial begins Jan. 22 in New Westminster. Pickton has been charged with killing an additional 20 women, and is to face a second trial in the future.

The 26 victims are all on a list of 65 women who police say disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside between 1978 and 2001.

Some friends and relatives of the victims complain that police didn't respond quickly enough to missing person reports because most of the women supported their drug habits with prostitution. And now the families hope positive memories about the women can rise above the troubling evidence that is expected to emerge from Pickton's first trial.

"Sereena did not choose to live life the way she did, circumstances chose it for her...," Abotsway's half-brother Jay Draayers wrote in a memorial to his sister. "Sereena quite often, when talking to us on the phone, would ask us to make sure that the younger [foster] children would never end up living the life that she was living."

Added Rick Frey, father of murder victim Marnie Frey: "[T]hese are our sisters, our daughters, our mothers -- all human beings, all great people. They came into this world with big bright eyes and a slap on the ass, and ready to take the world on. And through whatever reasons they got hooked on the drugs."

When Abotsway arrived at her foster parents' home in Surrey, the four-year-old was skeptical of new people after enduring abuse as a toddler. However, she developed into a "bubbly" little girl who sang loudly and out-of-tune at church.

"Those things now I think about, and wish I could hear it one more time," Anna Draayers said. "I love her dearly."

The outspoken girl had few friends in school, and had to be home-schooled in her teen years. However, she was close to some of the 50 foster children taken in over the years by the Draayers, and the family also raised Abotsway's half-brother Jay and half-sister Michelle.

When Abotsway was 18, the Draayers had to make a heart-breaking decision: The teen's behaviour was so out of control her foster parents were forced to ask the ministry to remove her from their home to protect their other foster children.

Although Abotsway had grown up physically, Draayers said she remained "a child inside" and struggled as an adult, eventually ending up on the mean streets of the Downtown Eastside.

"She had lots of difficulties and we never thought she would be okay on her own," Draayers said. "She would phone us every day, and sometimes when she was older and she couldn't remember she would phone two, three times a day. And would ask me exactly the same questions."

In her final years, Abotsway owned nothing more than the clothes on her back. Anything the Draayers gave her, she would either lose or share with others, with little regard for her own needs.

On one birthday, her foster parents took Abotsway out for dinner downtown and gave her some cigarettes because they were something practical she could use. She turned to the waitress and asked, "Do you want part of my present?" Draayers recalled.

Abotsway's disappearance in August 2001 was extremely worrisome for the Draayers because they had been planning her 30th birthday party, a celebration Abotsway had been eagerly anticipating.

In his memorial tribute to his older half-sister, Jay Draayers fondly remembered Abotsway as someone who would both bully him and fiercely protect him, and who volunteered to help others at various Downtown Eastside organizations during her final years on the streets.

"We hope that Sereena has found the peace and love which she always hungered for. Sereena did not have this peace in the early days of her childhood," Jay Draayers wrote.

"Unfortunately Sereena, being the oldest, was more affected by what had been done to her in the first few years of her life. This would affect her later years, and [she] would become very troublesome. . . Even so, we all loved and still love her unconditionally."

Anna Draayers, 73, has been told that she and her 78-year-old husband could be called as witnesses, so they cannot attend the beginning of the trial. She said she wouldn't want to sit through the evidence anyway, but does want some answers about her foster daughter.

"I want so badly to know what happened to Sereena," she said. "I will be so happy when this is over and done with."

At a memorial service for Marnie Frey in 2002, after Pickton was charged with her murder, she was remembered as "a carefree loving girl . . . [who] loved the simple things in life."

The girl with the bright smile and light-hearted spirit enjoyed spending time with her family and small animals, and was praised for being trustworthy and generous.

Frey was an 18-year-old still living at home in Campbell River with her father Rick and stepmother Lynn when she had a baby girl she named Brittney.

Frey tried to raise the infant, but ultimately asked her parents to adopt Brittney because she believed that was best for her daughter.

The young woman would be drawn to the bright lights of the big city, and Brittney was only in kindergarten when her mother disappeared in August 1997.

Brittney grew up believing Rick and Lynn were her parents, and that Marnie was her older sister. However, she recently had to be told the truth when school yard bullies taunted her about who her mother really was.

"People are pretty vicious, you know," Rick Frey said in a recent interview. "The day that we had to tell her, that had to be one of our worst days. But she took it like a trouper."

Rick and Lynn Frey have been outspoken about how police, the government and society in general appeared to react with indifference when this group of marginalized women disappeared -- and he hopes officials will respond more swiftly in the future.

"I hope the public starts demanding some answers to all the questions we have," said Frey, a fisherman.

The Freys say even though Marnie disappeared nearly 10 years ago, they haven't been able to get a death certificate; they also cannot claim her remains to have them cremated until after the trial; and they say they haven't received proper support or counselling from the government's victim services workers.

In particular, they are unhappy that the government will only fund two family members to attend the trial for a week, when Marnie's father, mother, stepmother and daughter would like to attend.

Rick Frey is also unimpressed with a handbook that victim services sent to the families earlier this month in an effort to guide them through the trial process.

"We're as ready as we can be. We know what it's going to be like, we know what to expect. I mean there's going to be tears," he said in the interview. "It's been a long time in coming."

Susanne Dahlin, executive director of the provincial government's victim services and community programs division, said her staff cannot, by law, tell the families what evidence they will hear at trial because of the sweeping publication ban on all of Pickton's pre-trial hearings.

However, she said that over the last year and a half, some of her 50 staff members have met with relatives of all 65 women who are still listed as missing from the Downtown Eastside.

(Pickton has been charged with killing 26 of those women and the other 39 remain unaccounted for.)

The meetings in the families' home communities were intended to prepare them for hearing disturbing evidence and to create individual support plans to assist them through the trial.

Dahlin said they are a diverse group, and assistance that one family finds beneficial will not necessarily fit the needs of the next family.

Some relatives are further along in their grieving, depending on when their loved one disappeared. However, Dahlin noted that living through the trial will not be a "straight road," and those who feel prepared today may not in fact be when they hear the allegations against Pickton.

The government will pay for travel costs, a hotel room in New Westminster and food for certain relatives for one week to help with the costs of attending the trial, Dahlin said.

Once the trial starts, there will be at least one counsellor at the courthouse each day to help relatives cope with the evidence they will hear.

In addition to the handbook, victims services has created a website for the families that includes frequently asked questions intended to help them understand the trial process.

Dahlin said her boss, the solicitor-general, has indicated more funding will be made available if additional workers are needed to help people get through the trial.

"We just know that this is going to be a long haul," she said.

Elaine Allan worked at the WISH drop-in centre for sex-trade workers. She knew many of the missing women, including five of the six victims who are the subject of Pickton's first trial.

She remembers seeing Brenda Wolfe using the WISH facilities until her disappearance in February 1999 at the age of 30.

"Brenda was a very quiet person, but she was a well-liked quiet person. She wasn't Georgina Papin, who was outgoing and gregarious, but she was well-liked and she always had a friend with her [at WISH]," said Allan.

"She had a boyfriend and she was a very gentle soul. She had a very affable nature. You liked having her around. She had a nice presence about her."

Wolfe was born in Pincher Creek, Alta., but grew up near Calgary.

"Brenda was kind of independent. She used to come in and ask me if she could put bags up against the wall behind the serving tray while she got dinner and a shower. Because that's always a big thing -- where do you put your stuff in a place like that when you get a shower?" said Allan. "She was very polite and very soft-spoken and very kind."

Allan, who has attended portions of Pickton's pre-trial hearings, is now employed by the Salvation Army. She started working in the Downtown Eastside in 1998, so never met Frey, who went missing a year earlier.

She fondly recalled Abotsway, who she said went by the street name Riviera, as a spunky, mischievous and very social woman who would talk for hours on the free phone at a drop-in centre.

Mona Wilson, who went by the street name Stacey, was a mild-mannered WISH regular during the nightly drop-ins. That time, Allan said, was Wilson's break from an overbearing boyfriend who treated her poorly.

"She'd be crying, she'd be frantic. 'I don't know what to do about him,'" Allan recalled Wilson saying about her boyfriend.

"She'd just get paralysed, and she'd just sit down and cry," added Allan, who said she tried -- unsuccessfully -- to get Wilson into a recovery house.

Papin was a "tough" woman who knew how to defend herself; she was also extremely popular and immediately missed when she vanished.

"She would always come in [to WISH] with a pile of friends, and would hang out with a pile of friends, and leave with a pile of friends. She was a very social person," Allan said. "People all talked about her [disappearing.] When your social maven is missing, people are going to mention that."

Andrea Joesbury was a petite, strawberry-blond "little kid" who wore platform shoes and had a "very, very sweet" disposition. She was quiet and never seemed to get into altercations with others -- prompting Allan to wonder how she navigated the treacherous Downtown Eastside for so many years.

"Her nature was so gentle. You just couldn't imagine someone that gentle and so little and so defenceless being out on the mean streets every night," Allan said.

When the WISH doors closed at 10 p.m., Allan always worried about how Joesbury and the others would survive the dark nights.

"Everyone knew that . . . women were going missing," she said softly.

"Every night when they walked out the door I would say goodbye and I would wonder if that was the last time I'd see them."

lculbert@png.canwest.com

Column: Work to end violence against women far from over

2012-01-29T07:59:00.000-08:00

Column: Work to end violence against women far from over

Lori Shenher to take stand Monday in Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. Reposted from Cameron Ward blog.

2012-01-28T17:06:00.001-08:00

MWCI: Lori Shenher to take stand Monday

January 27, 2012 in Missing Women Commision of Inquiry, News

The next witness at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry will be Vancouver Det. Cst. Lori Shenher, who had primary conduct of the missing women investigation for the VPD from June of 1998 until late 2000. Before joining the VPD, she was a Calgary journalist. She is also credited as a technical advisor and writer on 25 episodes of Da Vinci’s Inquest, where a fictional missing women’s case was a recurring theme on the show.

In July and August of 1998, Shenher received information from Bill Hiscox that a Port Coquitlam pig farmer named Robert “Willy” Pickton was likely responsible for the disappearances of women from Vancouver’s downtown east side. She determined that the information was credible, and soon learned that Pickton had been charged with the attempted murder and forcible confinement of a Vancouver sex trade worker the year before. (The Crown dropped those charges; the Commission is supposed to inquire into the facts concerning that decision) Although three more informants independently came forward with information fingering Pickton as a likely serial murderer, neither the VPD nor the RCMP apprehended him. On February 5, 2002, a junior Coquitlam RCMP member investigating an apparently unrelated matter found evidence of some of the missing women on a property owned by Pickton and his brother and sister. Pickton was subsequently convicted of six murders and twenty other first degree murder charges against him were stayed, the Attorney General decising that “it would not be in the public interest” to prosecute him further. Pickton is believed to be responsible for as many as 49 murders, which would make him Canada’s most prolific serial murderer. The case reportedly cost Canadian taxpayers as much as $200 million dollars to investigate, prosecute and defend.

posted by Cameron Ward

MWCI: The victims’ families deserve answers; will they get them?

January 27, 2012 in Missing Women Commision of Inquiry, Opinion

On March 23, 1997 Robert “Willy” Pickton attacked a downtown eastside Vancouver sex trade worker at the Port Coquitlam property he shared with his brother. The Crown laid charges of attempted murder, forcible confinement, assault with a weapon and assault against him but stayed the charges as the trial approached.

Why?

The VPD and the RCMP had Pickton in their sights as a prime suspect in the disappearances of other downtown eastside sex trade workers from August of 1998 onwards but didn’t apprehend him. He was able to kill dozens of women, as many as 49 in all, until February 5, 2002.

Why?

These are the central factual questions posed by the terms of reference of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. The anguished families of Pickton’s victims have long sought a public inquiry into these questions, and others. Now that the Commission is finally hearing testimony from the police officers actually involved in the investigations, will the families get the answers they need and deserve? Or will the sudden appearance of a host of lawyers for individual police officers to augment the teams that the VPD and RCMP have had to look out for their interests for the last decade throw a spanner in the works?

…..

The latest report from The Vancouver Sun’s Neal Hall is here.

posted by Cameron Ward

June 2009: Letter to a monster

2012-01-28T08:34:00.001-08:00

ETHAN BARON, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 27, 2012

Ethan Baron

Photograph by: Ginger Sedlarova, The Province

Hello, Willie.

I know you're reading this, because it's all about you.

Just like the trial.

After four years of working on your story, after sitting in that courtroom for months on end, watching you through bullet-proof glass, I know you far better than I'd like to.

For these four years, you have been an unwelcome guest in my world.

You have strewn my dreams with carnage, gruesome castoffs from your world of suffering, dismemberment and death.

I dream of killing. I dream of watching people die.

Once, I even dreamed of you.

We were in a room together. I don't know why. And, in my nightmare, I was overcome by fear, not that you'd suddenly attack me - I'm bigger and smarter than you - but that I would fall asleep, and would wake to feel your strange, monkey fingers around my neck.

I felt, for the first time, what every female who is familiar with your case felt from the very outset: the fear every woman lives with everyday, of crossing paths with someone like you.

A remorseless killer.

I do not hold you responsible. You are a biological aberration, an obscenity of nature.

Remember the story you told that undercover cop in jail, that you killed 49 people? I do.

Sometimes, sitting through those endless hours of testimony about which DNA swab was used on which wall in your slaughterhouse, and which sock was found in which bag in your filthy trailer, I used to think about killing you.

It wasn't that I actually wanted to, or even thought you deserved it. I would sit and examine the courtroom security procedures in place for your protection, and my mind would wander. I figured that, if I sat in the gallery seat closest to the doorway for the courtroom, I could rush through the door when a witness went in, before one of the burly, ever-vigilant sheriffs could grab me.

I would have been in front of you in a flash, my hands around your throat, squeezing. The sheriffs in the courtroom didn't carry guns, but I concluded that those who did, in the gallery, would be through the door as I began to throttle you. Friendly as they were, they were serious about their job, and I have no doubt they would have shot me before your life expired.

It was fun to think about, though.

I remember thinking once, after some particularly gruesome evidence came before the court, that it was interesting that this stuff didn't seem to disturb my mind. Then I got up at a break, and realized I felt nauseous almost to the point of vomiting.

I never cried, except for once, on the day you were sentenced, when the Crown read a statement from Brenda Wolfe's mother. She'd written that if all the tears she'd shed made a path to heaven, she would walk along it and bring her daughter home.

You might not remember that part.

I have to admit there was a lot of laughter, too. We all got a kick out of your attachment to your late horse, Goldie, especially when we found out that, when you'd taken her head to the taxidermist, you rode the bus.

I hope you're not upset they wouldn't let you have Goldie's head in your jail cell. Institutional authorities can be so cruel.

I'm not supposed to talk about the plasticine figurines some of us made during the trial, but I can tell you I have my version of your pig-butchering buddy Pat Casanova sitting on my desk. You'd get a chuckle out of how his thumb is covering up that cancer-surgery hole in his throat. I can send it to you if you want. I'm not that attached to it.

You're more clever than you look, I'll give you that. You knew enough to prey on people who wouldn't be immediately missed, women of such low social status that the police wouldn't pay attention when they started to vanish. And you even let some go free, so they could tell people Willie Pickton wasn't the reason so many women were going away and never coming back.

You got sloppy at the end, you admitted that. When the police came to your farm, they found a little snapshot of your process.

Heads, hands and feet in buckets. A jawbone in the pig manure. You had it all down to a routine, didn't you?

And what you didn't dispose of at the farm went to the rendering plant. That driver from the plant testified that he'd pick up barrels of burnt-black chunks of meat from your farm.

Did you just pour gas into barrels of human remains and set them on fire, so the pieces of people wouldn't look like pieces of people?

You will be remembered as an awful human being, worse than worthless.

Still, you have one shot at redemption, Willie, one chance to be seen in a different light.

You can come clean.

Forget about any appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

You need to tell the world what you did, and why.

You can go down in history as a nasty bit of human trash.

Or you can have the last word, and be forever remembered as a terrible monster who, in the end, did the right thing. It would be - almost - heroic.

Do you have the courage, Willie? Do you have the strength?

Maybe.

Do you have the humanity?

I don't think so.

http://www.theprovince.com/June+2009+Letter+monster/6065062/story.html

Robert Pickton: RCMP admits it ‘could have done more’ to stop killer | Full Comment | National Post

2012-01-27T21:15:00.000-08:00

Robert Pickton: RCMP admits it ‘could have done more’ to stop killer | Full Comment | National Post:

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RCMP apologizes for delay in Pickton arrest

2012-01-27T15:22:00.001-08:00

POSTMEDIA NEWS JANUARY 27, 2012 1:25 PM

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Craig Callens responded on Friday to recent criticism of the force raised at the Missing Women Inquiry by issuing an apology for not solving the missing women case sooner.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

The commanding officer of the RCMP has responded to recent criticism of the force raised at the Missing Women inquiry in British Columbia by issuing an apology for not solving the missing women case sooner.

"I apologize that the RCMP did not do more," RCMP Assistant Commissioner Craig Callens told reporters Friday.

On Wednesday, an expert witness, said serial killer Robert Pickton could have been nabbed years sooner, had Vancouver police not "dropped the ball."

Kim Rossmo, a former member of the Vancouver Police Department and now an intelligence and investigations professor at Texas State University, also said there "was a very good chance of solving the case by the end of 1999, if the appropriate resources were employed."

Rossmo, the first police officer in Canada with a PhD in criminology, served 20 years with the Vancouver police, including two tours of duty in the Downtown Eastside.

"If we had taken the case more seriously . . . it could have and should have been solved earlier," he testified. "I think this case should have been solved one or two years earlier, but we dropped the ball."

Pickton, who wasn't arrested until 2002 and who is serving a life sentence in prison for the murder of six women, once claimed he killed 49 women.

He was facing a second trial for the murder of another 20 women.

But after he lost all appeals on his first six murder convictions, the Crown elected not to proceed with a second trial, which upset the families of those victims.

With files from Vancouver Sun

RCMP apology over Pickton murder ‘not enough,’ victim’s father says

2012-01-27T14:14:00.001-08:00

ROBERT MATAS
VANCOUVER – Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jan. 27, 2012

Rick Frey, the father of a woman murdered by Robert Pickton, says a RCMP apology for failing to catch the serial killer sooner is meaningless.

“It is not going to pacify now,” Mr. Frey said Friday in an interview.

“An apology is not enough. What are they going to do now....? The damage is done and there has to be some meaningful [changes] done,” he said.

Earlier yesterday, RCMP assistant commissioner Craig Callens offered a qualified apology for the RCMP not arresting Mr. Pickton before February, 2002.

The inquiry has heard that Vancouver police and the RCMP received tips pointing to Mr. Pickton as a serial killer in 1998 and 1999. Mr. Pickton was convicted in 2007 of killing six women, three of them in 2001. He is accused of killing an additional 11 women between December, 1999 and when he was arrested.

Assistant commissioner Callen told reporters at a news conference that the RCMP, “with the benefit of hindsight and measured against current investigative standards” recognizes they could have done more.

“On behalf of the RCMP, I would like to express to the families of the victims how very sorry we are for the loss of your loved ones, and I apologize that the RCMP did not do more,” he said.

He held the news conference before speaking to any of the victims’ families and told reporters he did not have any meetings scheduled with them.

