Greg Joyce
Canadian Press
Sept 8, 2006
NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. (CP) - Accused serial killer Robert Pickton will face trial on only six counts of first-degree murder when a jury begins hearing the case in January, the Crown confirmed Friday.
But even though the slimmed-down case will simplify things, Pickton's lawyers say they will likely ask a judge for permission to question potential jurors more closely than usual before a panel of 12 is chosen.
Crown lawyers said Friday they will follow a court's recommendation last month and hold two trials for Pickton on charges that he murdered 26 women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside over several years.
"We looked at all the rulings and the nature of the evidence and it was determined from our perspective that it was the most prudent course of action to proceed with the six counts," Crown spokesman Stan Lowe said outside B.C. Supreme Court.
A trial on the remaining 20 will follow later.
Last month, Justice James Williams ruled a trial on 26 counts of murder all at once would be too much for jurors to comprehend and would drag the case on needlessly.
Williams ruled the split was necessary in "the interests of justice" and that the evidence in the six cases is "materially different" than in the other 20 cases.
The Crown said then it hadn't decided how to proceed, but prosecutor Mike Petrie told Williams on Friday that jurors will begin hearing testimony in January on six counts. The second trial on the remaining 20 charges is to take place sometime later.
Petrie said the Crown plans to file a new indictment in the coming weeks charging Pickton with the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey.
Pickton turns 57 next month and appeared in court via video link. He was charged almost five years ago and his trial was expected to take two years, but now that the case has been divided, it's expected jurors will only have to sit through one year of testimony.
Defence lawyer Peter Ritchie welcomed the decision to begin with six counts.
"It's just too much to take on to go ahead with all the counts at the same time," he said. "The practicalities are such that we have a jury trial here and you can't expect a jury is going to be subjected to an ordeal (of 26 counts.)"
Jurors are to be selected in December.
Hundreds of people are expected to be called for jury duty. One estimate had as many as 3,500 people receiving notices, compared with a normal murder trial in which 500 people are called.
From those, 12 will be selected to be jurors.
The jury pool will be assembled on Dec. 9 - a Saturday - and then broken into smaller groupings. The selection of the 12 jurors and two alternates was to begin Dec. 11.
Ritchie told reporters outside court he might make applications for the defence to ask potential jurors questions they aren't normally asked.
Usually, Canadian candidates for a jury are only asked if they have heard of the case and if they can remain impartial. American lawyers have more latitude.
"Maybe the Americans are ahead of us in selecting juries efficiently," said Ritchie. "I'm going to be putting some ideas in front of the judge about that."
Ritchie didn't say specifically what kind of questions he wanted to ask, but said the obvious one is whether jury candidates have heard of the case and whether they've drawn any conclusions.
"Everyone, to some extent, has heard about this case. And so, we'll have to sort out through that to get 12 people who have a fair view," he said. "I think we can do it."
He added he thought it highly doubtful he'd ever find 12 people who had heard nothing about the case.
Following Williams' ruling last month, some legal observers suggested the defence or Crown may ask to have the first trial heard under a blanket publication ban in order to protect Pickton's right to a fair trial in the second case.
Ritchie said Friday the defence hadn't considered that yet, but he doubted they would make that request.
Lowe steered clear of saying what the Crown would do.
The other 20 women not included in the judge's six counts are: Cara Ellis, Andrea Borhaven, Kerry Koski, Wendy Crawford, Debra Lynne Jones, Tiffany Drew, Sarah de Vries, Cynthia Feliks, Angela Jardine, Diana Melnick, Jacqueline McDonell, Diane Rock, Heather Bottomley, Jennifer Furminger, Helen Hallmark, Patricia Johnson, Heather Chinnock, Tanya Holyk, Sherry Irving and Inga Hall.