Mr. Frey, the father of Marnie Frey, said hindsight is great. “We all know they could have done more. .... . I don’t think you have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to figure that one out. Anyone knows that they could have done more,” he said.

The apology should go to RCMP officers who were stymied by their bosses in investigating Mr. Pickton in the late-1990s, Mr. Frey said.

“The officers were trying to get [senior managers] to wake up, they had a problem. They should apologize to their people, that they did not listen,” he said.

Reviews of the RCMP and Vancouver Police Department investigation revealed that beat cops and investigative detectives in 1999 believed a serial killer was preying on women in the Downtown Eastside but senior managers did not.

Assistant commissioner Callen told reporters the apology was made at this time in response to events earlier this month at the Missing Women’s Inquiry.

At the hearings on Jan. 12, lawyer Cameron Ward, who represents victims’ families at the inquiry, pressed RCMP Superintendent R. J. Williams to apologize on behalf of the Mounties. Mr. Williams, an Alberta-based Mountie who had conducted an external review of the RCMP investigation for a lawsuit, said he was not the appropriate person to apologize and it was up to RCMP management in B.C.

Assistant commissioner Callens said he was recently told about Mr. Williams’ testimony. Former deputy commissioner Gary Bass in August, 2010 had expressed “deep regret” that the RCMP was unable to gather the evidence necessary to lay a charge against Mr. Pickton sooner than it did, he said. But the testimony at the inquiry made it clear that the issue of an apology remains in question, he said.

Unlike the RCMP, the Vancouver police offered an unqualified apology in July, 2010. “We’re sorry from the bottom of our hearts that we did not catch him sooner and protect more women from being harmed,” Doug LePard, deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department said at that time.

The Pickton inquiry was appointed in the fall of 2010 to look into why Robert Pickton was not arrested before February, 2002. Mr. Pickton was convicted of killing six women. He once said he killed 49 women.

Marnie Frey was reported missing by her stepmother Lynn Frey on Dec. 29, 1977. Ms. Frey’s remains was found on Mr. Pickton’s farm after he was arrested.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/rcmp-apology-over-pickton-murder-not-enough-victims-father-says/article2317555/

RCMP apologizes for not doing enough to solve missing women case sooner

2012-01-27T12:45:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 27, 2012 11:51 AM

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Craig Callens speaks to media on Friday, December 9, 2011 in Vancouver.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

VANCOUVER - The commanding officer of the RCMP responded to recent criticism of the force raised at the Missing Women inquiry by issuing an apology for not solving the missing women case sooner.

"I apologize that the RCMP did not do more," RCMP Assistant Commissioner Craig Callens told reporters today.

He said the former commanding officer of the B.C. Mounties, Gary Bass, had earlier expressed his deep regret that serial killer Robert Pickton wasn't caught sooner.

"On behalf of the RCMP, I'm sorry we didn't do more," Callens said.

He said he has not yet met with families of Pickton's victims to offer an apology on behalf of the RCMP.

It is the first time the RCMP has apolgized for the its failures in the Pickton investigation.

The Vancouver police has repeatedly apologized, saying the VPD could have and should have done more.

Asked why he is offering the apology now, Callen said it recently came to his attention during the testimony of the first RCMP officer to testify at the Missing Women inquiry.

Alberta RCMP Supt. Bob Williams, who was asked to do an independent review of the force's investigation of Pickton, declined to offer an apology on behalf of the RCMP..

He said it would be the decision of senior management of the RCMP in B.C.

"I would like to reaffirm that the RCMP is fully committed to cooperating with the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry,"" Callens said.

In August 2010, Bass issued a statement expressing deep regret that the RCMP was unable to gather the evidence necessary to charge Pickton sooner.

Pickton wasn't arrested until Feb. 5, 2002.

The inquiry has heard that Vancouver police regarded Pickton as the prime suspect after receiving tips about Pickton in 1998 and 1999.

Vancouver police passed along the information to the RCMP because the allegations were that Pickton had killed one or more women at his farm in Port Coquitlam.

The RCMP policed that jurisdiction and had previously investigated Pickton for a 1997 attack on a Vancouver prostitute at the farm.

The women survived a knife attack after running to the street and flagging down a passing car.

Pickton was charged with the unlawful confinement and attempted murder of the victim but Crown decided to drop the charges in 1998.

The reasons for the Crown staying the charges will be probed by the inquiry, which is probing the systemic problems that prevented police from catching Pickton sooner.

The inquiry resumed Monday and will hear from one of the RCMP investigators in the case.

Pickton, who is serving a life sentence in prison for the murder of six women, once confided he killed 49 women.

He was facing a second trial for the murder of another 20 women.

But after he lost all appeals on his first six murder convictions, the Crown elected not to proceed with a second trial, which upset the families of those victims.

nhall@vancouversun.com

Statement issued by Assistant Commissioner Craig Callens, Commanding Officer of "E" Division

Good morning.

First - I would like to reaffirm that the RCMP is committed to fully cooperating with the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.

We are in the phase of the inquiry where investigators directly involved in the investigations are scheduled to testify.

Recently, it came to my attention, that during the examination of an RCMP witness, Commission Counsel raised the issue of an RCMP apology. It is clear to me that the issue of an apology remains in question.

In August 2010 Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass, the Commanding Officer for the RCMP in "E" Division, at the time, issued a statement in which he expressed deep regret that the RCMP was unable to gather the evidence necessary to lay a charge against Robert Pickton sooner than it did.

Let me be clear. As the Commanding Officer of the RCMP in British Columbia I believe that, with the benefit of hindsight and when measured against today's investigative standards and practices, the RCMP could have done more.

On behalf of the RCMP, I would like to express to the families of the victims how very sorry we are for the loss of your loved ones, and I apologize that the RCMP did not do more.

We look forward to receiving meaningful recommendations that we can apply as a whole to improve our policing services to communities in BC and to refine and improve how we investigate and solve complex major crimes.

Ex-detective stands by his testimony

2012-01-26T20:41:00.001-08:00

ROBERT MATAS
VANCOUVER – Globe and Mail
Thursday, January 26, 2012

Former Vancouver police officer Kim Rossmo held his ground during aggressive cross-examination at the Pickton inquiry on Thursday, unshaken by a newspaper story and an e-mail that appeared to contradict what he had previously said.

Mr. Rossmo, the first police officer involved in the missing women investigation to testify at the inquiry, has been highly critical of senior managers in the Vancouver police department, saying there was a good chance the missing women case could have been solved in late 1999 if proper resources had been allocated.

MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY

· Pickton murders could have been solved earlier, ex-officer says

· Pickton investigation plagued by same issues that failed to stop Bernardo

· Pickton victims’ families decry ‘hurtful’ police testimony at Missing Women Inquiry

Serial killer Robert Pickton was arrested in February, 2002. He was convicted of killing six women, three of them in 2001. He is accused of killing an additional 11 women between December, 1999, and when he was arrested.

Vancouver police formed a working group in 1998 to review reports of prostitutes going missing from the Downtown Eastside and the possibility of foul play. But the group was effectively shut down after Inspector Fred Biddlecombe expressed his opposition at a meeting on Sept. 22, 1998, Mr. Rossmo told the inquiry. “He did not believe there was a serial murder,” Mr. Rossmo testified.

However, Inspector Biddlecombe’s lawyer pointed out on Thursday that a newspaper article dated Sept. 18, 1998, in the Vancouver Sun quoted the inspector as saying he did not rule out the possibility of a serial killer, although police did not have any evidence to suggest it at that point.

“It is not a correct statement,” Mr. Rossmo said. “Based on his actions and what he said at the meeting of 22 of September, I felt he had effectively ruled it out,” he said.

Mr. Rossmo chided David Neave, the lawyer for Insp. Biddlecombe, for believing the report to be true. “It’s a newspaper story. You’re acting as if police departments are always truthful with the media,” he said.

Mr. Rossmo also dismissed as misleading an e-mail send by Insp. Biddlecombe on May 21, 1999, that assigned seven investigators to a missing-women working group to review records and investigate the circumstances of the disappearances of 21 women. The e-mail stated that Mr. Rossmo was to support the group.

Earlier during the hearing, lawyer Judith Hoffman, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the RCMP, raised questions about the effectiveness of a regional police force. Previous reviews of the Pickton case have concluded that the investigation was hampered by the lack of co-ordination between the Vancouver police and the RCMP.

Mr. Rossmo told the inquiry the RCMP were very interested in working with Vancouver police on an investigation into the cases of three women who were murdered in 1995.

The women – Tracy Olajide, Tammy Lee Pipe and Victoria Younker – worked as prostitutes and were picked up in the Downtown Eastside. The bodies of Ms. Olajide and Ms. Pipe were found dumped in a rural area outside Agassiz, B.C., 125 kilometres east of the skid-row neighbourhood. Ms. Younker’s partly decomposed body was found near Mission, B.C., about 70 kilometres east of the Downtown Eastside.

Mr. Rossmo told the inquiry the RCMP and Vancouver police were co-operating on that investigation. “I remember [the RCMP] had a very positive attitude. They were interested in working together [with Vancouver police],” he said.

Ms. Hoffman questioned whether a large regional police force in Metro Vancouver would have made any difference in the investigation of the three women who were killed in 1995. Agassiz and possibly Mission may be too far away to be part of a Metro Vancouver police force.

Mr. Rossmo agreed that interjurisdictional issues may still arise, but would likely be much fewer if the police force boundaries stretched across Metro Vancouver.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/ex-detective-stands-by-his-pickton-testimony/article2316785/

Tense exchange at Pickton inquiry over officer's actions - British Columbia - CBC News

2012-01-26T20:08:00.000-08:00

Tense exchange at Pickton inquiry over officer's actions - British Columbia - CBC News: "The "

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Wally Oppal praises Downtown Eastside activist Don Larson at missing women’s inquiry | Vancouver, Canada | Straight.com

2012-01-26T17:50:00.000-08:00

Wally Oppal praises Downtown Eastside activist Don Larson at missing women’s inquiry | Vancouver, Canada | Straight.com:

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Robert Pickton inquiry evidence points to failure of individual officers | Full Comment | National Post

2012-01-25T20:12:00.000-08:00

Robert Pickton inquiry evidence points to failure of individual officers | Full Comment | National Post:

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Police lawyers 'coming out of woodwork,' missing women inquiry hears

2012-01-25T15:10:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 25, 2012 5:07 PM

A lawyer representing victims' families, Cameron Ward, complained Wednesday at the Missing Women's inquiry that there are now so many lawyers representing police that the whole probe into the shortcomings of the investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton could be "derailed."

Photograph by: Ian Smith, PNG

VANCOUVER — A lawyer representing victims' families complained Wednesday at the Missing Women's inquiry that there are now so many lawyers representing police that the whole probe into the shortcomings of the investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton could be "derailed."

Cameron Ward, who represents 25 families of murdered women, noted that there are now 19 lawyers representing the interests of police.

"The public interest is not well served if the public is paying for all these lawyers," Ward told inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal.

Ward said police were "lawyering up at this late stage" and he suggested it was a calculated strategy by Vancouver police the RCMP to "derail" the inquiry process.

"There is no legitimate reason for the lawyers to be coming out of the woodwork now," Ward told the inquiry, which began hearings on Oct. 11.

He made the remarks when David Neave announced he was at the inquiry on behalf of former Vancouver police Insp. Fred Biddlecombe, who was in charge of major crime in 1998 and rejected the theory that a serial killer was behind the disappearance of 27 women by that point.

Oppal, however, said he had to be fair and allow Biddlecombe to have a lawyer at the inquiry.

"If I had my way, we'd have no lawyers in here and we'd get it done quicker," Oppal quipped.

Neave said he wants to have the current witness on the stand, former VPD officer Kim Rossmo, return at a later date for cross-examination.

Tim Dickson, representing the Vancouver police department, took issue with Ward's allegation that the VPD was trying to derail the inquiry process.

"Nothing can be further from the truth," the lawyer added.

Biddlecombe retained a lawyer after the testimony of Rossmo, who wanted to issue a public warning in 1998 that a possible serial killer was preying on women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Rossmo testified Biddlecombe had a "hissy fit" and kiboshed the idea at a meeting on Sept. 22, 1998.

"The community should have been warned," Rossmo testified Wednesday.

He said Biddlecombe's negative attitude — he was angry and felt there was no evidence to support the serial killer theory — effectively killed a VPD "working group," which included Rossmo, that was trying to look into the problem of a growing number of missing women.

Rossmo, an internationally known serial crime expert, at the time was the first police officer in Canada with a PhD in criminology.

Rossmo is now a professor at Texas State University, where he is the director of Geospacial Intelligence and Investigation.

He served 20 years with the Vancouver police, including two tours of duty in the Downtown Eastside.

Former VPD inspector Gary Greer is also at the inquiry Wednesday, with a lawyer, listening to testimony.

In 1998, Greer was in charge of District Two, which includes the Downtown Eastside.

Rossmo testified that Vancouver police had a duty to protect all citizens, including the vulnerable street prostitutes who went missing.

If the same number of women went missing in a wealthy area of Vancouver, he said, it would have got more attention and more resources.

More detectives should have been assigned to the missing women case sooner, Rossmo said. And he blamed police managers for not taking ownership of the problem.

Instead, he said, police managers remained disengaged because of the lack of political pressure.

Rossmo testified the police denial of the serial killer theory was just one of a number of classic mistakes that have been made in other serial killer cases.

Rossmo is expected to continue testifying until Friday.

Oppal reiterated Wednesday that inquiry is not looking to find "scapegoats" to blame but is trying to learn about the systemic problems within the VPD and RCMP investigations of Pickton, who wasn't arrested until 2002.

The inquiry will also probe why the Crown dropped attempted murder charges against Pickton in 1998.

The charges stemmed from a 1997 knife attack on a Vancouver prostitute at Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam.

The woman stabbed Pickton and ran to the street, where she flagged down a passing car.

The woman, who cannot be named, testified at Pickton's trial in 2007.

Pickton, who is serving a life sentence in prison for the murder of six women, once confided he killed 49 women.

He was facing a second trial for the murder of another 20 women.

But after he lost all appeals on his first six murder convictions, the Crown elected not to proceed with a second trial, which upset the families of those victims.

Vancouver Sun

nhall@vancouversun.com

Cop frustrated by superiors

2012-01-25T07:51:00.001-08:00

Brass trashed serial-killer theory

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 25, 2012

Former VPD officer Kim Rossmo (right) arrives at Federal Court in Vancouver Tuesday to testify before the missing women inquiry.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo - PNG, The Province

Former Vancouver police officer Kim Rossmo said on Tuesday that he was "embarrassed" by the "theories" and "excuses" of top VPD brass for the dozens of missing women.

Rossmo, who as a VPD "detective inspector" in the 1990s, was faced with unexplained growing numbers of missing women. He told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry that he suspected by 1998 that a serial killer was active.

Rossmo, a "geographic profiler" who in 1995 became the first police officer in Canada to earn a PhD, said he drafted a news release to warn the public, but was shot down by Insp. Fred Biddlecombe, who had a "temper tantrum."

"He didn't believe the serial-murderer theory," said Rossmo, who said Biddlecombe's anger was "embarrassing" in front of RCMP officers in the room.

VPD Insp. Gary Greer, who had backed the investigation of missing women, "folded like a house of cards" in the face of Biddlecombe's wrath, said Rossmo.

Rossmo called Biddlecombe, who will have his turn as a witness at the inquiry, "arrogant . . .. and egotistical."

Yet Biddlecombe was not "indifferent" nor did he have a "negative attitude" toward marginalized or missing women, said Rossmo, noting he found Biddlecombe to be "dedicated and compassionate" toward victims of violence.

"My opinion was he honestly believed there was no serial murderer and we were just wasting his and his people's time," said Rossmo.

Rossmo didn't give up. He worked with VPD Det. Const. Lori Shenher, who was trying hard at the street level to find out why women were disappearing, and agreed with her that the women likely were victims of foul play. He determined that there was a "bulge" or "statistically significant cluster" of 27 women who had vanished from the Down-town Eastside since 1995.

Rossmo's research showed that a serial killer or "partner" killers were active.

"This was a warning to us," said Rossmo, noting that research shows that 39 per cent of the victims of serial killers worldwide are prostitutes.

None of the "theories" held by VPD senior managers made sense, he said.

One VPD suggestion was that "these are pimp murders," he said.

"What kind of pimp would kill two dozen working women?" he asked.

"From a pimp's perspective, that would be cutting off your nose to spite your face."

Another VPD theory blamed drug murders, yet only women were disappearing and no bodies had been found. Another blamed poor hospital and morgue records.

He said the police investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton, who wasn't arrested until February 2002, suffered from classic "group-think" and "tunnel vision."

Rossmo left the force in December 2000.

sfournier@theprovince.com

twitter.com/suzannefournier

Surrey Leader - Updated: Regional police urged to combat 'next' serial killer

2012-01-24T20:32:00.000-08:00

Surrey Leader - Updated: Regional police urged to combat 'next' serial killer:

'via Blog this'

Serial killer warning blocked by cop's 'temper tantrum,' missing women inquiry hears

2012-01-24T15:14:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, POSTMEDIA NEWS JANUARY 24, 2012 2:58 PM

Former Vancouver police geographic profiler Kim Rossmo is expected to tell the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry why police didn't heed his warning in the 1990s that a serial killer likely was responsible for the disappearance of dozens of women from the Downtown Eastside.

Photograph by: File photo, PNG

VANCOUVER — Geographic profiler Kim Rossmo told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry Tuesday that his 1998 bid for a working group to investigate a possible serial killer was shot down in flames by a senior Vancouver police officer.

Former Vancouver Police Department Det. Insp. Rossmo, now an academic in Texas who consults for police agencies across the world, said mounting concern about the growing numbers of missing women led to a September 1998 meeting between himself, Vancouver Police Department frontline officers and Insp. Gary Greer, and RCMP officers from B.C.'s Fraser Valley, where three prostitutes had been found murdered.

Rossmo had drawn up a "blueprint" which he said aimed to determine if "reports of missing women represent a crime problem." He wanted to find out if the women should be considered victims of crime, if police should be looking at lists of sexual offenders and if the disappearances were linked to a particular known offender.

At the time the first police officer in Canada to earn a PhD, Rossmo said his focus was "environmental criminology," a discipline that studies links between crimes and locations. But his skills were not in high demand by VPD top brass, Rossmo testified, because finding a serial killer is challenging for a police force and requires a commitment of time and resources the force may not possess. Police typically don't want the public pressure and fear that comes from a police alert that a serial killer may be active, Rossmo added.

Rossmo suggested as early as fall of 1998 to VPD superior officers then that it might be a good idea to "inform the public" through VPD media spokeswoman Const. Anne Drennan that police were looking into the dozens of reported missing women and would be investigating whether a serial killer might be on the loose.

But the plan went awry at the second meeting of the missing women working group on Sept. 22, 1998, when senior Vancouver police Insp. Fred Biddlecombe, who had been on vacation during the first meeting, showed up and had a "temper tantrum," Rossmo said.

"He didn't believe the serial murderer theory and he was upset about the draft press release," Rossmo told the inquiry in direct examination by Commission Counsel Art Vertlieb.

Rossmo said Biddlecombe also accused him and frontline Downtown Eastside Const. Dave Dickson of "leaking" information to the media. "I found (him) to be inaccurate and quite inflammatory," said Rossmo, noting he didn't even possess the information Biddlecombe was accusing him of leaking to the press. It was also "embarrassing," said Rossmo, because officers from other agencies, including the RCMP, were present for the "tantrum."

VPD Insp. Gary Greer, who had supported the missing women working group, "folded like a house of cards" in the face of Biddlecombe's wrath, said Rossmo.

"There was no way we could continue without his co-operation," he added.

Rossmo said that he didn't believe, however, that Biddlecombe was "indifferent" or had a "negative attitude" toward marginalized or missing women — in fact, he said, Biddlecombe was "very dedicated and very compassionate" toward victims of violence.

"My opinion was he honestly believed there was no serial murderer and we were just wasting his people's time," said Rossmo.

Rossmo didn't give up, however. He co-operated with VPD Det-Const. Lori Shenher, who was working hard at the community and street level to find out what had happened to the missing women. Rossmo went to then-deputy chief Brian McGuinness. And when Shenher spoke to anxious and grieving friends and relatives of the missing women in early 1999, Rossmo asked for her data to prepare a profile of who was missing and what might have happened to them. He found a "bulge" of missing women in the late 1990s and agreed with Shenher that they were likely victims of foul play.

Rossmo concluded the women in the survival sex trade who had gone missing were not really "transient" as they didn't have cars or money for plane tickets and whatever they earned "went into their arm" since they were heavily drug-addicted. He concluded that someone who had the means or money to transport the women out of the Downtown Eastside had to be involved, since no bodies and no evidence of murder had surfaced.

But in December, 2000, the VPD refused to renew Rossmo's contract as a geographic profiler and offered him a reduced rank. Rossmo left, and since then has had a solid career as an outside and academic analyst of police behaviour.

Missing Women Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal served notice, however, that he will be focusing on "systemic failure" and the "inter-jurisdictional" breakdown in communication between police agencies.

"Sadly, grotesque serial crimes have happened before in B.C., in Canada and in many other countries, including the U.S. and the U.K.," Oppal noted in a brief address at the opening of the inquiry on Tuesday.

Quoting an Ontario public inquiry commissioner, Oppal noted: "Virtually every inter-jurisdictional serial killer case, including the Yorkshire Ripper . . . in England, Ted Bundy and the Green River killer in the U.S., and Clifford Olson in Canada, demonstrate the same problems and raise the same questions.

"And always the answers turn out to be the same — systemic failure."

Oppal pledged, however, that he will deliver some answers in his final report, to be handed in by June, 2012, that will make sure "what happened here must never happen again."

Hearings at the inquiry continue daily until the end of April.

There are now about two dozen lawyers representing the VPD, the Vancouver police board and union and several individual officers. The RCMP is represented by federal lawyers, with all of those lawyers being paid out of the public purse.

Community and women's groups have complained they were shut out of the inquiry due to lack of funding for lawyers, although independent lawyers Jason Gratl and Robyn Gervais are acting for Downtown Eastside women's and aboriginal groups.

Lawyers Cameron Ward and Neil Chantler represent the families of 25 women murdered by Robert Pickton, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of six women but claimed to have killed 49 in total.

sfournier@theprovince.com

Former VPD detective Kim Rossmo testifies bosses nixed serial killer warning

2012-01-24T13:43:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 24, 2012 1:33 PM

Former VPD officer Kim Rossmo arrives at Federal Court in Vancouver to testify before the missing women inquiry on Tuesday, January 24, 2012.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

VANCOUVER - A former Vancouver police officer testified today at the Missing Women inquiry about the "classic mistakes" made in serial killer investigations.

"One of the classical mistakes is not involving all the agencies that need to be involved, Kim Rossmo told inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal.

Not involving other police agencies and community groups leads to missing pieces of the puzzle, he explained.

He said he was first asked in August 1998 to look at the growing number of women going missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES).

He said two inspectors at the time, Gary Greer and Doug Mackay-Dunn, who were in charge of District Two, which included the DTES, were concerned that a serial killer may be responsible.

Rossmo, a serial murder expert who at the time had a PhD in the field, analyzed the data and wanted to issue a public warning in September 1998 about a serial killer preying on DTES women.

But his bosses wouldn't allow him to issue the warning, saying there was no evidence of a serial killer.

Rossmo wanted the community to know "we were taking these concerns seriously and were investigating the possibility of a serial killer," he said.

"We also had a duty to warn the public," he said.

Rossmo said the officer who kiboshed the press release being issued was Insp. Fred Biddlecombe, who was in charge of homicide and the missing person unit.

"He had a small temper tantrum," he recalled of the meeting where the news release was discussed, which was attended by VPD members and the RCMP.

"He didn't like what we were doing," Rossmo recalled.

"I found him arrogant and somewhat egotistical. He wasn't interested in a discussion. He was angry and unreasonable. He didn't want to work with us."

Rossmo added that Biddlecombe's negative attitude effectively killed the working group that Greer and Rossmo had assembled.

Instead, Biddlecombe wanted Detective Lori Shenher to continue working to try to locate the dozens of missing women who had been reported missing.

Rossmo said he didn't like Biddlecombe and had never worked with him before, but felt Biddlecombe honestly believed a serial killer wasn't responsible for the missing women.

Now retired, Biddlecombe will testify later at the inquiry.

Despite Biddlecombe's negativity, Rossmo said he tried continue working on the missing women case but had difficulty getting any data from major crime.

"The level of communication/coorperation was not good," he testified.

"I was somewhat frustrated in my efforts to obtain more data or information."

He said he didn't receive the data until months later, when he prepared a report on Feb. 9, 1999, which concluded that the number of missing women took a dramatic jump in 1995.

Rossmo recalled there was a meeting to discuss this report with Biddlecombe, Insp. Brian McGuinness and a sergeant from major crime, Geramy Field.

"The meeting was somewhat strange in that Biddlecombe acted like I wasn't in the room," he added.

Biddlecombe was dismissive of Rossmo's report, saying the missing women would be found eventually.

"I said, Let's find out how long missing people stay missing," Rossmo recalled of the meeting.

"Insp. Biddlecombe was very angry at me for keeping this thing alive."

"One of the common mistakes made by police is the initial denial that there is a serial killer," added Rossmo, now is a professor at Texas State University, where he is the director of Geospacial Intelligence and Investigation.

He served 20 years with the Vancouver police, including two tours of duty in the Downtown Eastside, which he referred to as Skid Road.

He said the area was a vibrant community, despite have a high rate of crime, violence and disease.

In his last five years at the VPD, he was a detective-inspector in charge of the geographic profiling unit, which assisted in serial crime investigations of rape, robbery and murders.

Rossmo testified that street prostitutes in the DTES were vulnerable to extreme violence because they would get into cars with complete strangers and would be driven to dark alleys.

"Street prostitutes are the perfect victims," he told the inquiry, which is probing why it took so long to catch serial killer Robert Pickton.

Pickton admitted to killing 49 women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal said this morning that he believes systemic failures within the VPD and RCMP were the real cause behind the failures in the Pickton case.

"What happened here can never happen again," Oppal said.

The commissioner said he plans to make a number of recommendations to government to prevent another tragedy such as the Pickton case.

nhall@vancouversun.com

High-profile critic of VPD’s handling of Pickton case expected to shake up inquiry

2012-01-24T11:12:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 24, 2012 11:07 AM

Former Vancouver police geographic profiler Kim Rossmo is expected to tell the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry today why police didn't heed his warning in the 1990s that a serial killer likely was responsible for dozens of women who disappeared from the Downtown Eastside.

Photograph by: File photo, PNG

Former Vancouver police geographic profiler Kim Rossmo is expected to tell the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry today why police didn't heed his warning in the 1990s that a serial killer likely was responsible for dozens of women who disappeared from the Downtown Eastside.

Rossmo has been a high-profile critic of the VPD’s response to the missing women and the force’s reluctance, or refusal, in the late 1990 to believe either Rosso or any evidence pointing toward an active killer who frequented the Downtown Eastside and had a place to dispose of human remains.

That description accurately portrayed Robert William Pickton, who trolled the eastside streets of Vancouver for sex-trade workers, whom he lured out to his Port Coquitlam farm with drugs and alcohol. The VPD and RCMP had many early warnings about Pickton from tipsters and even an eyewitness, but Pickton was able to dispose of human remains on his farm and at an eastside Vancouver rendering plant. Pickton, who was not arrested until Feb. 2002, was found guilty of killing six women but boasted in jail that he had killed 49 women in total.

Rossmo tried, along with VPD Det. Const. Lori Shenher, in the late 1990s to warn that evidence pointed toward a serial killer but senior VPD officers disagreed, including then-Insp. Fred Biddlecombe, who Rossmo has said publicly had a “hissy fit” when the serial-killer theory was raised in a 1999 meeting.

Rossmo obtained his PhD in Criminology from Simon Fraser University in 1996. At the time, he testified, he was not only the first VPD officer to obtain a PhD, he was the only police officer in Canada to earn that top academic degree. His studies focused on “evironmental criminology,” or “why does crime happen when and where it happens?”

Rossmo was swiftly promoted to the rank of Detective Inspector within the VPD, but eventually was let go by the force in December, 2000. Rossmo sued for wrongful dismissal but lost, although VPD top brass did subsequently apologize to him publicly.

At the opening of the inquiry this week, on Tuesday morning, Commissioner Wally Oppal issued a lengthy statement and “practice directive” for lawyers at the inquiry to say that he is interested in examining “systemic failures” in policing systems, not pointing out “mistakes” by individual officers. Oppal said he also has asked to hear as witnesses “lead investigators” in the case, including Shenher, RCMP Cpl. Mike Connor and RCMP Insp. Don Adam, who was the head of the joint VPD-RCMP Joint Missing Women Task Force. Oppal said he wants to build on the work of former Ontario Justice Archie Campbell, who conducted an inquiry into Ontario serial killer Paul Bernardo and how he was able to keep assaulting women, undetected, between several police jurisdictions.

The inquiry will hear from Rossmo all of this week. Hearings continue until the end of April, with Oppal pledging to hand in his final report by June, 2012.

Missing Women's Inquiry continues Tuesday. Kim Rossmo

2012-01-24T06:15:00.001-08:00

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980)
Marcella Bernardo | Email news tips to Marcella
1/23/2012

BC's Missing Women Inquiry resumes Tuesday with testimony from the first person to recognize a serial killer was preying on sex trade workers in Vancouver's worst neighbourhood.

Former Vancouver police officer turned Professor, Kim Rossmo, wanted to issue a public warning in 1998, but his request was dismissed.

At the time, Rossmo was an Detective Inspector tracking the disappearance of dozens of women from the downtown east-side.

The Inquiry has already heard the former head of Major Crimes was worried a public warning would be inflammatory and he was convinced the women were still alive.
Commissioner Wally Oppal has also been told drug-addicted prostitutes would have probably ignored the warning.

The man accused of killing up to 49 women, Robert Pickton, was not arrested by the RCMP until February of 2002.

In February of last year, former Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen issued a public apology to Rossmo for making 'completely unfounded, inaccurate and misleading' statements about the geographic profiler who now works in the Department of Criminal Justice at Texas State University.

http://www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1643726

Straight Outta Edmonton: Social Media and Legal Advocacy: Lessons from MWCI

2012-01-23T14:58:00.000-08:00

Straight Outta Edmonton: Social Media and Legal Advocacy: Lessons from MWCI:

'via Blog this'

Slow pace of Pickton inquiry may cause public to lose confidence: commissioner

2012-01-21T14:37:00.001-08:00

JAMES KELLER
VANCOUVER – The Canadian Press
Published Friday, Jan. 20, 2012

The army of lawyers at the inquiry into the Robert Pickton case has received reinforcements, prompting the former judge overseeing the hearings to worry aloud that the public may soon lose confidence in the process.

In the past week, lawyers for more than half a dozen current and former Vancouver police and RCMP officers have joined the hearings, arguing their clients' reputations have been put at stake by a report that criticized how both forces investigated missing women and Mr. Pickton.

MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY

The collection of high-profile criminal lawyers all asked to cross-examine the author of that report, Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans, who conducted an external review for the commission. Ms. Evans has already been on the stand for five days, and the officers' lawyers want another week with her.

Commissioner Wally Oppal, who has until June 30 to complete his report into why Mr. Pickton wasn't caught, appeared exasperated Friday as he acceded to the request.

“The courts get bogged down by lengthy submissions and lengthy arguments and lengthy trials, and we're falling into the same trap here,” Mr. Oppal said.

“We have to protect the integrity of the process, and that's what I'm concerned with. The public has a stake in this. At some stage, the public loses confidence in the process when it goes on and on and on.”

Ms. Evans will come back at a later date, but it's not clear when

There are already lawyers at the inquiry for 11 participants, including Vancouver police, the local police union, the RCMP, B.C.’s criminal justice branch and a group of the families of Mr. Pickton's victims, among others.

Each of those participants had to apply last year to participate, a contentious process that saw a dozen other advocacy groups receive standing before withdrawing when the provincial government denied them funding.

Mr. Oppal has not explained during the hearings why the latest lawyers to arrive were granted participant status without a similar process. Now that they're there, they'll be able to cross-examine witnesses, which will undoubtedly drag testimony on for longer.

Mr. Oppal opened the hearings last October, but he has yet to hear from a single officer involved in the case. His report is due by the end of June, and he plans to finish formal hearings by April 30.

Commission lawyers have drawn up a list of 42 potential witnesses, and the families of Mr. Pickton's victims have asked that another 20 be added.

Neil Chantler, a lawyer who's representing the families of 25 missing and murdered women, said the additional counsel will make it even more difficult to reach Mr. Oppal's fast-approaching deadline.

Mr. Chantler said the added lawyers will mean the hearings are overwhelmingly dominated by police agencies and their officers.

“I suggest that reaching our collective goal of hearing from all of these witnesses is already going to be an immense, if not impossible, challenge,” Mr. Chantler told the inquiry.

“It may also create a public perception that this process favours the interest in the police over the community groups who were not able to participate,” Mr. Chantler added, referring to the groups that were denied legal funding.

David Butcher, one of the new lawyers who is representing Staff Sgt. Brock Giles of the Vancouver police, said officers whose reputations are at stake must be represented.

He said the police departments can't be expected to defend each officer who faces criticism at the hearings.

“It's simply not possible for them (the Vancouver police) to do that, I represent his reputational interest,” Mr. Butcher said.

Lori-Ann Ellis, whose sister-in-law Cara Ellis's remains were found on Mr. Pickton's farm, said she was disheartened that yet more police lawyers were added to the inquiry. Cara Ellis was among the 20 women Mr. Pickton was charged with killing before those charges were stayed.

Ms. Ellis sat in court wearing a shirt emblazoned with a photo of her sister-in-law to mark 15 years to the day that Cara disappeared.

“It's really imbalanced,” Ms. Ellis said in an interview outside the hearings.

“If the courtroom was a boat, we would capsize. There's so much weight on the police's side right now, we would just tip right over and be lost in the ocean.”

The hearings are examining why Vancouver police and the RCMP failed to catch Mr. Pickton as he murdered sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Investigators received the first tips implicating Mr. Pickton in 1998, but he wasn't caught until February 2002, when officers showed up at his Port Coquitlam farm with a search warrant related to illegal firearms and stumbled upon the belongings and remains of missing women.

Mr. Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder, but the remains or DNA of 33 women were found on his farm. He claimed to have killed a total of 49 women.

Reposted: Commission quits early

2012-01-21T04:29:00.001-08:00

Commission quits early, takes Monday off

January 20, 2012 in Opinion

The Commission adjourned for today at 1:00 p.m., and in a surprise announcement, Commission Counsel Art Vertlieb then said that there would be no session on Monday, January 23, 2012, contrary to earlier indications. He apparently isn’t prepared to put a witness on the stand Monday.

Counsel presenting a case is usually expected to have witnesses lined up and ready to go so that all valuable time set aside for a hearing is used and days are not wasted.

In this hearing, the schedule continues to be very unpredictable, creating difficulties for us and other counsel.

posted by Cameron Ward

A. CAMERON WARD & COMPANY

http://www.cameronward.com/2012/01/commission-quits-early-takes-monday-off/

Reposed: MWCI Commission adjourns witness testimony

2012-01-21T04:27:00.001-08:00

MWCI: Commission adjourns witness testimony at request of police lawyers

January 20, 2012 in Opinion

Today, Commissioner Oppal granted a request made by Richard Peck, Q.C., one of several lawyers recently appointed to represent police witnesses, to adjourn the testimony of Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Constable Jennifer Evans to a later date in order to enable the newly retained lawyers to prepare to ask her their questions.

For those trying to keep track of all the police lawyers and their clients, the following is our best attempt at a current list. There may actually be more police lawyers involved than the 17 listed below:

RCMP: Cheryl Tobias, Q.C., Jan Brogers and Judith Hoffman

Vancouver Police Department and Vancouver Police Board: Sean Hern and Tim Dickson

Vancouver Police Union: David Crossin, Q.C.

Dr. Kim Rossmo (ex-VPD): Mark Skwarok

Doug Fell (VPD): Kevin Woodall and Claire Hatcher

Don Adam (ex RCMP): Janet Winteringham, Q.C.

Gary Bass (ex RCMP): Richard Peck, Q.C.

Earl Moulton (RCMP): Ravi Hira, Q.C.

Brian McGuiness (VPD): Greg DelBigio, Q.C.

Terry Blythe and John Unger (ex VPD): Edward Greenspan, Q.C.

Brock Giles (VPD): David Butcher

Gary Greer (VPD): Rick Henderson

Peel Regional Police: Linda Bordeleau

….

Background: Attorney General Mike deJong announced the creation of the Commission on September 29, 2010 and provided terms of reference that required it to deliver a report to the government by December 31, 2011. The Commission did not commence evidentiary hearings until October 11, 2011. The government’s deadline was later extended to June 30, 2012. The Commissioner is Wallace T. Oppal, Q.C., a former judge and Attorney General. The Executive Director is John Boddie, a former VPD sergeant who served with the VPD for 16 years. Neil Chantler and I represent the families of 25 women who went missing and were subsequently murdered. From our clients’ point of view, the key factual questions encompassed by the terms of reference are: 1) Why were the attempted murder and other serious charges against Robert William Pickton dropped after his attack on a Vancouver sex trade worker in 1997? and 2) Why did the VPD and RCMP, who considered Pickton a prime suspect in the disappearances of Sarah deVries and other Vancouver women forom August 1998, fail to stop or apprehend him until the RCMP accidentally found evidence, on February 5, 2002, that he had murdered as many as 49 women?

The Commission has not yet heard testimony from any police officer who was actively involved in the investigations, although former VPD geographic profiler Dr. Kim Rossmo is scheduled to appear on Tuesday, January 24, 2012.

posted by Cameron Ward

A. CAMERON WARD & COMPANY

http://www.cameronward.com/2012/01/mwci-commission-adjourns-witness-testimony-at-request-of-police-lawyers/

Police foresaw Pickton inquiry, noted bungled investigation, almost two years before serial killer’s arrest

2012-01-20T21:57:00.001-08:00

Brian Hutchinson Jan 20, 2012 – 10:06 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 20, 2012 10:22 PM ET

Reuters

These undated photos show 15 of the 26 women Robert Pickton is suspected of murdering. Police involved in the investigations will testify next week, at the inquiry in B.C.