© The Canadian Press 2006
Saturday, September 9
Monday, September 4
Published pen-pal letters from Pickton spark furor
ROBERT MATAS
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Sept 4, 2006
VANCOUVER — Publicity surrounding letters purportedly from pig farmer Robert Pickton to a pen pal has sparked a controversy over his treatment while he waits in jail for his trial on charges of murder connected to 26 women from Vancouver's skid row.
An angry grandfather of one of the women allegedly killed by Mr. Pickton called yesterday for restrictions on Mr. Pickton's right to send letters outside the prison.
"I'm surprised they allow him to send uncensored letters out of jail," Jack Cummer said yesterday in an interview. "I get very angry at this whole process."
However, a criminal lawyer who is not involved in the murder trial said any attempt to limit Mr. Pickton's right to correspond with family and friends would be highly unusual.
"It would be pretty troubling if [police] could put someone in custody who wants to write to a friend that he's innocent and you say he cannot," Victoria lawyer Michael Mulligan said yesterday. "That's pretty objectionable."
Thomas Loudamy, of Fremont, Calif., provided a local Vancouver newspaper last week with two letters allegedly from Mr. Pickton.
Mr. Loudamy was quoted as saying that he wrote to Mr. Pickton because he was shocked by the case and the limited public information available about the accused. He said he used a woman's name as a pseudonym in an effort to be more appealing to Mr. Pickton.
In a letter addressed to someone called Mya, dated Aug. 22, Mr. Pickton allegedly wrote that he was not involved, that he was "a fall-guy" and that the criminals were still at large. He did not write specifically about the charges against him or anything related to the alleged murders or about the missing women.
He also indicated he was feeling good about how the case was proceeding in court. He praised the judge for a decision to split the 26 charges into a group of six charges and a group of 20.
He misrepresented the decision to separate the charges as a decision to drop most of the charges against him. If the court did not drop the charges, it could be hard to keep a jury together and the proceedings could end in a mistrial, he wrote.
He also indicated a connection with religion. He included a biblical quotation: Acts 14:22, which urges believers to remain true to the faith, and, he wrote, "suffer many hard things to get into the holy nation of God."
The letter was printed in neat capital letters, although the grammar and spelling were often wrong. Occasionally, he underlined phrases for emphasis.
Mr. Pickton's trial began on Jan. 30. The court is currently considering the admissibility of evidence. Jury selection is to begin in December.
Mr. Cummer's granddaughter, Andrea Joesbury, is one of the 26 women that Mr. Pickton is alleged to have killed. He said he was upset to see that prison authorities allow Mr. Pickton to send uncensored letters out of jail.
He questioned why Mr. Pickton was allowed to write letters to someone outside prison about anything he likes while lots of other information about the case has not yet been released.
"It's rather bizarre that he sent a letter to a complete stranger telling him, 'I'm innocent.' "Mr. Cummer was also disturbed by the sensationalism of the case. The letters attracted considerable publicity but his efforts to raise money to help battered women and sexually abused children have not received much public attention, he said, referring to a tribute CD with a song called Missing that has raised only minimal funds.
Mr. Mulligan said it was not uncommon for people in custody to send letters to family and friends while waiting for their trial.
"But in most cases, the letters do not get printed on the front page of a newspaper," he said, referring to the publication of a front page story about the Pickton letter in the Vancouver Sun.
Letters from prison while waiting for trial are often a defence lawyer's worst nightmare, he also said. "In court, those statements cannot help; they can only hurt," he said.
Under the rules in the courtroom, self-serving statements professing Mr. Pickton's innocence cannot be used in court in his defence, Mr. Mulligan said. But the letters could be used by the prosecutor in the case against the accused.
The letter could also undermine efforts by the defence team to argue that the judge should restrict media coverage of the court case. Defence lawyers could complain if evidence is disclosed before a jury is selected.
But the lawyers may have a more difficult task arguing that their client is not receiving a fair trial if their client is telling his side of the case in the news media, Mr. Mulligan said.
Neither defence lawyers nor prosecution lawyers replied yesterday to phone messages requesting an interview.
© Copyright 2006 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Sept 4, 2006
VANCOUVER — Publicity surrounding letters purportedly from pig farmer Robert Pickton to a pen pal has sparked a controversy over his treatment while he waits in jail for his trial on charges of murder connected to 26 women from Vancouver's skid row.
An angry grandfather of one of the women allegedly killed by Mr. Pickton called yesterday for restrictions on Mr. Pickton's right to send letters outside the prison.
"I'm surprised they allow him to send uncensored letters out of jail," Jack Cummer said yesterday in an interview. "I get very angry at this whole process."
However, a criminal lawyer who is not involved in the murder trial said any attempt to limit Mr. Pickton's right to correspond with family and friends would be highly unusual.
"It would be pretty troubling if [police] could put someone in custody who wants to write to a friend that he's innocent and you say he cannot," Victoria lawyer Michael Mulligan said yesterday. "That's pretty objectionable."
Thomas Loudamy, of Fremont, Calif., provided a local Vancouver newspaper last week with two letters allegedly from Mr. Pickton.
Mr. Loudamy was quoted as saying that he wrote to Mr. Pickton because he was shocked by the case and the limited public information available about the accused. He said he used a woman's name as a pseudonym in an effort to be more appealing to Mr. Pickton.
In a letter addressed to someone called Mya, dated Aug. 22, Mr. Pickton allegedly wrote that he was not involved, that he was "a fall-guy" and that the criminals were still at large. He did not write specifically about the charges against him or anything related to the alleged murders or about the missing women.
He also indicated he was feeling good about how the case was proceeding in court. He praised the judge for a decision to split the 26 charges into a group of six charges and a group of 20.
He misrepresented the decision to separate the charges as a decision to drop most of the charges against him. If the court did not drop the charges, it could be hard to keep a jury together and the proceedings could end in a mistrial, he wrote.
He also indicated a connection with religion. He included a biblical quotation: Acts 14:22, which urges believers to remain true to the faith, and, he wrote, "suffer many hard things to get into the holy nation of God."
The letter was printed in neat capital letters, although the grammar and spelling were often wrong. Occasionally, he underlined phrases for emphasis.
Mr. Pickton's trial began on Jan. 30. The court is currently considering the admissibility of evidence. Jury selection is to begin in December.
Mr. Cummer's granddaughter, Andrea Joesbury, is one of the 26 women that Mr. Pickton is alleged to have killed. He said he was upset to see that prison authorities allow Mr. Pickton to send uncensored letters out of jail.
He questioned why Mr. Pickton was allowed to write letters to someone outside prison about anything he likes while lots of other information about the case has not yet been released.
"It's rather bizarre that he sent a letter to a complete stranger telling him, 'I'm innocent.' "Mr. Cummer was also disturbed by the sensationalism of the case. The letters attracted considerable publicity but his efforts to raise money to help battered women and sexually abused children have not received much public attention, he said, referring to a tribute CD with a song called Missing that has raised only minimal funds.
Mr. Mulligan said it was not uncommon for people in custody to send letters to family and friends while waiting for their trial.
"But in most cases, the letters do not get printed on the front page of a newspaper," he said, referring to the publication of a front page story about the Pickton letter in the Vancouver Sun.
Letters from prison while waiting for trial are often a defence lawyer's worst nightmare, he also said. "In court, those statements cannot help; they can only hurt," he said.
Under the rules in the courtroom, self-serving statements professing Mr. Pickton's innocence cannot be used in court in his defence, Mr. Mulligan said. But the letters could be used by the prosecutor in the case against the accused.
The letter could also undermine efforts by the defence team to argue that the judge should restrict media coverage of the court case. Defence lawyers could complain if evidence is disclosed before a jury is selected.
But the lawyers may have a more difficult task arguing that their client is not receiving a fair trial if their client is telling his side of the case in the news media, Mr. Mulligan said.