VANCOUVER • It was April 2000, the height of Robert “Willie” Pickton’s killing spree. Dozens of women were already missing, and 23 more would vanish. The Port Coquitlam pig farmer was trolling for skid row prostitutes, driving them to his farm, murdering them, disposing of their bodies and going back for more. He would continue this horrible pattern for at least another year, and right under the noses of police.

Pickton was by then a prime police suspect. Documents disclosed recently at the Missing Women Inquiry of Commission in Vancouver offer stunning details of what police knew — or thought they knew — and what some officers didn’t seem to want to know.

Major crimes investigators were already aware, for example, that Pickton had a predilection for prostitutes. They knew of his episodic, sadistic violence. They had sources who claimed he was murdering women and chopping them to pieces. And yet investigations launched by both RCMP and the Vancouver Police Department seemed low priorities, the inquiry has heard. Little effort was made to co-ordinate efforts. Promising leads were discounted or dismissed altogether.

Perhaps most telling, on April 25, 2000, RCMP officers were already discussing the possibility that bungled police efforts would lead to a public inquiry.

On that date, a staff sergeant named Brad Zalys had a conversation with a superior officer, RCMP Inspector Earl Moulton. Staff Sgt. Zalys made the following observation in his notebook: “Also discussed Pickton again–>if he turns out to be responsible–>inquiry!–>Deal with that if the time comes!”

What led Staff Sgt. Zalys, Inspector Moulton, and others to such a state? What did they know? Why hadn’t Pickton been stopped by then? And why did B.C.’s criminal justice branch decide, in 1998, to stay proceedings against the loathsome pig farmer, after he’d been charged with attempting to murder a prostitute on his pig farm?

The present inquiry, led by former B.C. attorney general Wally Oppal, has a mandate to find out all of that, and to recommend changes to the way police homicide investigations are conducted.

AFP/Getty Images

This undated BCTV grab shows Canadian pig farmer Robert William Pickton.

Proceedings have moved at a snail’s pace since hearings began in downtown Vancouver last fall, frustrating everyone involved, including Mr. Oppal. None of the officers who actually investigated Pickton have testified. That’s about to change. Next week, the inquiry will start hearing from as many as 33 police officers involved in the Pickton investigations.

One of them is Coquitlam RCMP Staff Sgt. Mike Connor, who likely knew more than any other officer about Pickton from 1997 to 2002, the crucial five years under review.

Staff Sgt. Connor, then a corporal, was assigned to investigate Pickton’s near-fatal stabbing of a Vancouver prostitute at his farm in March, 1997. Pickton was barely known to police at that point. While women were going missing from Lower Mainland streets, there was still no inkling they might have been murdered, let alone by a serial killer.

The stabbing was an ugly but straightforward case that Staff Sgt. Connor conducted quickly. Both Pickton and the prostitute whom he had repeatedly stabbed were interviewed, and conclusions were easily drawn.

The woman’s story became eerily familiar: She was “working” in Vancouver’s crime-infested Downtown Eastside when Pickton approached and offered her $100 for sexual favours. She climbed into his pickup truck, and Pickton drove her to his Port Coquitlam farm. He escorted her inside his filthy mobile home, where they had sex. Afterwards, Pickton refused payment. “Suddenly from behind Pickton put a handcuff on her,” reads a report made by Staff Sgt. Connor, released to the public last week.

A violent struggle ensued. The prostitute, who cannot be named by court order, grabbed a filleting knife with an eight-inch blade and swung at Pickton, slashing his throat “almost from ear to ear.”

Pickton took the knife from her and retaliated, stabbing her, “to the hilt of the knife, in the chest,” reads Staff Sgt. Connor’s report. They stumbled outside the trailer and the fight continued, until Pickton fell to the ground. The woman, bleeding profusely, ran away and flagged down a car.

According to Staff Sgt. Connor’s report, the woman “died” in a local hospital emergency room but was revived. Pickton was also treated in hospital. He admitted to having stabbed the woman, but claimed not to have provoked the attack. He was charged with attempted murder, and released on bail.

Four days after the attack, Staff Sgt. Connor prepared an incident summary, distributed to police across B.C.’s Lower Mainland.

“It has been determined that [the stabbing victim] is an East Hastings area hooker and Pickton is known to frequent that area weekly,” it read. “Given the violence shown by Pickton toward prostitutes and women in general, this information is being forwarded to your attention should you have similar offences.”

The attempted murder charge was dropped, according to notes prepared by Staff Sgt. Connor, because the victim was a heroin addict and presented herself late to interviews with Crown counsel.

Regardless, Pickton became stuck on Staff Sgt. Connor’s radar. Over the next two years until his promotion from corporal, the Mountie would build his Pickton file.

Staff Sgt. Connor would heard from other women who had encountered the “creepy” pig farmer, women who had lived to talk about it. He would also hear stories about women who hadn’t survived. Those stories, incredible as they first seemed, added to a body of evidence that he could not simply sweep aside.

Between April 1997 and April 1998, eight more women from the Downtown Eastside were reported missing. Their names were added to a list of cases that would keep growing.

In July, 1998, police received a valuable tip. A man called a Crime Stoppers hotline and described someone called “Willie.” He used prostitutes and kept a collection of their clothing and personal items inside his trailer, the tipster said. Willie had recently been in a knife fight with a prostitute. Willie had boasted to others that he could easily dispose of human bodies if he wished, by putting them through a meat grinder.

Ian Lindsay/Postmedia News

Coquitlam RCMP and members of the Missing Women task force search Robert Pickton's farm in 2002.

A week later, the same tipster called Crime Stoppers again, and said Willie might be responsible for the “missing prostitutes.” Willie, he added, lived on a farm in Port Coquitlam.

Vancouver police detective Lori Shenher tracked down the tipster, whose name is Bill Hiscox. She introduced him to Staff Sgt. Connor. It became clear to both officers that Mr. Hiscox was passing along information he had gleaned from a close Pickton associate, a woman named Lisa Yelds.

“Even at this stage of the investigation,” Staff Sgt. Connor wrote with hindsight, in records filed at the inquiry, “given what I knew of Pickton, I felt this person certainly could have been responsible for attacks on other prostitutes. I was not absolutely convinced on the homicides, as like most investigators of the time period, we all asked where are the bodies. Even though I was sure Pickton was capable.”

Staff Sgt. Connor was informed that Pickton was killing prostitutes as “pay back” for the 1997 knifing incident on his farm.

More sources came forward, and potential witnesses were identified and approached. By mid-1999, Staff Sgt. Connor wanted to launch an undercover operation on another known Pickton associate, Lynn Ellingsen. She had told police sources that she’d once picked up a prostitute with Pickton, that she’d later seen him skinning the woman’s body inside his barn. Ms. Ellingsen would eventually became a key Crown witness at Pickton’s serial murder trial. Thanks in part to Ms. Ellingsen’s testimony, a jury convicted Pickton of six counts of second degree murder. Another 20 murder charges laid against him were later stayed.

But in 1999, she wanted nothing to do with authorities. She denied everything to police. “There was no doubt in my mind that Pickton and Ellingsen were involved in the murders of prostitutes,” Staff Sgt. Connor recalled, in documents tabled at the inquiry. “It was suggested by some members [that an undercover operation on Ellingsen] would be a waste of time and money. That she was ‘crazy,’ cocaine addicted and hallucinated and what she saw was actually a pig hanging in the barn and not a human…There was a difference of opinion as to whether the information [was] reliable enough for the investigation to continue.”

Staff Sgt. Connor looked for other investigative routes. He recommended that surveillance be conducted on Pickton. Some attempts were made, then abandoned. Pickton had been alerted to the surveillance, Staff Sgt. Connor discovered.

In late August, 1999, Staff Sgt. Connor was promoted from corporal and pulled from the case. He requested secondment back to the investigation. His request was denied. New RCMP investigators were assigned; they made a series of unfortunate mistakes, the inquiry has heard. And Pickton kept on killing, until his arrest in February, 2002.

The inquiry resumes Tuesday, with testimony from former VPD criminal profiler Kim Rossmo. Staff Sgt. Zalys, Insp. Moulton and Det. Const. Shenher are among the other officers expected to testify before hearings conclude April 30.

National Post
bhutchinson@nationalpost.com

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/20/police-foresaw-pickton-inquiry-noted-bungled-investigation-almost-two-years-before-serial-killers-arrest/

Slow pace of Pickton inquiry may cause public to lose confidence: commissioner

2012-01-20T12:42:00.001-08:00

By: The Canadian Press

Posted: 01/20/2012 12:48 PM

VANCOUVER - The commissioner overseeing the Robert Pickton inquiry says he's concerned the hearings are being bogged down by the same problems that caused the public to lose faith in the justice system.

The inquiry is currently hearing from Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans of the Peel Regional Police, who conducted an external review of the Pickton murder investigation.

In the past week, lawyers for more than half a dozen current and former Vancouver police and RCMP officers have approached the inquiry to question Evans, and they asked that she return at a future date for another week of testimony.

Oppal sounded exasperated as he agreed to the request, and wondered aloud why it has taken so long to cross-examine a single witness, whose initial testimony took only three hours.

Oppal says the slow pace of the hearings may cause the public to lose faith in the inquiry, just as they've lost faith in the justice system as a whole.

Oppal's report is due later this year, and he's given himself a deadline of April 30 to finish formal hearings.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/slow-pace-of-pickton-inquiry-may-cause-public-to-lose-confidence-commissioner-137772528.html

City police should have pressured RCMP: Cop

2012-01-20T06:05:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 20, 2012 2:20 AM

Vancouver police should have pressured the Coquitlam RCMP to aggressively investigate Robert Pick-ton in relation to the murder of dozens of missing women, an Ontario policing expert said Thursday.

Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans, in her fourth day of testimony at the Missing Women Com-mission of Inquiry, insisted the VPD "should have made it a priority" to pressure the Mounties.

Evans conducted a review of the police probe into the dozens of missing women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside that eventually led to Pickton's arrest and conviction.

She found that a "multi- jurisdictional policing breakdown" failed to stop Pickton's killing spree.

Vancouver police lawyer Sean Hern asked Evans whether she was serious that VPD officers should have "jumped in the car" and "taken over the Coquitlam investigation in the way the FBI take over in a TV show."

Evans replied that the VPD had a duty not to let the investigation into Pickton lapse, since he was a strong suspect in the serial killings.

"If the VPD recognized that Coquitlam was not treating Pickton as a suspect as a priority, I'm troubled to understand why Vancouver didn't drive out to Coquitlam to conduct a missing-person's investigation," Evans replied.

Both the VPD and Coquitlam RCMP had informants who described in detail Pickton's savagery toward women, including an eyewitness who saw him butcher a woman.

But Hern pointed out the Coquitlam RCMP properly "took ownership" of the Pickton probe since the pig farmer lived near their detachment and had been charged with the 1997 attempted murder of a Vancouver prostitute. The charges were dropped.

Outside of court, Lori-Ann Ellis, sister-in-law of Cara Ellis, who was murdered by Pickton, broke down in tears after sitting through Thursday's testimony.

Today will be the 15th anniversary of Cara's murder. Cara, who would be 39 this year, vanished without a trace on Jan. 20, 1997.

It wasn't until long after Pickton was arrested in 2002 and charged with many murders that his bloody clothing from 1997 was sent for DNA testing.

In 2006, DNA results confirmed Cara had been killed by Pickton.

"If the police had only tested for DNA in 1997 they would have found Cara's blood and known he was killing the Vancouver missing women," said Ellis.

"The inquiry can get bogged down in details and forget that we are talking about the lives of real people, women like Cara who didn't have to die in such a horrible way," said Ellis, who lives in Calgary but often attends the inquiry. "I pray that Cara was unconscious when Pickton killed her."

sfournier@theprovince.com

Egadz looks to expand sex trade registry; ‘I look at it as a living will,’ Meikle says

2012-01-19T15:28:00.001-08:00

BY DAVID HUTTON, THE STAR PHOENIX JANUARY 19, 2012 3:09 PM

Egadz wants to expand its registry of sex trade workers in the event the turn up as victims of violent crime.

Photograph by: Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun

A Saskatoon outreach program is looking to expand its sex-trade registry, which collects detailed information from workers in case they are found dead.

Egadz, a non-profit agency that provides support for at-risk youth, has more than 100 sex trade workers on its “high-risk homicide registry,” which was launched 15 years ago. The goal this year is to grow the registry to include information on more than 200 women and potentially expand to include youth at risk of running away, said Don Meikle, Egadz’s director of outreach services.

“I think for the young women a lot of it is about closure,” Meikle said. “It’s about being identified, not being a Jane Doe and letting the family have some closure — not being a nobody, but being a person and being able to be identified.”

At Egadz’s downtown office, Meikle brings out the detailed questionnaire. The goal is to map the sex trade worker’s body for identifying information. It’s filled with detailed diagrams of the body and skull the women are asked to fill in. Are there teeth missing, tattoos, scars, piercings, broken bones? Information is requested on shoe size, medical and dental history, and drug use. The girls, some as young as 14, are asked to provide a list of close friends or family who should be identified in case of death.

“I look at it as a living will,” Meikle said.

The information requested also includes common jewelry worn, and whether or not the sex trade worker wears a bra or underwear. Those questions are asked because some serial killers “keep trophies,” Meikle said.

The file is held securely by a lawyer to ensure confidentiality and can only be accessed if a body is discovered.

The registry has been used a number of times, including recently to identify a woman killed in a rollover collision who police could not identify.

It allows Egadz’s outreach workers to warn prostitutes of the dangers of their lifestyle, he said. There’s an “urgency” to grow the list given the number of street workers who have been found dead in recent years, mainly from drug overdoses. The concept is based on Alberta’s Project Kare, a task force formed to look into a string of missing persons that collects DNA samples from sex-trade workers as part of a “proactive” registry. More than 500 prostitutes have voluntarily submitted strands of hair, photos, fingerprints and descriptions of their scars and tattoos in an effort to help authorities identify their remains.

Other Alberta police agencies have expanded the practice to include all high-risk individuals such as drug addicts, homeless people, and those with Alzheimer’s.

The Alberta list is voluntary. Both the sex-trade worker and the officer sign a waiver saying the sample will only be used for the purpose of identifying remains and can’t be used against a person who is arrested for a crime.

Meikle said Egadz is looking into expanding the program for high-risk youth, but the agency has been reticent to collect DNA because of the technical training needed and the lack of funding from Social Services to expand the program’s capacity.

Const. TishaRae Stonehouse, a police spokesperson, said the force works closely with other agencies when identifying remains, but hasn’t considered a volunteer DNA registry.

“The challenge for us is that we want to ensure that people feel safe in providing personal information to relevant agencies that are assisting them without fear that information would be utilized for the police service,” Stonehouse said.

Meikle said if a street worker leaves the trade, the file is returned.

“In a weird way it’s kind of like a graduation present,” Meikle said. “It says they’re no longer involved with it. They get it back in the same file they gave it to us.”

dhutton@thestarphoenix.com

Twitter.com/HuttonSP

Case reviewer: Flood of Pickton tips should have galvanized investigation sooner

2012-01-19T14:21:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 19, 2012 2:17 PM

Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans of the Peel Regional Police force believes the flood of tips on Robert Pickton should have galvanised B.C. police into a vigourous investigation at an earlier date.

Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG

A flood of accurate tips about Robert Pickton in 1998 plus his attempted murder of a prostitute in 1997 should have galvanized the Vancouver police and RCMP into joining forces to hunt him down, a police expert testified on Thursday.

The best time to pursue a homicide investigation is when information is “fresh,” yet it would take another five years and a dozen more women’s deaths for police to halt Pickton’s killing spree, Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.

Evans, asked to review the police investigation into Canada’s worst serial killer said the ball was dropped in those two pivotal years, due to the absence of “a strong dedicated and engaged Senior Management Team” in either the VPD or the RCMP.

Evans agreed with lawyer Darrell Roberts, acting for the mother of one of Pickton’s victims that Vancouver police “should have and could have exercised a search warrant then for Pickton’s Port Coquitlam farm,” as early as 1998. Police would have quickly found human remains and hundreds of Pickton’s “trophies” collected from the women he brought to the farm and then slaughtered.

Evans testified Vancouver police should have realized from what sources were telling them that Pickton was either kidnapping or “luring with drugs and alcohol” the women who were going missing from the Downtown Eastside.

In her lengthy report to the inquiry, Evans’ documents that the VPD got it’s first reliable tip on July 27, 1998 from Bill Hiscox, a man who had done some work for Robert “Willie” Pickton and his brother Dave Pickton, in their demolition business P & B Salvage.

In many subsequent phone calls and meetings with VPD Det-Const. Lori Shenher, Hiscox told that “Willie” Pickton was picking up prostitutes in Vancouver and transporting them to his Port Coquitlam farm, where he had “trophies” of women’s purses, clothing and ID.

Hiscox told both the VPD and later Coquitlam RCMP in a Crimestoppers call that Willie had been heard to say that he put bodies through a grinder and either fed the material to his hogs or disposed of bodies at a rendering plant.

Hiscox also knew that Pickton had tried a year earlier to kill a Vancouver Downtown Eastside sex trade worker, who fought back and got away. Hiscox, and other sources soon to emerge, warned police that Pickton was “trying to hire people to find (the woman) and bring her to the farm where he would finish her off like her should have the first time.”

Shenher got in touch with Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Mike Connor, who corroborated what Shenher’s source was telling her and confirmed that Pickton had been charged in 1997 with the attempted murder of a Downtown Eastside woman who broke free from handcuffs at Pickton’s trailer, got into a knife fight with him and fled naked from the farm. The woman, known to the inquiry as “Victim ‘97” or “Ms. Anderson” actually died at hospital but was revived. RCMP collected Pickton’s blood-spattered clothing, a used condom, handcuffs and bandages but never had them tested for DNA. The inquiry is looking into why charges against Pickton stemming from the 1997 attempted murder never went to trial.

Over the next year, 1998, a flood of details emerged about Pickton’s butchering of women on his farm, with eyewitness Lynn Ellingsen describing to three people a horrific “gutting” of a woman in Pickton’s barn. Those three people also went to police. Leah Best, Ross Caldwell and Ron Menard, all hangers-on at the Pickton farm, could not stop talking to police about Pickton’s savagery toward women, particularly Vancouver sex trade workers, Evans notes in her report.

“The information that various police officers received regarding Pickton was specific, unique and incredible,” Evans said in her report. On Thursday, Evans testified she stands by those conclusions, saying that junior officers in both police forces tried hard to act on the information they were getting, but got no support from senior managers.

Evans concluded that the “while (junior) investigators grasped how dangerous Pickton was, “someone in authority, either in the RCMP or the VPD needed to champion a coordinated effort to these investigations.”

In Feb. 2002, a rookie RCMP officer wrote up a firearms search warrant for the Pickton farm and police discovered massive evidence of the missing women. Laden with human remains and the missing women’s belongings, the farm was subjected to a lengthy forensic search.

The dates discussed at the inquiry today are especially poignant to Lori-Ann Ellis, who broke down in tears outside the courtroom. The blood of her sister-in-law Cara Ellis was on Pickton’s stained jacket that was recovered by police in 1997 but never tested for DNA. Tomorrow, Jan. 20, is the fifth anniversary of Cara’s disappearance. Police believe Cara, who would be 39 this year, was killed by Pickton on that day or the next night.