Neither defence lawyers nor prosecution lawyers replied yesterday to phone messages requesting an interview.
© Copyright 2006 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, September 2
Pen pals from prison
Lori Culbert
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, September 02, 2006
FREMONT, Calif. - Hundreds of letters are filed in shoeboxes, and tucked away in corners of the small townhouse Thomas Loudamy shares with his fiance, their seven-week-old baby, and his fiance's father.
A flip through the envelopes reveals that the return addresses are all from prisons, and the names are well known to true-crime buffs: Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in a bathtub; Susan Smith, who pushed her car into a lake with her two children inside; Charles Ng, who murdered and sexually tortured 11 people in California.
In a matter of seconds, Loudamy locates four letters from Canadians who are accused of or convicted of violent killings, including two infamous B.C. men -- Robert (Willie) Pickton and Clifford Olson.
Loudamy, a 27-year-old warehouse worker, estimates he has received thousands of letters written by about 400 American and Canadian inmates since he started his unusual pen pal hobby in 2001.
It all began with an interest in news stories about the wrongfully convicted. That caused him to get involved with a Canadian anti-capital punishment website and he started writing letters to death row inmates.
"I wanted to at least, maybe on a small scale, offer my services as best I could at the time," he said.
After a while, however, he found this depressing because his pen pals were eventually executed. So he branched out to writing to prisoners who are not on death row --and his letters are not necessarily directed now to people who he thinks are wrongfully convicted.
"[I have] sympathy for people that for one reason or another are just lost souls, certainly not for what they did or what they were accused of," said Loudamy.
The young father, who sports several tattoos that he got while working in a tattoo parlour, said he has never been in prison himself.
Loudamy would like to be a journalist, and potentially even write a book about his collection of letters. He says he also wants to pass them along to his infant daughter Grace to educate her about bad people in the world.
Ideally, he hopes an inmate will reveal new evidence in a letter that could help police close the file on an unsolved crime.
"Maybe . . . I could make some kind of a difference, in that a lot of people who have written to me have gone on to describe things that they were not convicted of," he said. "If I played my cards right in my correspondence with them, it would maybe help solve cold cases and things like that, which was a big motivator."
Loudamy said he writes 11 letters a day, six days a week. Some of the letters are replies to inmates, others are to new recipients. They are all done in longhand, because he believes a handwritten letter has a better chance of getting a reply.
When a Sun reporter and photographer visited his home in Fremont, he displayed about 300 envelopes that he said had been penned by an estimated 150 inmates.
But Loudamy claimed to have received thousands of letters in total. The remainder, he said, are in Texas, where he was born and raised, but he left them behind when he and his then-pregnant finance moved to Fremont in late 2005.
Loudamy said he got many of the addresses for the inmates from people he was communicating with in Internet chat rooms, who were intrigued by "notorious cases."
"A lot of them are stay-at-home moms [and] sort of, I guess, armchair sleuths and true crime fans," he said.
However, Loudamy said he has severed ties with the chat rooms because he claimed many of the participants were serial killer groupies.
"I went online one day and realized that what a lot of people were doing was using the addresses to write these people and then get [the inmates] to send, like, toenail clippings, fingernail clippings, samples of hair, that kind of thing. And that's where I had to draw the line," he said.
Loudamy kept writing on his own, and penned his first letter to Pickton in June 2005 because he was shocked by the case and the small amount of public information available about the accused. He got a reply a couple of months later.
He wrote back to Pickton in early February 2006, and got a reply in March.
Loudamy didn't write to Pickton again until early August 2006, and received a reply earlier this week.
"With everyone that I do write to I try to do as much research as possible about their background," he said.
Based on that research, he decides whether to write each inmate as himself or using a pseudonym that might be more appealing to that specific person.
With Pickton, Loudamy became Mya Barnett -- a woman, he said, who has had a troubled life.