Cara’s DNA wasn’t sent for DNA testing to RCMP labs until 2004 and her family finally learned of Cara’s fate in 2006.

Two months after Cara Ellis’ blood was splashed all over Pickton, he picked up the woman on March 23, 1977 whom he almost killed. Had police tested for DNA then, they would have found Ellis’ blood and that of another missing woman Andrea Borhaven.

“The inquiry can get bogged down in details and forget that we are talking about the lives of real people, women like my sister-in-law Cara, who didn’t have to die in such a horrible way,” said Ellis, who lives in Alberta but has attended much of the inquiry proceedings.

“I can only pray that Cara was unconscious when she was killed by Pickton and that she didn’t suffer,”said Ellis.

“What a police force did back in 1997 may not seem like a big deal but testing for DNA would have saved Cara’s life.”

The inquiry is sitting Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. until the end of April, with Commissioner Wally Oppal pledging to hand in his final report by the end of June, 2012.

sfournier@theprovince.com

Pickton claims he's innocent of murders, officer tells inquiry

2012-01-19T07:37:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 19, 2012

An Ontario deputy police chief who interviewed serial killer Robert Pick-ton in jail says he claims he's innocent of murdering women.

"He said he didn't do anything, he maintained his innocence," Jennifer Evans, Peel Regional Police deputy chief, told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry on Wednesday.

Evans interviewed Pickton in prison as part of her review of how police con-ducted their investigations into the dozens of women who went missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Asked if Evans thought Pickton told the truth, she replied, "No he did not."

Cameron Ward, lawyer for families of 25 women murdered by Pickton, asked: "Did [he] strike you as someone capable of murdering 40 people, by himself, given your police experience?"

Evans replied that she believed "he did it by himself, yes."

"He acknowledged that he picked up girls in Vancouver."

Pickton, who sustained mild brain damage at birth, declined to testify at the inquiry, Evans said.

Evans also wanted to know how Pick-ton acquired "trophies" of missing women. She asked Pickton how he got 450 pieces of women's clothing, 110 pairs of underwear, 176 pieces of jew-elry, 231 women's shoes (some sawed in half), makeup, 53 syringes, 25 human bones and a tooth.

Pickton told Evans he'd picked up lots of Vancouver women over the years.

"This list from the records would suggest to you that this man accumulated trophies or keepsakes from his victims over a considerable period of time, per-haps years?" asked Ward.

Evans replied, "Yes."

Evans agreed with Ward that if the VPD and RCMP leaders had "taken owner-ship" or responsibility for the missing women, "many women's lives may have been saved."

Ward asked: "In the case of as many as 49 women whom Robert William Pick-ton is presumed to have killed, they didn't get the opportunity to change their lives for the better because their lives were snuffed out?"

Evans replied: "I would agree."

Pickton was convicted of killing six women but boasted in jail he had killed 49 women. Evidence of 33 women's remains was found on his farm.

sfournier@theprovince.com

Robert Pickton Interview: Convicted Vancouver Serial Killers Maintained Ahead Of Public Inquiry

2012-01-18T21:39:00.000-08:00

Robert Pickton Interview: Convicted Vancouver Serial Killers Maintained Ahead Of Public Inquiry:

'via Blog this'

Deaths prevented if police took 'ownership' of Missing Women reports: Witness

2012-01-18T15:53:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 18, 2012 3:31 PM

An Ontario police chief told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry Wednesday that if B.C. police leaders had “taken ownership” of the issue, “many women’s lives may have been saved.”

Peel Regional Police deputy chief Jennifer Evans, concluded in her 2011 report to the inquiry that “the VPD and the RCMP initially failed to recognize the missing women issue. When they did identify the problem they failed to act appropriately and accept ownership.”

Evans was asked by Cameron Ward, lawyer for 25 murdered women’s families, if senior cops didn’t “take ownership” because they didn’t care or were “disengaged” or uninterested due to the victims’ social status.

“Could those deaths have been avoided had there been a recognition of the problem and had senior (police) management taken ownership much earlier?” asked Ward.

Evans agreed that “commitment” by top cops could have prevented deaths.

Ward asked: “In the case of as many as 49 women whom Robert William Pickton is presumed to have killed, they didn’t get the opportunity to change their lives for the better because their lives were snuffed out?”

Evans replied: “I would agree.”

After Pickton was finally arrested in Feb. 2002, a forensic search of his Port Coquitlam farm found the DNA of 33 missing women. Pickton, serving a life sentence for the murder of six women, boasted he had killed 49 women.

By 1999, the Vancouver police and RCMP had multiple informants and many junior officers who belived Pickton was an active serial killer.

But RCMP Project Evenhanded, set up in late 2000, stuck to reviewing files for a lengthy period in which as many as 12 women died at Pickton’s hands.

Ward asked Evans if Vancouver police and RCMP managers didn’t care about the missing sex trade workers because of their perceived low social status.

“I don’t think they understood . . . or appreciated what they had on their hands,” said Evans, which she agreed was puzzling given by 1999 the many media stories, community outcry, women’s marches and grieving families.

Evans said she found “no evidence” that police “didn’t care” about the missing women because they weren’t UBC students or missing nurses.

She did admit that a senior VPD officer dismissed the missing sex trade workers as “just hookers” and that some officers used the term “hooker task force” to describe the VPD-RCMP joint Missing Women Task Force.

Evans also agreed with Ward that of the 56 people she interviewed for her review of the Missing Women investigation, all but two were police officers.

“You didn’t speak to me, or to any of my clients who are the families of 25 murdered women?” asked Ward.

Evans admitted that also didn’t talk to anyone knowledgeable about Vancouver’s sex trade workers or any of their issues.

Evans also admitted she had many frustrations in getting police documents that she needed for her review.

“Did you feel that the VPD, and the RCMP, Canada’s national police force, would have had better files of Canada’s largest serial killer investigation?” Ward demanded.

Evans said she did not, since she once did file management for Peel police.

But she admitted she wrote “RIDICULOUS” in her own notes about RCMP excuses for not providing her in a timely manner with full disclosure.

“That must have been on one of my more frustrating days,” said Evans, who is slated to testify all this week.

Inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal has promised to conclude hearings by April and hand in his final report to government by the end of June.

Hearings take place from 9:30 a.m. to about 4:30 p.m. every weekday, in the 8th floor Federal Court at 700 West Georgia.

sfournier@theprovince.com

Missing Women Inquiry: RCMP failed to save vital Pickton documents

2012-01-18T14:48:00.001-08:00

CKNW News Talk 980 (Vancouver)
Marcella Bernardo | Email news tips to Marcella
1/18/2012

Canada’s national police force is facing more scrutiny, for failing to save documents linked to this country's largest serial murder investigation.
That revelation came during questioning today at the Missing Women Inquiry in Vancouver.
Jennifer Evans, an Ontario deputy police chief who interviewed dozens of RCMP and Vancouver Police officers last year, told Cameron Ward she was frustrated she wasn't given access to numerous documents including RCMP emails. The questioning went as follows;
'You can't prove a negative is what you're saying? Yes, but I didn't see a lot of communication from senior management. You assumed the files would be available and organized and ready to review, fair? Yes. All right and you found that wasn't the case at all? That’s correct."
The RCMP has a policy to delete all emails after 90 days.

Earlier, Evans rejected suggestions police didn't consider the missing women file a priority in the late 1990's because the victims were sex trade workers, but Ward reminded her of statements attributed to at least one senior member of the VPD.
"Quote 'they're just a bunch of hookers' it suggests senior management of the VPD was disdainful of these missing people because of who they were. 'They’re just hookers.' it's a pretty important point, isn't it? It is."
Inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal must determine if anything could have been done to catch serial killer Robert Pickton sooner than his arrest in 2002.

Ontario cop at odds with RCMP lawyer during Missing Women inquiry

2012-01-18T09:22:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 18, 2012 7:20 AM

Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans of the Peel Regional Police force testified as a witness at the Missing Women inquiry at federal court in Vancouver, B.C., on Jan. 16.

Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG

An Ontario deputy police chief on the stand at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry refused Tuesday to agree with an RCMP lawyer that there was no point in the Mounties accepting Robert Pickton’s invitation to search his farm in 1999.

Jennifer Evans, Peel Regional Police deputy chief who analyzed the police probe into Pickton, produced a 2010 report documenting that cops knew for years Pickton’s farm was rife with evidence.

Evans refused to agree with federal lawyer Cheryl Tobias that Pickton might have hidden evidence, or suddenly withdrawn permission, had RCMP Const. Ruth Yurkiw searched his farm, with his consent, in September 1999.

“We’ll never know because she never tried to search. We’ll never know what might have occurred,” replied Evans.

But in her report, Evans takes at least 50 pages to cite informant evidence that by 1999 Pickton’s farm was strewn with “trophies” such as women’s purses and identification and firearms. One woman told police she couldn’t walk across Pickton’s yard without tripping on women’s belongings.

Other informants told police Pickton slaughtered women on the farm, ground up human remains, took body parts to a rendering plant and even stored “strange” meat in freezers. All of that turned out to be true, as Evans documented.

Evans said informant Bill Hiscox told Vancouver Police Department Det. Const. Lori Shenher in 1998 that Pickton collected women’s things and “bloody clothing in bags.”

Evans took dozens of pages in her report to cite the chilling descriptions of Pickton’s grisly Port Coquitlam farm from information provided in 1999 by Pickton associate Ross Caldwell to VPD detectives Mark Lepine and Ron Chernoff.

Lynn Ellingsen, another Pickton hanger-on, told Caldwell and friend Leah Best she had seen Pickton gutting a woman in his barn, hours after they picked up the woman together on the Downtown Eastside.

Evans’s report notes that all of that information was in police hands long before Pickton issued his invitation to Yurkiw to search his farm.

Poor information sharing by police, both internally and between the VPD and Coquitlam RCMP, did not assist Yurkiw to judge what a casual search might have found, Evans noted.

In fact, Yurkiw phoned the Pickton farm in September 1999 but was told by Robert Pickton’s brother, Dave Pickton, to “come back in the rainy season” when the farm was less busy.

Pickton was not arrested until February 2002, when a rookie RCMP officer wrote up a search warrant to look for firearms on the Pickton farm.

Police immediately found missing women’s ID, medication and clothing, human remains in plastic pails in freezers, as well as packages of human flesh.

sfournier@theprovince.com

Officers never followed up on Pickton search offer, Missing Women inquiry told

2012-01-17T17:07:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 17, 2012 3:48 PM

Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans of the Peel Regional Police force testified as a witness at the Missing Women inquiry at Federal Court in Vancouver, B.C., on January 16, 2012.

Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG

VANCOUVER -- A lawyer representing the RCMP at the Missing Inquiry tried to suggest Tuesday that serial killer Robert Pickton likely would not have consented to allow police to search his farm.

And even if he did, lawyer Cheryl Tobias said, he likely wouldn't have left identification of missing women lying around.

"We'll never know because she never tried to get his consent," Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans responded at the inquiry, which is probing why it took so long to catch Pickton.

Evans was asked by the inquiry to provide an analysis of the failures of the Pickton investigationsdone by the RCMP and Vancouver police between 1997 and when Pickton was caught in 2002.

In her report, Evans was critical of an interview of Pickton done on Jan. 19, 2000, by RCMP Constables Ruth Yurkiw and John Cater.

One of the problems with the interview, Evans found, was that the officers allowed Pickton's friend, Gina Houston, to sit in on the interview and interrupt the flow of the questioning.

During the interview, Pickton was asked about an informant's claim that Pickton was seen one night butchering a woman in a barn on his Port Coquitlam farm.

Pickton, claiming he had never hurt anyone, told the officers they could search his farm and even take soil samples to search for DNA.

"I ain't got nothing to hide," Pickton said at the time.

But the officers never took Pickton up on his offer.

In her report, Evans wrote: "The worst case scenario was that Pickton would refuse them entry; the best case scenario, we will never know."

The RCMP's lawyer suggested to Evans that a consent search would only be legal if all the owners of the property -- the Pickton farm was owned by Pickton, his brother Dave and their sister -- consented.

"It would be a wise thing to do," Evans agreed about getting a written consent from all the siblings.

The RCMP lawyer, during cross-examination, tried to downplay the possibility that Pickton would have consented or have left incriminating evidence lying around for police to find.

Evans said the officers should have at least followed up and tried to get written consent for a search.

"But they didn't do anything following the interview," Evans told Commissioner Wally Oppal.

She testified that police already had "shocking" suggestions made by informants that Pickton had killed at least one woman on his farm.

"There were multiple suggestions that he was responsible for the missing women," Evans pointed out.

Evans is expected to continue her cross-examination until Friday.

On Monday, the inquiry will begin hearing the testimony of a number of current and former Vancouver police officers, tentatively scheduled in this order: Dave Dickson, Al Howlett, Doug MacKay-Dunn, Kim Rossmo, Gary Greer and Lori Shenher.

Evans testified earlier that there was a systemic communication failure that prevented the VPD and RCMP sharing information sooner.

Senior managers with the Vancouver police and the RCMP also failed to take ownership of the investigations, failed to provide proper supervision and failed to make sure there were enough human resources to do the job, she said.

On Nov. 21, 2000, a joint forces investigation involving Vancouver police and the RCMP was started but it was slow going for many months in early 2001 while investigators conducted a file review to get the full scope of the missing women problem.

Initially, it was believed the women reported missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside were historical cases but police eventually realized one or more serial killers were actively preying on women.

Evans testified that multi-jurisdictional investigations require someone with major case management training and computerized information system that can be accessed by all investigators in the region.

VPD interviewed three informants in 1998 and 1999 and passed along the shocking information to the Coquitlam RCMP, which was investigating Pickton for the alleged murders of missing women.

Coquitlam RCMP had investigated a 1997 attack of a Downtown Eastside prostitute at Pickton's farm -- the woman was stabbed several times but escaped and ran to the street to flag down a passing car.

Pickton was charged with the attempted murder and unlawful confinement but the Crown dropped the charges in 1998.

The inquiry will probe why the Crown decided to stay the charges. Pickton wasn't arrested until Feb. 5, 2002, when a rookie Mountie executed a search warrant on Pickton's home for illegal guns in an unrelated Investigation.

Police quickly discovered some identification and possessions of missing women.

Police had to return to court to get a new search warrant for a homicide investigation.

The exhaustive farm search, which took 18 months, found the DNA of 33 missing women.

Pickton, who once admitted to an undercover officer that he killed 49 women, was eventually charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder.

He was convicted at his first trial in 2007 of six murders. After Pickton exhausted all appeals, the Crown decided not to proceed on a second trial on another 20 murder counts.

nhall@vancouversun.com

Click here to read Jennifer Evans' analysis of the Robert Pickton investigations done by the RCMP and Vancouver Police

How serial killer Robert Pickton slipped away

2012-01-17T16:09:00.001-08:00

New revelations show why he was able to prey with such impunity

by Ken MacQueen on Friday, August 13, 2010

Long before Robert Pickton became an infamous household name, but years after he began prowling Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a local advocacy group conducted a survey of the city’s prostitutes. It helps explain how a simple-minded pig farmer—the very definition of the banality of evil—got away with what police now believe is the largest serial killing spree in Canadian history.

The organization, the Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education (PACE) Society, interviewed 183 sex trade workers between 1999 and 2001. It found, not surprisingly, that 58 per cent worked to support a drug habit, and that violent “bad dates” were a frequent occurrence. More than half said they had been robbed while working the streets; 39 per cent said they had been kidnapped or confined; one-third said they had survived attempts to murder them. Remarkably, 40 per cent of those who claimed to have been targets for murder said they didn’t report the incident to police. The survey found a “gulf between acts of violence suffered and acts of violence reported”—indicative of a profound distrust of authorities.

It was the perfect combination of vulnerabilities for an urban predator. Pickton cruised into the city, offered money and drugs to women working the Eastside “low track,” then drove them to the grotty, cluttered farm in suburban Port Coquitlam he shared with his brother Dave. If he was dead certain their disappearance would go unnoticed by authorities, it was with good reason. Trial information released last week shows Pickton skated on an attempted murder charge in 1997—freeing him to kill a further 21 of the more than 30 women investigators now believe were murdered and butchered at the farm.

With the Supreme Court of Canada upholding his six murder convictions and the Crown deciding not to proceed with 20 other murder charges, the courts were able to release testimony that wasn’t admitted at trial. Taken together, it helps show how Pickton was able to hunt humans with such impunity that he bragged to an undercover-police cell plant after his arrest in 2002 that he’d killed 49 women and was aiming for an even 50.

The most damning evidence jurors never heard was of a woman’s narrow escape from Pickton’s farm in 1997. She testified at the preliminary hearing he paid her $100 to accompany him to the farm for sex. She said she fought for her life after Pickton stabbed her and tried to handcuff her. Both suffered serious wounds and massive blood loss in the resulting knife fight. She escaped naked, with a handcuff dangling from a wrist.

The two were treated in adjoining operating rooms at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster.

Doctors found the key to remove the handcuffs in a pocket of Pickton’s clothing. A subsequent charge of attempted murder against him was stayed in early 1998—apparently because heavy drug use by the woman, whose name remains protected, made her an unreliable witness.

Tragically, that decision not to proceed came at enormous cost. Police now believe Pickton had killed at least five women at the farm by the time of the stabbing. All six women he was subsequently convicted of killing died after the 1997 stabbing, as well as 15 others he was charged with killing. Yet, Pickton remained above suspicion largely because of a refusal by the senior ranks of the Vancouver Police and the RCMP to believe that women were systematically being murdered. (Women like Sarah deVries, who worked the streets to feed her addiction, often railed at the indifference that met the disappearance of those around her. In one poetic diary entry she wrote: “Just another Hastings Street whore / sentenced to death / No judge, no jury, no trial, no mercy / The judge’s gavel already fallen / Sentence already passed.”)

Sadly, Pickton’s bloody clothing from the 1997 stabbing held the key, literally and figuratively, to solving both past and future murders. Police had seized the items but they weren’t tested for DNA until 2004, seven years after the stabbing and two years after Pickton’s arrest. (The results revealed the DNA of two women who vanished in early 1997, evidence kept from the jury because they were among the 20 women named in what was to be a separate trial. Nor did the jury hear that the DNA of 10 women was found in freezers in Pickton’s workshop.)

Despite the rising count of missing women, police refused to say that a serial killer was at work, or even to speculate that the women were dead. Their sluggish response has fuelled calls for an inquiry into the investigation now that the trial is over. An internal police review of the matter was forwarded to the provincial government last week.

There is much to answer for. As early as 2005 a police missing-women’s poster held the faces of 65 women (though some were found alive and others weren’t linked to Pickton). Had police seriously entertained the possibility of a serial killer, Pickton would certainly have been a prime suspect. Not only would a test of his clothing have yielded DNA of two of the women, but former Vancouver police ofﬁcer Kim Rossmo later revealed police were tipped in 1998 that Pickton had a stash of women’s purses and ID.
They lacked either the will or the manpower to check it out. The missing women’s investigation started that year with just one Vancouver detective, though it grew into a joint city-RCMP task force. That summer, Rossmo, then head of the department’s geographic profiling unit, raised the possibility of a serial killer—an idea rejected by his superiors. Police were denying the possibility of a serial killer as late as June 2001, in part, Rossmo later charged, because the women’s low social status made them a lesser priority. It wasn’t that simple, former Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell, the chief provincial coroner at the time, would later write. “We never had any bodies. We never had a crime scene.”