The trick appeared to work, as the letters are very open and friendly to Mya.
"That sort of comes across in his letters, because he does sort of talk like we're old friends," Loudamy said.
He said he is always surprised by the amount of correspondence he gets from inmates, but believes he has honed his skills over the years to increase his chances of success.
"I've been doing it long enough to know what will grab their attention, as opposed to all of the other people obviously that have written to [Pickton]," he said.
Not everyone writes back; Canadian killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka have remained silent. So have home-making diva Martha Stewart and Survivor winner Richard Hatch, who were both charged with finance-related crimes.
But others, such as Olson, who has written multiple letters to journalists and other citizens over the years, have responded. Loudamy was angered by Olson's note, which purportedly revealed that the serial child killer spends a tremendous amount of time watching TV.
Loudamy said he is particularly intrigued by people who go through the Canadian justice system because he believes publication bans limit information available about the accused and that offenders are given relatively lenient court sentences in this country.
Some of the letters Loudamy has received are "incredibly disturbing," but he says he puts those away and tries not to dwell on them.
He said he has phoned district attorneys twice to inform them that inmates had provided new evidence to him in a letter, but he said those calls were never returned.
He said he once provided a letter from the so-called BTK serial killer, Dennis Rader, to a U.S. television station which used the material but did not interview Loudamy.
This is the first time he has spoken publically about his stockpile of letters.
Loudamy knows people will consider his hobby creepy, and until now has told few relatives or friends beyond his fiance and one of his sisters. Not even his parents know about his pastime.
"I didn't care to share it with anybody just because I don't want to come across at any point like I glorify it," he said.
While some may criticize him for showering attention on those who don't deserve it, Loudamy argues his letters could one day provide evidence for an unsolved crime.
"I realize that victims' families probably wouldn't see me as the best person necessarily for writing to these people," he said. "But if I could bring peace of mind ... to a victim's family ... that would be a goal of mine."
lculbert@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, September 02, 2006
FREMONT, Calif. - Hundreds of letters are filed in shoeboxes, and tucked away in corners of the small townhouse Thomas Loudamy shares with his fiance, their seven-week-old baby, and his fiance's father.
A flip through the envelopes reveals that the return addresses are all from prisons, and the names are well known to true-crime buffs: Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in a bathtub; Susan Smith, who pushed her car into a lake with her two children inside; Charles Ng, who murdered and sexually tortured 11 people in California.
In a matter of seconds, Loudamy locates four letters from Canadians who are accused of or convicted of violent killings, including two infamous B.C. men -- Robert (Willie) Pickton and Clifford Olson.
Loudamy, a 27-year-old warehouse worker, estimates he has received thousands of letters written by about 400 American and Canadian inmates since he started his unusual pen pal hobby in 2001.
It all began with an interest in news stories about the wrongfully convicted. That caused him to get involved with a Canadian anti-capital punishment website and he started writing letters to death row inmates.
"I wanted to at least, maybe on a small scale, offer my services as best I could at the time," he said.
After a while, however, he found this depressing because his pen pals were eventually executed. So he branched out to writing to prisoners who are not on death row --and his letters are not necessarily directed now to people who he thinks are wrongfully convicted.
"[I have] sympathy for people that for one reason or another are just lost souls, certainly not for what they did or what they were accused of," said Loudamy.
The young father, who sports several tattoos that he got while working in a tattoo parlour, said he has never been in prison himself.
Loudamy would like to be a journalist, and potentially even write a book about his collection of letters. He says he also wants to pass them along to his infant daughter Grace to educate her about bad people in the world.
Ideally, he hopes an inmate will reveal new evidence in a letter that could help police close the file on an unsolved crime.
"Maybe . . . I could make some kind of a difference, in that a lot of people who have written to me have gone on to describe things that they were not convicted of," he said. "If I played my cards right in my correspondence with them, it would maybe help solve cold cases and things like that, which was a big motivator."