Pickton was finally arrested in February 2002 after a rookie RCMP officer, acting on a weapons complaint, discovered articles at the farm belonging to a missing woman. The task force was called in and began a massive search of the property. It was an overdue bit of luck that came too late for Sarah deVries. She vanished in 1998, age 28, her DNA subsequently discovered on the farm. She’s one of 20 women that a convicted serial killer will never have to answer for. No judge. No jury. No trial.

VPD missing women investigation not well organized, inquiry told

2012-01-17T12:30:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 17, 2012 11:24 AM

Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans of the Peel Regional Police force testified as a witness at the Missing Women inquiry at Federal Court in Vancouver, B.C., on January 16, 2012.

Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG

VANCOUVER - When the RCMP began a joint investigation of the missing women case in 2000, it found a large amount of material gathered by Vancouver police over the years that wasn't well organized, the Missing Women inquiry was told today.

Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans testified that one of the problems found in the VPD missing women files is that investigators didn't do enough "door knocking" to talk to potential witnesses.

"They didn't get out early enough and speak to people who should have been spoken to," Evans told the inquiry, which is probing why it took so long to catch serial killer Robert Pickton.

Evans, who previously worked on a review of the systemic problems with the police investigations of Ontario serial rapist and killer Paul Bernardo, was asked by the Missing Women inquiry to provide an analysis of the Pickton investigations done by the RCMP and the Vancouver police.

Evans now is under cross-examination by Cheryl Tobias, the federal lawyer representing the RCMP.

Evans testified earlier that there was a systemic communication failure that prevented the VPD and RCMP sharing information sooner.

VPD management also failed to take ownership of the investigation and make sure there were enough human resources provided to do the job.

In 1999, a joint forces investigation was started but it was slow going for many months in early 2000 while investigators conducted a file review to get the full scope of the missing women problem.

Initially, it was believed the women reported missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside was historical but police eventually realized one or more serial killers were still actively preying on women.

Vancouver police have recommended forming a regional police force to solve the police multi-jurisdictional communication problems experienced in the Pickton case.

In 1998 and 1999, three informants told Vancouver police that Pickton had admitted to friends that he could dispose of bodies and that he had identification and possessions of some of the missing women at his farm in Port Coquitlam.

One informant told police that he knew a woman, Lynn Ellingsen, who had been at Pickton's farm and discovered Pickton butchering a woman in a barn late one night.

VPD passed along the shocking information to the Coquitlam RCMP, which was investigating Pickton for the possible murders of missing women.

Coquitlam RCMP had investigated a 1997 attack of a Downtown Eastside prostitute at Pickton's farm -- the woman was stabbed several times but escaped and ran to the street to flag down a passing car.

Pickton was charged with the attempted murder and unlawful confinement but the Crown dropped the charges in 1998.

Police quickly discovered some identification and possessions of missing women.

Police had to return to court to get a new search warrant for a homicide investigation.

The exhaustive farm search, which took 18 months, found the DNA of 33 missing women.

Pickton, who once admitted to an undercover officer that he killed 49 women, was eventually charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder.

He was convicted at his first trial in 2007 of six murders.

After Pickton exhausted all appeals, the Crown decided not to proceed on a second trial on another 20 murder counts.

Evans is expected to continue her testimony until Friday.

Next week, a number of current and former Vancouver police officers are scheduled to testify, including Dave Dickson, Kim Rossmo, Gary Greer and Lori Shenher.

nhall@vancouversun.com

Where is Tanya Nepinak, and Canada's other missing women? | GlobalPost

2012-01-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

Where is Tanya Nepinak, and Canada's other missing women? | GlobalPost:

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Case reviewer says police brass must answer for length of Pickton's killing spree

2012-01-16T20:27:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 16, 2012 6:04 PM

Peel, Ont., Regional Chief Jennifer Evans — shown here in a 2008 file photo — told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry on Monday morning that she discovered a breakdown in communications between police forces, no system for tracking tips, and a lack of police management dedication and follow-up that allowed Robert Pickton, like Paul Bernardo to "fall through the cracks" and continue killing.

Photograph by: Daniel Ho, Mississauga News

The Ontario police chief who did a detailed review of the flawed police investigation into Robert Pickton found officers made mistakes but concluded police chiefs were ultimately responsible.

Peel, Ont. Regional Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans told the Missing Women Inquiry Monday that police managers “ultimately” must answer for how Pickton was able, for decades, to take women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside out to his Port Coquitlam farm, where dozens were slaughtered before his arrest in Feb. 2002.

Although junior Vancouver Police Department officers and Coquitlam RCMP officers shared their suspicions about Pickton with each other as early as 1998 Evans said she saw no evidence that police leaders or chiefs in either jurisdiction or force “picked up the phone”to speak to each other.

Not until 2001 was a joint task force set up and even then it was primarily a paper review.

Evans, who also did a public review of the case of Ontario rapist and murderer Paul Bernardo, testified she saw many unfortunate parallels between the Bernardo and Pickton police probes.

Evans said both murderers “travelled across multiple jurisdictions,” in Pickton’s case, between Vancouver and Coquitlam. She said in both cases there was a “breakdown in communications between police services”and “no mechanicsm for the police to track and maintain information received.”

Nor did Evans see “a system in place for consistent follow-up by (police) management.”

In her lengthy report, Evans grouped the police investigations into four main themes: lack of “recognition and ownership of the missing women issue,” by police leaders; a “breakdown in communication” both internally and between police forces, lack of leadership and resources, and poor major case management.

But Evans told Commissioner Wally Oppal that while she found evidence of mistakes by officers, she did not find any “neglect of duty, deceit, corruption” and nor was that her goal. Rather she emphasized that both Bernardo and Pickton “fell through the cracks” and were able to keep killing women due to “systemic weaknesses and the inability of law enforcement agencies to pool information.”

In fact, Evans noted that a young, objective student hired in 2001 to summarize police files on the burgeoning “missing women” issue in Vancouver, was the first to warn that there appeared to be not only multiple historic murders but that a serial killer existed, and he very likely was still active.

Student Brian Oger, 22, asked “a very important question,” noted Evans. He asked “What if the serial killer who we thought was dominant, dead, or in jail, is still out and about, killing at will?”

Evans said she thought Oger’s report was “compelling” and articulate, but also “well-intentioned and written not as criticism but to raise attention to the magnitude of the problem.” Oger said he was writing his report not to leak to the media or bludgeon police for past mistakes, but to push for action.

However, Oger was ignored, at least until his report was later leaked to the media and police insisted on polygraphing Oger. He was insulted and the polygraph confirmed he was not the leak.

Meanwhile, other compelling tips and even an eyewitness, Lynn Ellingsen, had surfaced but leaders in both the VPD and RCMP did not agree on how to proceed and how to keep tabs on the growing body of information.

One RCMP officer thought Ellingsen should be arrested as a suspect and compelled to undergo a polygraphy after she “blew off” police interrogators and denied what she had told three individuals. Those three people all went to police to tell them Ellingsen had graphically described seeing Pickton butcher a woman hanging from a hook in his Port Coquitlam barn.

But it wasn’t until Feb., 2002 that an astute but junior RCMP Cst. Nathan Wells wrote up a firearms search warrant to get police onto the Pickton farm and multiple pieces of evidence of the missing and murdered women were soon discovered.

Evans, a career police officer, denied Vancouver lawyer Cameron Ward’s suggestion that the police investigation was stymied by a “culture of sexism and misogyny” in both the VPD and the RCMP.

“I saw no evidence of that,” Evans replied.

Evans also denied that she saw any evidence that police officers considered the dozens of missing Vancouver sex trade workers as “throwaways” or not worthy of a well-resourced and thorough police investigation.

sfournier@theprovince.com

A. Cameron Ward Barristers and Solicitors » MWCI: More lawyers appear

2012-01-16T19:13:00.000-08:00

A. Cameron Ward Barristers and Solicitors » MWCI: More lawyers appear:
This morning, there were five new lawyers in the room as the Commission anticipated hearing the testimony of Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans.
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Failures of Pickton investigation similar to Bernardo probe, inquiry told

2012-01-16T16:16:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 16, 2012 2:32 PM

Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans of the Peel Regional Police force testified as a witness at the Missing Women inquiry at Federal Court in Vancouver, B.C., on January 16, 2012.

Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG

VANCOUVER - There was a systemic communication breakdown between the RCMP and Vancouver police in the investigation of serial killer Robert Pickton, the Missing Women investigation was told today.

And it was similar to the systemic failure in the investigation of Ontario serial killer Paul Bernardo, testified Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans.

Senior police managers of Vancouver police and the RCMP also failed to take ownership of the investigations and make sure enough resources were devoted, Evans testified.

"There was a breakdown in communication at the management level, which is not good for an organization," she told Commissioner Wally Oppal.

She said the management failure began in the VPD Missing Person unit, which had no senior management overseeing the unit and providing supervision.

And it continued on through the Vancouver police investigation and the subsequent RCMP investigation.

She said senior police managers should have been properly supervising the investigation to make sure it was moving forward.

Instead, the investigation became stalled at times. Evans said.

She pointed out that two VPD detectives were showing photos to women working the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and the women identified Pickton as frequenting the area.

But that information wasn't being shared with other investigators, she said.

"I think it is so critical for investigation teams to share information," Evans told the inquiry.

She said Bernardo was a multi-jurisdictional rapist and killer, so that investigation had similar problems of failing to share information between police forces.

She said police managers should have ensured information was being shared in the Pickton investigation.

She suggested Vancouver's police chief could have picked up the phone and called chiefs of neighbouring jurisdictions to form partnerships.

"Police leaders need to be accountable not only for their authority but for the community they serve," Evans said.

At one point, she found that then Vancouver police major crime Insp. Fred Biddlecomb's conduct was unprofessional when he chastized another officer in front of other officers, including RCMP members.

Evans said commanding officers in the VPD needed to fully understand the missing women problem and make sure investigators had enough resources and tools to do the job.

She said Biddlecomb, Insp. Gary Greer and Deputy Chief Brian McGuinness should have been having better communication to keep senior management full informed of the problem, Evans said.

She found the lack of leadership and police oversight was "inexcusable."

Evans also found in the RCMP file a mention in April 2000 by an officer who said that if Pickton was eventually found to be a serial killer, there would be a public inquiry.

At the time, the RCMP's investigation of Pickton had stalled. It was not considered a top priority and tasks were set out but were not completed, Evans found.

For example, police surveillance followed Pickton to West Coast Reduction in east Vancouver but no one followed up and investigated what was in the barrels that Pickton was observed dumping at the rendering plant.

An informant had told police that Pickton bragged that he used a meat grinder to get rid of bodies.

Another informant said he was told by a woman who had been on Pickton's farm when she saw Pickton butchering a woman's body in a barn at the Pickton farm in Port Coquitlam.

Evans testified that one of the most compelling documents in the police file was written by a 22-year-old data entry summer student in August 2001, when he suggested Pickton was a serial killer was responsible for women still going missing.

The inquiry is probing why it took so long to catch Pickton, who was arrested on Feb. 5, 2002.

Cross-examined by lawyer Cameron Ward, who is representing 25 families of murdered and missing women, Evan was asked if the reason why the Pickton case wasn't investigated sooner was because the missing women were seen by male police managers as disposable because they were only "hookers."

"No, I saw no evidence of that," she said.

Ward suggested the investigation was affected by a male-dominated police culture of sexism and misogyny.

"I saw no evidence of that," Evans replied.

A number of senior lawyers turned up this morning at the Missing Women inquiry to represent senior Mounties and members of the Vancouver police.

The lawyers appeared at the inquiry in anticipation of Evans' testimony.

Evans was asked by the inquiry to review the Pickton investigations done by the Vancouver police and RCMP.

Before she began her testimony today, Richard Peck appeared at the inquiry and told Commissioner Wally Oppal that he was representing the interests of Gary Bass, the former commanding officer of the RCMP in B.C.

Lawyer David Butcher also appeared for Brock Giles, a former Vancouver police staff sergeant.

"I'm not ready to cross-examine the witness this week," Butcher told Oppal.

The lawyer said he first wanted to hear the testimony of Evans.

Lawyer Ravi Hira told Oppal he was representing Earl Moulton, the former RCMP inspector who oversaw the Pickton investigation by the Coquitlam RCMP in 1998 and 1999.

Former Vancouver police inspector Gary Greer also has retained a lawyer to represent him at the inquiry.

Greer was involved in overseeing the missing women investigation and the handling of three informants who suggested in 1998 and 1999 that Pickton had killed one or more women at his Port Coquitlam farm.

Vancouver police passed along the information to the Coquitlam RCMP to investigate possible murders taking place at the Pickton farm.

Pickton once confided he killed 49 women and planned to kill more.

He was convicted in 2007 of six counts of murder.

After Pickton exhausted all appeals, the Crown decided not to proceed on a second trial on another 20 murder counts.

nhall@vancouversun.com

Police chief cites serial-killer similarities between Robert Pickton and Paul Bernardo

2012-01-16T11:42:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 16, 2012 11:07 AM

Peel, Ont., Regional Chief Jennifer Evans — shown here in a 2008 file photo — told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry on Monday morning that she discovered a breakdown in communications between police forces, no system for tracking tips, and a lack of police management dedication and follow-up that allowed Robert Pickton, like Paul Bernardo to "fall through the cracks" and continue killing.

Photograph by: Daniel Ho, Mississauga News

An Ontario police chief who reviewed the police investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton says she sees many strong similarities between the Pickton case and that of notorious serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo.

Peel, Ont., Regional Chief Jennifer Evans told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry on Monday morning that she discovered a breakdown in communications between police forces, no system for tracking tips, and a lack of police management dedication and follow-up that allowed Pickton, like Bernardo to "fall through the cracks" and continue killing.

Evans was asked by the Missing Women Inquiry to review the police investigation of Pickton, just as she reviewed the Bernardo case in Ontario, after both were convicted and serving life sentences. Her evidence Monday has been much-anticipated, as Evans was given unprecedented access to all members of the Vancouver Police Department or RCMP whom she determined should be interviewed.

"In hindsight, it appears easy to see a clear parth to Pickton," Evans concluded in her report. She reiterated on the stand this morning that having the advantage of looking back at a serial-killer investigation is much easier than getting the police resources and ability to recognize a still-active murderer at work, especially if that predator crosses police boundaries, as did Pickton.

Pickton trolled for women starting in the late 1980s on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, where most of his victims worked in the survival sex trade and were heavily addicted to drugs. He took them back to his farm, plied them with free drugs and alcohol, and eventually killed them. Convicted of killing six women, Pickton boasted in jail that he had killed 49 women and butchered them on his farm, disposing of remains at an eastside Vancouver rendering plant. In fact, many human remains were found in an exhaustive search of the farm after Pickton was finally arrested in February, 2002.

In her lengthy and detailed report, which is filed with the inquiry as an exhibit, available for public scrutiny, Evans concluded that "my review of the investigations has revealed the difficulties that existed for police were delayed reporting, a lack of traditional physical evidence and a misunderstanding of the lifestyle of the victims [which] failed to prompt immediate police action."

Evans, a career police officer with a firm but quiet demeanour, is anticipated to be on the stand at the inquiry all this week. The inquiry, before Commissioner Wally Oppal, is conducting hearings until the end of April. Oppal has pledged to hand in his final report to the B.C. government by the end of June.

Evans' appearance at the inquiry this morning has prompted a full battery of high-profile lawyers, such as Richard Peck, David Crossin, David Butcher and Kevin Waddell, acting for individual members of the VPD as well as the force itself.

More to come...

Reposted: The surprises continue

2012-01-14T11:17:00.001-08:00

MWCI: The surprises continue

January 13, 2012 in Missing Women Commision of Inquiry, Opinion

Today, Janet L. Winteringham, Q.C. appeared at the hearing to cross-examine RCMP Superintendent Robert Williams. Ms. Winteringham indicated that she represents Don Adam, who is not a participant with standing, but a witness expected to testify at some later date. She proceeded with her questions for the witness after the Commissioner overruled our objection that it would be inappropriate and time-consuming to permit every interested witness or their counsel to cross-examine other witnesses. A few minutes later we learned for the first time that Kim Rossmo will be taking the stand a week Monday, January 23, 2012. The next of the day’s surprises arrived in the form of an email circulated at 1:46 p.m. today by Edward L. Greenspan, Q.C. advising that he planned to cross-examine the next witness, Peel Deputy Chief Evans, for two hours. This was my first inkling that the eminent Toronto lawyer is involved in this matter at all, and I immediately sent all counsel an email asking who he is representing. I am awaiting somebody’s response, but if I don’t get one, I guess I’ll find out next week.

As counsel representing the families of 25 murdered women before the Commission, it would be helpful if we were kept informed of developments like these in a more timely way, rather than continually being taken by surprise by unexpected procedural developments.

posted by Cameron Ward

http://www.cameronward.com/2012/01/mwci-the-surprises-continue/

Missing Women Inquiry: Brother of Pickton victim calls on RCMP to apologize | The Vancouver Observer

2012-01-13T22:44:00.000-08:00

Missing Women Inquiry: Brother of Pickton victim calls on RCMP to apologize | The Vancouver Observer:

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Sketches express softer side of missing women

2012-01-13T21:46:00.001-08:00

http://www.missingpeople.net/1998/sketches_express_softer_side_of.htm

A group of artists has created images of Willy Pickton's alleged victims that reveal real women behind their grim mug shots

Lori Culbert
Vancouver Sun

Saturday, December 17, 2005

It was the sad faces, the dishevelled hair, and the startled eyes of the women missing from the Downtown Eastside that bothered Tennessee artist Todd Matthews.

Those grim police mug shots were the only photographs the public have seen of many of the 27 women Port Coquitlam pig farmer Robert (Willy) Pickton is accused of murdering.

Artist Todd Matthews works on a sketch of Sarah de Vries. Matthew's group Project Edan has sketched 27 original pictures of Robert Pickton's alleged victims.

RYCK KALONICK/SPECIAL TO THE VANCOUVER SUN

In them, the women look tired, scared and worn-down -- a reflection, most likely, of difficult lifestyles that often involved drug addiction and prostitution.

The pictures were not, Matthews thought, a true reflection of the women's inner spirits: they didn't reveal that these women were mothers, sisters and aunts, with families, friends and unfulfilled dreams.

The mug shots sent a message that the women were photographed by police for doing something wrong, and Matthews believed it was important for them to be viewed in a more positive light.

"I think people were seeing a criminal rather than a victim," he said in an interview from his home near Nashville. "I think they were discounted. If they had been 20-something soccer moms, what [public reaction] do you think would have happened?"

Matthews is the founder of Project EDAN (Everybody Deserves A Name), a U.S. group of certified forensic sketch artists who donate their time to make facial reconstructions of unidentified victims for small- and medium-sized police agencies without budgets to hire artists.

Matthews, who has a passion for unsolved crimes and was instrumental in helping police solve the 30-year-old Kentucky "tent girl" murder case, is also media director for the Doe Network, which has volunteers worldwide and profiles hundreds of missing people and unidentified bodies on its Internet site.

On an online cold cases chat group, Matthews met former Vancouver resident Wayne Leng, who was a friend of Sarah de Vries, one of the city's missing women. Leng, who now lives in California, has established a website dedicated to the more than 60 women who have disappeared from Vancouver's gritty Downtown Eastside since the late 1970s, including Pickton's alleged victims.

Matthews saw the pictures displayed on Leng's website, and put out a request to the members of Project EDAN to volunteer their time to create drawings of the women.

He wanted their hair styled nicely and a "Mona Lisa" smile on their lips -- to reflect a happier time.

"I wanted them to have a little touch of pleasantry, because the images -- the mug shots -- it was obviously a very bad point in their lives," Matthews said.

"I just thought it was so sad to leave it like that."

To his surprise, six artists, in addition to himself, were quick to volunteer their time.

The vast majority of the Project EDAN members do not work in law enforcement -- the sketches they do for the police are done on a volunteer basis in their space time.

But Wesley Neville, a lieutenant with the Florence County sheriff's office in South Carolina, is a unique member of the group.

He works full-time for a police agency, doing composite drawings, facial reconstruction with clay, and age-progression sketches of missing children.

He said his volunteer work for Project EDAN -- including drawing 11 of Vancouver's missing women -- allows him to use his artistic talent to give back to society.

"It feels good inside, especially on a project like this," Neville said in a telephone interview.

He based his sketches on the police mug shots, as well as other photos of the women he found posted on Web sites by media outlets, relatives or friends.

Neville's technique was to imagine how the women would have looked when they were happy, healthy and safe.

"I saw through the damage that had been done physically to them. It's obvious their diets were bad, and drugs had taken their toll on some of them. I pretty much take that out -- it's like an age-regression," he said.

"I wanted to try to make them look as lifelike as possible, in a more innocent time."

The sketches by the Project EDAN volunteers are being unveiled for the first time in today's Vancouver Sun. They include drawings of 25 of the 27 alleged Pickton victims. (One victim is unidentified, so she could not be sketched, and the other is not included because her mother requested the picture not be published.)

The drawings in today's newspaper also include sketches of two women, Dawn Crey and Yvonne Boen, whose DNA was found on the Pickton farm, but police say there was not enough evidence to lay murder charges in those cases.

The men championing this project, Matthews and Leng, spoke to a couple of the victims' families about the sketches, but they didn't seek permission to do them -- arguing they were created for the women themselves.

"When Todd first came to me with the idea, I thought, 'Wow, this is fantastic,'" Leng said in a telephone interview.

"[The sketches] takes them away from that mug shot . . . . A lot of people do only see them as an addict and a prostitute. They don't see that this is a real human being. They just look at the ruggedness of what's happened to them on the Downtown Eastside."

Leng said he is sorry one mother didn't like her daughter's sketch, but said he hopes others will be moved by the artists' efforts.

"These sketches are for these women," Leng said. "I think they present [the women] in a beautiful light, as to the way they really were."

The drawings will be posted on his website (www.missingpeople.net), and he hopes they'll eventually be used at a permanent memorial in Vancouver as the city prepares for Pickton's lengthy murder trial, expected to start next year.

Leng searched doggedly for his friend, de Vries, before police announced her DNA had been found on Pickton's farm. He speaks frequently to her mother, Pat de Vries, but hadn't mentioned the sketches to her.

However, in a phone interview from her home in Guelph, Ont., Pat de Vries said the drawings could only be an improvement over the mug shots often published in newspapers.

"I think it's a really nice idea. Those photos were really ugly of some of those women -- unnecessarily so," de Vries said.

Leng had mentioned the sketches to Jack Cummer, the grandfather of Andrea Joesbury. He hasn't seen his granddaughter's sketch when contacted last week by the Sun, but believes the intention behind them is good.

"I thought it was fantastic, if they were painting the inner-picture rather than the picture of the one that was on the [police missing person] poster," Cummer said from his home in Nanaimo.

"They weren't drug-addicted hookers. They were warm individuals and they were somebody's darling."

Cummer said Joesbury, one of the first women Pickton was charged with murdering after his arrest in February 2002, often had a Mona Lisa smile on her face.

Of the seven Project EDAN volunteers who drew the sketches, only one is Canadian: Charlaine Michaelis from Sudbury, Ont.

"This particular group of women were so underexposed in the media, in my opinion. It was just such a joy for me to do it," said Michaelis, who has been a graphic artist for 25 years and recently did artwork for the new Disney movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

She scanned the pictures of the women sent to her by Matthews, and chose to sketch Georgina Papin -- "her face jumped out at me" -- but had only the police mug shot to work from.

Her technique, Michaelis said, was based partly on science and partly on intuition.

"I spent a lot of time examining the photo, looking at the underlying muscle structure to see how the face falls, and then I try to imagine how it would look if that action were reversed -- if she were smiling," she said.

Then, Michaelis watched herself in the mirror, analyzing how her face changed from a frown to a smile.

"Once I had that idea of how the muscles were working, I translated that onto her features," she recalled.

Michaelis said she was solely motivated to provide Papin with a better picture of herself, but added she hopes the woman's family will get some peace from the sketch.

"I would hope they'll think, 'Yeah that's the girl we remember before she got into her situation.'"

Matthews agrees.

"It's sort of like a Christmas gift for the families," he said.

lculbert@png.canwest.com

SKETCHES
Sketches express softer side of missing women

Courtesy of
The Vancouver Sun

Children of Vancouver's missing women

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The Vancouver Sun
Pain in the faces

Two years before Pickton arrest with four witnesses, Insp. Earl Moulton said officers had to work on other files.

2012-01-13T17:49:00.001-08:00

Opinion: Exasperated missing women’s commissioner has to rein in the lawyers

2012-01-13T16:39:00.001-08:00

BY IAN MULGREW, VANCOUVER SUN COLUMNIST DECEMBER 30, 2011

Missing Women inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal at a community forum in Vancouvers' Downtown Eastside on Jan. 19, 2011.

Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann, PNG files

Missing Women Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal faces a serious hurdle this New Year: His inquiry is taking too long and the legal manoeuvring is threatening its credibility.

When the former attorney-general was appointed in September 2010 to determine what went wrong with the investigation and initial prosecution of serial killer Robert Pickton, the provincial government wanted a report by the end of 2011.

That was overly ambitious.

Oppal was granted a six-month extension by Victoria but after roughly two months of public hearings even he is exasperated.

“You know we can’t go on forever,” he complained at one point, all but throwing up his hands at the demands from the platoon of participating lawyers.

He engaged in a nasty exchange over calling more witnesses with Cameron Ward, who represents some of the families of Pickton’s victims.

Oppal said no, much to Ward’s displeasure.

One of his clients, a parent, snapped that Oppal might be a respected jurist and ex-cabinet minister but he was “full of s---.”

And this was to be a healing process?

During the holiday break, hopefully, Oppal’s staff was searching for a much-needed solution to this unseemly stasis.

Oppal must wrest control of the proceedings back from the lawyers with their oath-driven, court-nurtured bad habits.

This is not a trial, it need not proceed like a trial — Oppal can be creative. Why can’t some of the witnesses come forward, tell their stories and answer a few questions as best they can without the legal rigmarole?

Too many lawyers think their job is to get someone in the box and interrogate them until they say what’s wanted or until everyone gets so bored no one can remember what the issue is.

It’s an epidemic within the profession where timelines are hypothetical, presentation estimates not even rough guesses and the word “urgent” all but unknown.

For some, we’ve already seen that this inquiry is an opportunity to grandstand and command attention.

That’s what we’ve seen so far with the treatment of Vancouver Deputy Police Chief Doug LePard. His performance exhibited both what this inquiry can achieve, and what it threatens to become.

LePard changed his tune in his testimony and the public needed to hear that.

Until now, he and the department staunchly defended its performance.

On the stand, however, LePard explained and made manifest what was between the lines of his report on the Pickton case and he agreed with many criticisms — the VPD acted in a racist and indifferent manner to the disappearances of the women, many of them aboriginals, and the entire chain of command was culpable.

But he was also subjected to interminable cross-examination and too much theatrical disrespect.

Oppal made a mistake allowing a lawyer to spend hour-after-hour asking irrelevant questions about a make-believe search warrant and a charge police never considered laying, “kidnapping by fraud.”

It was surreal, and Oppal cannot permit any more of it.

Pickton was arrested in February 2002 after a hellish murder spree that lasted four years longer than it should have.

The public has been waiting for a decade to learn why he eluded both the VPD and the RCMP and why attempted murder charges and several specific tips did not lead to the end of his heinous activities.

Oppal has survived a storm of opposition to get the inquiry this far; it would be a great tragedy if he were unable to bring it to a reasonable and timely conclusion.

Still, a report by June 30?

At this rate, unless he reins in the lawyers, it won’t be June 2012.

imulgrew@vancouversun.com

Pickton could have been caught sooner

2012-01-13T16:23:00.001-08:00

by The Canadian Press - Jan 11, 2012 / 7:45 pm

Supt. Bob Williams attends the missing women inquiry in Vancouver, B.C. Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012. Williams testified at the inquiry into the Robert Pickton case Wednesday and is expected to be at the inquiry for the rest of the week. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

A senior Mountie who reviewed the force's investigation of Robert Pickton acknowledged Wednesday that it's possible the serial killer would have been caught sooner if officers had done things differently.

But Supt. Bob Williams, who authored an internal review of the force's work on the Pickton file, was quick to offer explanations for many of the criticisms levelled at RCMP investigators, suggesting at a public inquiry there were no major mistakes.

Williams, then an inspector working in Alberta, wrote a report in 2002 in response to a civil lawsuit filed by relatives of Pickton's victims.

The 28-page document offered a relatively positive review of the force's investigation, concluding officers acted appropriately and wouldn't do anything differently if they had to do it over again.

A decade later, Williams revised his assessment slightly, conceding there was "room for improvement."

"Do you concede that if some of those things had been changed, Pickton might have been arrested sooner?" asked commission lawyer Art Vertlieb.

"Perhaps," replied Williams.

That careful answer appears to be the closest anyone from the RCMP has come to acknowledging there were deficiencies in the way the force handled its investigation of Pickton in the late 1990s and early 2000s, first on its own in Port Coquitlam and then as part of a joint investigation with the Vancouver police.

In contrast, the Vancouver police has offered a number of apologies, including at the ongoing inquiry, and released an extensive internal report in 2010 that identified problems within the Vancouver department and the RCMP.

Vertlieb walked Williams through a list of alleged mistakes that others have suggested hampered the RCMP's investigation and allowed Pickton to kill sex workers for years until he was finally caught.

In nearly every instance, Williams said he would have done things differently if he was involved in the case, but rejected Vertlieb's characterization that officers made "mistakes."

For example, several tipsters contacted the Vancouver police and the RCMP in the late 1990s claiming an associate of Pickton's named Lynn Ellingsen told them she saw Pickton skinning a prostitute in a barn on his farm on Port Coquitlam, east of Vancouver.

The RCMP contacted Ellingsen, but she denied ever telling the story. After initially agreeing to take a polygraph test, Ellingsen changed her mind. Investigators believed her, and discounted the informants.

Williams said he would have done more to determine whether Ellingsen was telling the truth and to convince her to co-operate with police and take the lie-detector test.

"That's my opinion of what I would have done, I don't know if I would say it was a mistake or not," Williams told the inquiry. "That was the determination made by the investigative team at that particular time."

Ellingsen later became a star witness for the Crown at Pickton's trial, and told jurors about the time she walked in on Pickton killing a sex worker.

In September 1999, when investigators decided they wanted to interview Pickton, his brother Dave asked them to wait until after the rainy season. The officers agreed, and didn't interview Pickton until January 2000.

Williams said it's not what he would have done, but: "I wouldn't say it was a mistake."

There was one problem with that interview, said Williams, because officers allowed Pickton's friend, Gina Houston, to sit in and watch.

"Is that a mistake?" asked Vertlieb.

"I would say so," said Williams, who still appeared willing to give the officers the benefit of the doubt.

"If you make every effort to remove that other person but there was no other way (to conduct the interview) then perhaps you might let them, but if you ever allowed that, then you would have to set the ground rules. Personally, I wouldn't have allowed it."

In August 1999, a surveillance team followed Pickton to a meat rendering plant and watched him drop off several metal drums, but officers never got out of their vehicles to see what was in the drums. Days earlier, an informant told Vancouver police Pickton was disposing of bodies by bringing them to an unidentified rendering plant.

Williams would have had a look, but he told the inquiry not to blame the officers who didn't.

What about the disagreement between officers involved in the case about whether there were enough staff dedicated to the file?

That's just a matter of opinion, Williams said, pointing out that some members of the investigative team felt they had adequate resources.

In 2001, a corporal with the RCMP visited the Port Coquitlam farm and interviewed Pickton without telling anyone involved in the investigation or bringing another officer along.

That was surprising, acknowledged Williams, but "he obviously had a reason for going there."

Pickton wasn't arrested until 2002, when a junior officer who wasn't involved in the missing women investigation obtained a search warrant for a tip about illegal firearms. He brought members of the missing women investigation with him to the farm, where they immediately stumbled upon the butchered remains and discarded belongings of missing women, setting off a massive search of the farm.

Pickton was eventually convicted of six counts of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no parole for at least 25 years.

The remains or DNA of 33 women were found on his farm, and he claimed to have killed 49.

The Canadian Press

Coquitlam Mounties should have asked sooner for help on Pickton, inquiry told

2012-01-13T15:46:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 13, 2012 12:19 PM

RCMP Supt. Bob Williams leaves courtroom for lunch break after testifying at the missing women's inquiry in Vancouver, B.C. on January 11, 2012.

Photograph by: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER -- The Coquitlam RCMP should have asked for help sooner from Vancouver police to investigate allegations that serial killer Robert Pickton was killing women on his Port Coquitlam farm, a senior Mountie testified today.

Alberta RCMP Supt. Bob Williams told the Missing Women inquiry that not enough "resources," meaning officers, were assigned to the investigation by April 18, 2000.

He said the Coquitlam RCMP detachment was very busy with other homicides and investigated Pickton when it could, but should have asked for more detectives from RCMP headquarters in B.C.

"They would investigate, stop and would go to another priority, stop and go back to the Pickton investigation," Williams told inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal, who is probing why it took so long to catch Pickton, who admitted he killed 49 women.

"I would have sought resources from wherever, including the Vancouver police department."

Williams was asked in 2002 to do an "external review" of the RCMP investigation of Pickton to prepare for lawsuits filed by families of Pickton's victims, who believe police didn't do enough to solve the case and allowed Pickton to continue killing until his arrest on Feb. 5, 2002.

The witness agreed under cross-examination by lawyer Tim Dickson, representing Vancouver police, that little was done by the RCMP after two officers interviewed Pickton in January 2000, when Pickton denied killing anyone but offered to allow police to search his farm, which was never done.

A joint forces operation with Vancouver police, code-named Project Evenhanded, didn't begin until Nov. 21, 2000.

But Evenhanded spent many months reviewing paper files and trying to determine whether Pickton was linked to three other serial murders in the Fraser Valley.

Police eventually learned Pickton's DNA didn't match the forensic evidence from the Valley Murders, Williams said.

Police also began looking at other suspects, with the suspect pool eventually reaching a peak of 60 men, which took considerable time, he said.

Williams, however, said there was no negligence on the part of the RCMP or Vancouver police, saying it was a difficult investigation, given the circumstances -- police had no bodies, only information from three informants who told Vancouver police that Pickton had killed one or more women at his farm.

In a surprise move today, lawyer Janet Winteringham appeared at the inquiry to cross-examine Williams.

She told the inquiry she is representing Don Adam, the retired RCMP officer who was team commander of the joint forces Pickton investigation.

Adam, who is expected to testify later at the inquiry, interrogated Pickton and got him to make incriminating statements following his arrest in 2002.

Neil Chantler, who is co-counsel for the families of 25 murdered and missing women, objected to Winteringham being allowed to question Williams.

He said the inquiry has imposed time constraints on lawyers to question witnesses and he was concerned that each of the 42 witnesses might have lawyers appear to represent them.

"Has there been notice of misconduct?" Oppal asked commission counsel Art Vertlieb.

"That's confidential," Vertlieb replied.

The inquiry took a short break so Vertlieb could discuss the matter with Chantler.

When the inquiry resumed, Oppal said he would allow Winteringham to question the witness because of allegations made at the inquiry.

Under questioning by Winteringham, Williams agreed that the RCMP offered to assist Vancouver police to review the missing women files when the VPD investigation was in its infancy, but the VPD never took the RCMP up on its offer.

At the time Project Evenhanded began, Williams said, Adam and others believed that more than one serial killer was operating in Vancouver.

"Yes, they believed there were two serial killers operating in Vancouver," said the witness, who finished his testimony before noon today.

On Monday, the inquiry will hear the evidence of Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans, who was asked by the inquiry to review the Pickton investigations done by the RCMP and Vancouver police.

nhall@vancouversun.com

Coquitlam Mounties should have asked sooner for help on Pickton, inquiry told

2012-01-13T13:37:00.000-08:00

Coquitlam Mounties should have asked sooner for help on Pickton, inquiry told

MWCI: Families apply for additional witnessess

2012-01-13T11:21:00.001-08:00

MWCI: Families apply for additional witnesses

January 13, 2012 in Missing Women Commision of Inquiry, News

On December 14, 2011, we made oral submissions in support of an application, on behalf of the the 25 families of missing and murdered women we represent, to have additional witnesses appear at the hearings. The Commission directed that we make submissions in writing and the hearing adjourned for the day at 11:37 a.m. The transcript of the morning’s proceedings is here.

On December 23, 2011, we delivered our written submissions and are awaiting a ruling. The witnesses we are seeking to add to the witness list includes civilians like informants Bill Hiscox, Ross Caldwell and Lynn Ellingsen, who told the police as early as July 1998 that Robert William Pickton was responsible for the disappearances and deaths of the women, Pickton’s brother David, who lived on the property where the women’s remains and DNA was found, Bev Hyacinthe, a long time Pickton family friend who worked in the RCMP’s Coquitlam detachment. It includes police officers like RCMP Cst. Ted vanOverbeek, a key member of “Project Evenhanded” who received information about Pickton’s complicity a years before he was apprehended, and RCMP Cst. Nathan Wells, who executed the search warrant on February 5, 2002 that led to Pickton’s arrest and subsequent conviction of six of the murders. There are also a couple of senior officials on the list, then Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh and current RCMP Commissioner Robert Paulson, who worked on the missing women investigations while a sergeant in British Columbia.

The Commission is currently hearing the testimony of Supt. Robert Williams from Alberta, the second of three police “armchair quarterbacks” who weren’t involved in the investigations, but merely reviewed them later. Next week, Peel Deputy Police Chief Jennifer Evans is scheduled to testify.

…..

The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry was established by Attorney General Mike de Jong on September 29, 2010 and its terms of reference oblige it to inquire into the Crown’s January 27,1998 decision to stay serious criminal charges against Pickton and the conduct of the police missing women investigations prior to February 5, 2002. It was directed to submit its report by December 31, 2011. The Commission commenced evidentiary hearings on October 11, 2011 and was subsequently granted a deadline extension to June 30, 2012. The Commission has not yet called any police or Crown witnesses who were involved in the matters under review.

posted by Cameron Ward

Pickton victims’ families decry ‘hurtful’ police testimony at Missing Women Inquiry

2012-01-13T09:48:00.001-08:00

STEPHANIE LAW
VANCOUVER – From Friday’s Globe and Mail
Published Friday, January 13, 2012

The Missing Women Inquiry has been nothing but disappointing and insensitive, family members of Robert Pickton’s victims say.