Loudamy said he writes 11 letters a day, six days a week. Some of the letters are replies to inmates, others are to new recipients. They are all done in longhand, because he believes a handwritten letter has a better chance of getting a reply.
When a Sun reporter and photographer visited his home in Fremont, he displayed about 300 envelopes that he said had been penned by an estimated 150 inmates.
But Loudamy claimed to have received thousands of letters in total. The remainder, he said, are in Texas, where he was born and raised, but he left them behind when he and his then-pregnant finance moved to Fremont in late 2005.
Loudamy said he got many of the addresses for the inmates from people he was communicating with in Internet chat rooms, who were intrigued by "notorious cases."
"A lot of them are stay-at-home moms [and] sort of, I guess, armchair sleuths and true crime fans," he said.
However, Loudamy said he has severed ties with the chat rooms because he claimed many of the participants were serial killer groupies.
"I went online one day and realized that what a lot of people were doing was using the addresses to write these people and then get [the inmates] to send, like, toenail clippings, fingernail clippings, samples of hair, that kind of thing. And that's where I had to draw the line," he said.
Loudamy kept writing on his own, and penned his first letter to Pickton in June 2005 because he was shocked by the case and the small amount of public information available about the accused. He got a reply a couple of months later.
He wrote back to Pickton in early February 2006, and got a reply in March.
Loudamy didn't write to Pickton again until early August 2006, and received a reply earlier this week.
"With everyone that I do write to I try to do as much research as possible about their background," he said.
Based on that research, he decides whether to write each inmate as himself or using a pseudonym that might be more appealing to that specific person.
With Pickton, Loudamy became Mya Barnett -- a woman, he said, who has had a troubled life.
The trick appeared to work, as the letters are very open and friendly to Mya.
"That sort of comes across in his letters, because he does sort of talk like we're old friends," Loudamy said.
He said he is always surprised by the amount of correspondence he gets from inmates, but believes he has honed his skills over the years to increase his chances of success.
"I've been doing it long enough to know what will grab their attention, as opposed to all of the other people obviously that have written to [Pickton]," he said.
Not everyone writes back; Canadian killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka have remained silent. So have home-making diva Martha Stewart and Survivor winner Richard Hatch, who were both charged with finance-related crimes.
But others, such as Olson, who has written multiple letters to journalists and other citizens over the years, have responded. Loudamy was angered by Olson's note, which purportedly revealed that the serial child killer spends a tremendous amount of time watching TV.
Loudamy said he is particularly intrigued by people who go through the Canadian justice system because he believes publication bans limit information available about the accused and that offenders are given relatively lenient court sentences in this country.
Some of the letters Loudamy has received are "incredibly disturbing," but he says he puts those away and tries not to dwell on them.
He said he has phoned district attorneys twice to inform them that inmates had provided new evidence to him in a letter, but he said those calls were never returned.
He said he once provided a letter from the so-called BTK serial killer, Dennis Rader, to a U.S. television station which used the material but did not interview Loudamy.
This is the first time he has spoken publically about his stockpile of letters.
Loudamy knows people will consider his hobby creepy, and until now has told few relatives or friends beyond his fiance and one of his sisters. Not even his parents know about his pastime.
"I didn't care to share it with anybody just because I don't want to come across at any point like I glorify it," he said.
While some may criticize him for showering attention on those who don't deserve it, Loudamy argues his letters could one day provide evidence for an unsolved crime.
"I realize that victims' families probably wouldn't see me as the best person necessarily for writing to these people," he said. "But if I could bring peace of mind ... to a victim's family ... that would be a goal of mine."
lculbert@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
The Pickton Letters: His writings offer a glimpse into the thoughts of an accused serial killer
Lori Culbert and Neal Hall
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, September 02, 2006
FREMONT, Calif. -- A series of letters purportedly penned by Robert (Willie) Pickton, who is accused of killing 26 missing women, maintain his innocence and claim he is just the "fall guy" arrested in the multi-million investigation.