Michele Pineault, whose daughter was killed by Robert Pickton, said it was like “a slap in the face” when an RCMP officer who reviewed the investigation referred to police errors in the case as “unfortunate” at Thursday’s hearing.

“Certainly, ... there were areas of mis-investigation that we could have expanded on further in certain areas,” RCMP Superintendent Robert Williams said when asked if he was in a position to apologize for the force’s failings in the case. “But as far as for any apology, it’s unfortunate what has happened has happened, but I would think that management of the division would be more knowledgeable with respect to that, and I would defer to them.”

Ms. Pineault said Supt. William’s use of “unfortunate” in connection with the Pickton murders and investigation was disrespectful. “That’s what you’d say if you stubbed your toe or missed an appointment,” she said. “What it is is a horrific tragedy, not unfortunate. It’s like a slap in the face. It’s hurtful.”

Ms. Pineault’s daughter, Stephanie Lane, died 14 years ago Thursday.

Supt. Williams, who heads crime operations in Alberta, reviewed the RCMP’s Pickton investigation in 2002, after a request from victims’ families. He concluded in his November, 2002, report that the RCMP acted appropriately.

Ms. Pineault and other victims’ family members are hoping the inquiry will start hearing soon from the officers who were involved in the Pickton investigation, not those who weren’t, such as Supt. Williams.

“If you want to know about World War II, are you going to talk to someone who writes history books?” asked Lori-Ann Ellis, sister-in-law of victim Cara Ellis. “No, you’re going to talk to the soldiers from the trenches.”

Ms. Ellis said she was happy to hear from expert witnesses such as Dr. John Lowman last year, because they “painted a picture that needed to be painted” of the women’s lives in the Downtown Eastside. “But now, we want to hear from the police who turned the other way when our girls were being murdered.

“I want to know why it is that they can go look in the mirror every day and know that the blood of our daughters, and sisters, and mothers are in their hands,” she said, “and they can just put a smile on their face, and carry on as if nothing happened?”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/pickton-victims-families-decry-hurtful-police-testimony-at-missing-women-inquiry/article2301511/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2301511

Mountie on 'social visit' told Pickton informants on his trail

2012-01-12T22:40:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, POSTMEDIA NEWS JANUARY 12, 2012 6:44 PM

RCMP Supt. Bob Williams leaves courtroom for lunch break after testifying at the missing women's inquiry in Vancouver, B.C. on January 11, 2012.

Photograph by: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER — An RCMP officer who paid a "social visit" alone to Robert Pickton in 2001 tipped the pig farmer that two informants had accused Pickton of "killing people and doing all sorts of horrible things."

But RCMP Supt. Bob Williams refused to say on the stand at the Missing Women Inquiry Thursday if naming those informants put their lives at risk or undermined what was still an active serial-murder investigation.

Williams interviewed the officer, Cpl. Frank Henley, for his 2002 report on whether the Mounties could be liable for civil lawsuit compensation to the families of women murdered by Pickton.

"Snitches are not welcome in the criminal underworld, in fact they are probably often killed?" demanded lawyer Jason Gratl, a lawyer acting for Downtown Eastside aboriginal and women's groups.

Pressed by Gratl to say if revealing sources was a "breach of discipline . . . or a firing offence," Williams, the first senior Mountie to take the stand, protested, "that's going pretty far."

Williams testified that one of Henley's reasons for his "visit" to Pickton may have been that the Mountie might have been curious, "trying to get a handle on what makes him (Pickton) tick, that sort of thing."

Williams noted Henley also visited Pickton "on his mistaken belief that the police investigation (into Pickton as a serial killer) had shut down."

Aside from curiosity, Williams was at a loss to account for Henley, protesting "it would be better if he explained his reasons" to the inquiry.

Henley gave Pickton the names of informants Ross Caldwell and Lynn Ellingsen, whose eyewitness evidence later helped convict Pickton.

Pickton was at the time of Henley's visit a key focus of the joint RCMP-Vancouver police Missing Women Task Force.

Asked if Henley's perceptions were "odd," Williams shot back: "There's lots of oddities in this investigation."

Williams, a 44-year veteran Mountie, said he would not have condoned the visit by Henley.

Several lawyers at the inquiry, as well as victims' families, are pushing for the inquiry to call front-line investigators, instead of "armchair experts" or top officers like Williams and Vancouver Police Department Deputy Chief Doug LePard.

Next Monday, however, the inquiry will hear from another "review" witness, Peel, Ont., Region Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans, who last year conducted an exhaustive review of the Pickton investigation for the inquiry.

Hearings at the inquiry will continue until the end of April, with Commissioner Wally Oppal pledging to hand in his final report by June.

Senior Mountie declines to apologize for RCMP failures in Pickton investigation, deferring to managers

2012-01-12T15:02:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 12, 2012 2:25 PM

RCMP Supt. Bob Williams leaves courtroom for lunch break after testifying at the missing women's inquiry in Vancouver, B.C. on January 11, 2012.

Photograph by: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER - The second longest-serving Mountie in Canada declined to apologize for the shortcomings of the RCMP investigation of serial killer Robert Pickton.

Supt. Bob Williams, testifying at the Missing Women inquiry, said he wasn't in a position to offer an apology during cross-examination by Cameron Ward, the lawyer representing 25 families of murdered and missing women.

Williams said it would be up to management of the RCMP in B.C. to offer an apology or the new commanding officer of the RCMP in Canada, Commissioner Bob Paulson, a former B.C. officer who worked on the Pickton case.

"I would like to defer to them," he told inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal.

The Vancouver police earlier offered an apology to the victims' families and said the police department could have and should have done more to catch Pickton sooner. The RCMP has never offered an apology.

The inquiry is probing why it took so long to catch Pickton, who wasn't arrested until Feb. 5, 2002, despite tips to Vancouver police in 1998 and 1999 suggesting Pickton had killed one or more of the dozens of women who had disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The Vancouver police considered Pickton the prime suspect and passed along the tips to the RCMP to investigate the allegations of murder taking place on Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam, which was policed by the RCMP.

The Coquitlam RCMP had also earlier investigated a 1997 knife attack on a Vancouver prostitute on Pickton's farm. The woman, with a handcuff dangling from her wrist, ran to the street and flagged down a passing car, which took her to hospital.

Pickton was charged with attempted murder and unlawful confinement but the charges were later stayed by the Crown.

Williams testified that he was told that the charges were dropped because the victim became uncooperative with police.

But in cross-examination by Ward, who produced documents showing the witness had arranged an escort to court to testify at trial, Williams agreed it appeared the victim was "ready, willing and able" to testify.

Williams, who has been a Mountie for 44 years and heads major crime operations in Alberta, was asked in 2002 to do an "external" review of the RCMP investigation to prepare for lawsuits against the RCMP filed by families of Pickton's victims.

The report, completed in Nov. 6, 2002, concluded the RCMP acted appropriately.

But under cross-examination, Williams admitted there were shortcomings in the investigation and said he would have done things differently.

And if things would have been done differently, "perhaps" Pickton would have been caught sooner, he conceded.

Vancouver police had received tips in 1998 and 1999 from an informant who said that Lynn Ellingsen, a woman who lived for a time on Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam, had confided she saw a woman being butchered in a barn on the Pickton farm.

Two other informants told Vancouver police investigators that Ellingsen told them Pickton had "trophies" on his farm from missing women and bragged about his ability to dispose of bodies.

While not admitting that the RCMP made mistakes, Williams conceded more work should have been done with Ellingsen, who was interviewed in August 1999 by two senior officers; Ellingsen denied making the statements to the informants and at the last minute declined taking a polygraph on the advice of her lawyer.

Williams also said an officer who tried to contact Pickton for an interview in 1999 should not have put off the interview until 2000 after Pickton's brother, Dave Pickton, told the officer that the Pickton brothers were too busy working on a job and suggested the officer wait until the "rainy season."

When interviewed by police, Pickton denied he had killed anyone and offered to allow police to search his farm, which wasn't done at the time.

Williams is the first RCMP officer to testify at the inquiry, which began Oct. 11 and resumed Wednesday. He is expected to finish his testimony Friday.

On Monday, the inquiry is expected to hear a new witness: Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans, who was asked by the inquiry to review the Pickton investigations done by the RCMP and Vancouver police.

Pickton was charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder of women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

An exhaustive 18-month search of Pickton's farm found the DNA of 33 women.

Pickton, now 62, confided to a cell mate in jail - an undercover officer posing as a criminal - that he killed 49 women and planned to kill more.

nhall@vancouversun.com

Missing Women Inquiry: Senior RCMP officer stands by glowing report

2012-01-11T17:19:00.001-08:00

David P. Ball

Posted: Jan 11th, 2012

VANCOUVER OBSERVER: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/news/2012/01/11/missing-women-inquiry-rcmp-officer-stands-report-would-have-investigated

THE VANCOUVER OBSERVER

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/news/2012/01/11/missing-women-inquiry-rcmp-officer-stands-report-would-have-investigated

Top RCMP officer stands by review into missing women investigation

2012-01-11T16:53:00.001-08:00

BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE JANUARY 11, 2012 4:32 PM

RCMP Supt. Bob Williams shown on an outside courtroom monitor testifying at the Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry. Williams staood by his uncritical 2002 internal review of the Mounties investigation into the Robert Pickton serial killings.

Photograph by: Ian Smith, PNG

The RCMP’s second most senior officer in Canada took the stand today at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry to defend his uncritical internal review of how the Mounties handled the investigation into dozens of missing and murdered women.

RCMP Supt. Bob Williams, a 44-year veteran of the RCMP, was asked to do the review not to criticize his own force but to evaluate how the Mounties could respond to anticipated civil lawsuits filed by families of some of women murdered by now-convicted serial killler Robert Pickton.

He concluded in his Nov. 2002 report that “from a global perspective...we are of the opinion the RCMP acted appropriately and followed up on investigative leads, with respect to Robert William Pickton.”

On the stand Wednesday, Williams echoed the tone of his report, repeating several times that “hindsight is 20-20.” The RCMP report lacked the self-critical tone of the Vancouver police report done by Deputy Chief Doug LePard, who issued an apology to the families of missing or murdered women that Pickton was not apprehended earlier.

Williams interviewed in 2002 key members of the B.C. RCMP who became involved relatively late in the disappearance of dozens of women from the Downtown Eastside, but he never spoke to any members of the Vancouver Police Department.

The VPD and RCMP had by 2001 struck a joint task force looking into the missing women cases and on Feb. 5, 2002, finally arrested Robert Pickton at his Port Coquitlam farm after an independent weapons search warrant was obtained by a junior RCMP officer.

Pickton is now serving a life sentence for the murder of six women, but he boasted in jail of killing 49 women, and DNA evidence has connected him to the death of at least 32 women. His killing spree began decades ago, with him picking up sex trade workers on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and taking them out to his farm, where they were slaughtered. An exhaustive forensic search of the farm found the bones, heads and remains of women, as well as their ID, medication and belongings. The inquiry is looking into why it took Vancouver police so long to stop Pickton abducting women from the blocks near the VPD station, and why Coquitlam RCMP didn’t act on many rumours and evidence that Pickton was an active serial killer, at work just down the road from their detachment.

Williams did know that Pickton had been involved in a 1997 attempted murder of a Vancouver sex trade worker, that Pickton had “trophies” collected from women, had bragged about disposing of bodies at a rendering plant and that police had watched Pickton dump barrels at that east Vancouver plant, although no officer looked at what he was dumping.

But Williams disagreed with commission counsel Art Vertlieb that the B.C. police investigation suffered from the kind of “systematic failures” that have been thoroughly documented in other reviews of police investigations, such as that into Ontario serial killer Paul Bernardo.

Williams acknowledged women kept dying while police looked at files but he accepted the assertion of then-RCMP Staff-Sgt. Don Adam that it would have been difficult to investigate any new cases of women going missing while police officers were still doing paperwork and reviewing available evidence.

Williams did agree with Vertlieb that in fact a serial killer might have been more easily apprehended had police investigated fresh disappearances rather than combing through years-old police files.

Vertlieb set out a series of possible “mistakes”that occured during the missing women investigation but Williams was hesitant to call any of them errors or systemic failures.

He said the investigation was for the most part adequately staffed with “very experienced major crime investigators,”and had an ‘’outstanding” relationship with the VPD, denying that there were any major interjurisdictional problems.

As Vertlieb outlined police actions criticized by others, Williams acknowledged a few missteps. Williams admitted that the Coquitlam RCMP should not have agreed to “come back in the rainy season” to search the Pickton farm, as they were told by Willie’s brother Dave Pickton. He also agreed that one RCMP constable shouldn’t have gone alone to pay a social call to Willie Pickton during the investigation. And he thought it was unproductive to allow Pickton’s close friend Gina Houston, now deceased, to sit in on one of Pickton’s first interviews with police.

Williams, a former polygrapher and longtime Alberta cop who said he thought most prostitutes were “transient,” due to his Alberta policing experience at the Calgary Stampede and Edmonton’s Klondike Days, was mildly critical of how the RCMP handled key eyewitness Lynn Ellingsen. Ellingsen, a Pickton hanger-on who lived in his trailer, told three separate people that she had seen Pickton slaughtering a woman in his barn who they had picked up earlier on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Although all three witnesses then went to police with matching and compelling accounts of what Ellingsen told them, she then denied everything and police moved away from her as a reliable source.

Williams said he would have made more effort to establish a relationship with Ellingsen and to “polygraph her as a test of the truth” of her story, rather than dropping her as an investigative tool in what became a critical delay in apprehinding Pickton. Williams called the handling of Ellingsen as “probably the most contentious issue of this review.” Ellingsen eventually was worked up as a reliable police witness and her evidence was key to convicting Pickton.

Williams concluded in his report, though, that “it is easy to sit back and examine the Pickton file in hindsight.” He said “we should not be critical of the stides that the investigators took to determine if Pickton was a viable suspect.

“Based on our experience and from the interviews conducted, it is suffice to say nothing would have changed dramatically if those involved had to do it over again.”

Williams’ attitude is believed to be markedly different from the inquiry’s next witness, Peel, Ont. Regional Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans, who interviewed all VPD and RCMP participants and produced an exhaustive and critical review.

The Inquiry, before Commissioner Wally Oppal, resumed hearings today and is expected to continue until the end of April,with a final report to the provincial government by June. Families and lawyers of the murdered women are questioning the tight time-frame, but Oppal has already received one extension and has said he is firmly-set on completing hearings by April 2012.

Federal justice lawyer Jan Brongers, who is representing Williams and the RCMP, served notice that he will object if the inquiry, a provincial body, starts to look into “systemic isssues within the RCMP” since the force is a “federal institution.”

The inquiry continues with Williams expected to be on the stand for the rest of Wednesday.

RCMP managers should have done more in Pickton probe, senior Mountie tells inquiry

2012-01-11T14:50:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 11, 2012 2:45 PM

RCMP Supt. Bob Williams leaves courtroom for lunch break after testifying at the missing women's inquiry in Vancouver, B.C. on January 11, 2012.

Photograph by: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER - A senior Mountie told the Missing Women inquiry today that RCMP managers should have done more to ensure that serial killer Robert Pickton was properly investigated.

Alberta RCMP Supt. Bob Williams, who did an external review of the RCMP investigation of Pickton, testified that more work should have been done with a witness who had told a friend that she saw Pickton butchering a body on his farm.

The woman, Lynn Ellingsen, was interviewed by two senior officers but Ellingsen denied making the statement.

She also denied telling two other people, who also became Vancouver police informants, that Pickton had bragged he could dispose of bodies and that he had "trophies" at his home that he kept as keepsakes of one or more murders of women he had committed.

When interviewed by police in August 1999, Pickton denied making the statements to the three police informants.

"I would have done some more work," Williams said, adding a manager should have looked at taking another strategy with Ellingsen.

"I personally would have taken other steps to satisfy whether she was telling the truth or not telling the truth, the witness told inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal.

"I would have pressed her on it," Williams added.

"It wasn't sufficiently managed to the extent that I would have handled it," said the officer, who has been with the RCMP for more than 44 years -- the second longest serving Mountie in Canada.

Williams said he would have put a team together, including a female officer to create a bond with Ellingsen.

"I would have gone a long way to build a relationship with her," he told the inquiry.

He also said more planning should have been done before the first RCMP interview with Pickton in 2000, when the serial killer told police they could search his farm, but the Mounties failed to do so.

Williams said he was asked to do an external review of the RCMP handling of the Pickton file to prepare for civil litigation against the RCMP in B.C.

He said he began the review Sept. 16, 2002 and completed his report on Nov. 6, 2002.

Williams only interviewed senior Mounties who were "decision-makers" on the file but did not interview anyone from Vancouver police.

His report concluded the the RCMP acted appropriately and followed up investigative leads.

Williams was asked by commission counsel Art Vertlieb if he held the same conclusion 10 years after writing the report and knowing new information that has come to light.

"I would say there was some room for improvement," Williams told the inquiry about the RCMP's handling of the case.

"Do you concede that If some of those things had been changed, Pickton would have been arrested sooner?" Vertlieb asked.

"Perhaps," Williams replied.

He is expected to continue testifying until Friday.

Next Monday, the inquiry is expected to hear a new witness - Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans.

Evans was asked by the inquiry to review the Pickton investigations done by the RCMP and Vancouver police.

Williams is the first RCMP officer to testify at the inquiry, which began Oct. 1 and resumed today after taking a three-week break.

The inquiry, which is probing why Pickton wasn't caught sooner, was initially supposed to deliver its report to B.C.'s attorney general by Dec. 31, 2011, but has been given a six-month extension.

Pickton was arrested on Feb. 5, 2002 and was eventually charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder of women who had disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

An exhaustive 18-month search of Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam found the DNA of 33 missing women.

Pickton confided to an undercover officer that he had killed 49 women and planned to kill more.

The murder charges were divided into two trials by the trial judge.

Pickton, 62, was convicted at his first trial in 2007 of six counts of murder.

After exhausting all appeals, the Crown decided not to proceed on a second Pickton trial, which upset many victims' families.

Williams testified an supervisor should have asked for more officers to investigate whether Ellingsen was telling the truth.

Or the detachment commander could have asked RCMP headquaters for more resources, he said.

Williams also said the officer who called Pickton to arrange an interview should not have accepted Pickton's brother suggesting the brothers were too busy and police should wait for the rainy season.

A supervisor should have caught that, he said.

When the Pickton interview finally happened months later, Williams said, police should not have allowed Pickton to have his friend Gina Houston with him during the interview.

The inquiry heard earlier that Pickton was the prime suspect of Vancouver police after three informants supplied shocking information about Pickton in 1998 and 1999.

The Vancouver police department passed along the information to the RCMP, which had jurisdiction to investigate because Pickton lived in Port Coquitlam, where the murders allegedly occurred and the area was policed by the RCMP.

Nhall@vancouversun.com

RCMP managers should have done more in Pickton probe, senior Mountie tells inquiry

2012-01-11T13:29:00.001-08:00

BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JANUARY 11, 2012 1:08 PM

Serial killer Robert Pickton.

Photograph by: File, Vancouver Sun