Pickton has given no media interviews since his 2002 arrest, and his court proceedings have been muzzled by a publication ban, so any letters written by him would provide the first public glimpse into the thoughts of the man accused of being Canada's worst serial killer.
"I my-self is not from this world, but I am born into this world through my earthly mother and if I had to change any-thing I would not, for I have done no wrong," says a letter dated Feb. 26, 2006, signed "Willie."
The four-page note, hand-printed in capital letters, is one of three that California resident Thomas Loudamy says were mailed to him by Pickton, who is being held in the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam awaiting his January 2007 trial.
The letters show the author believes he will be exonerated and is highly critical of police; is following the legal proceedings closely and plans to write a book; and has religious leanings, quoting two Bible passages in one letter.
One Bible passage included in the most recent letter, dated Aug. 22, 2006, is identified as being from the New Testament, Acts 14:22: "In each city they helped Christians to be strong and true to the faith. They told them that we must suffer many hard things to get into -- the holy nation of God."
The Sun has taken several steps to try to confirm that the letters and envelopes, which have Robert William Pickton's name in the return address, were in fact written by the accused killer. (The newspaper couldn't ask him directly because his lawyer has previously denied all requests for media interviews.)
The envelopes are stamped with the name and address of the North Fraser Pretrial Centre; all provincial correctional facilities use such stamps on outgoing mail for public safety, so that recipients know they are receiving correspondence from an inmate, said B.C. Corrections spokesperson Bruce Bannerman.
The Sun sent a copy of the envelope from the Feb. 26 letter to Canada Post, confirming the postage stamp -- which came from a stamping machine, as opposed to the type that is licked -- and the other Canada Post codings put on the envelope are not forgeries.
In addition, the meter number on the stamping machine belongs to an agency that does mailings for the B.C. government, said Canada Post spokeswoman Teresa Williams. (The pretrial centre is run by the province.)
"Canada Post reviewed the envelope and all appearances are that it is legitimately sent from who it says it was sent from [the pretrial centre]," Williams said.
The Canada Post markings on the envelope also confirm it was stamped on March 1, 2006 and put in the mail on March 2.
Ardith Watson, the warden of the pretrial centre, confirmed mail written by prisoners is sent to a mail centre, where it is stamped and sent along to Canada Post for delivery.
Loudamy, a 27-year-old warehouse worker from Fremont, Calif., has a unique hobby of writing to American and Canadian inmates who are convicted of crimes or are awaiting trial.
He showed The Sun hundreds of envelopes with return addresses representing a who's-who gallery of infamous killers, locked behind bars across North America.
Loudamy, an aspiring journalist, researches the background of the inmates to determine what type of person they would most likely write to; he uses his own name for some inmates, such as Clifford Olson, but for others he adopts a new persona.
Loudamy wrote three times to Pickton as Mya Barnett, a woman down on her luck but determined to survive.
He says he has received three replies from Pickton, in late 2005, in March 2006 and on Aug. 29 -- just four days ago. He provided The Sun with the originals of the last two letters; he was not able to locate the first note he says he received from Pickton.
The letters contain many grammatical and spelling errors. Many portions of them are also underlined for effect, and some words are repeatedly traced over.
The letters are laced with biblical overtones, and to date it has never been clear to the public that Pickton could be religious. The phrase "my father" in the letters appears to refer to God, as opposed to a biological dad.
(Pickton's dad died when Pickton was a young man.)
"I like what the judge has said in coart (sic)," he said, "that I want to give this con-demn-man a half decent-trial and I smiled and said to myself my father also was a condemned man of no wrongdoing, and for that I am very proud to be in this situation for they are the biggest fools that ever walked the earth, but I am not worried for every thing on earth will be judged including Angles," the Feb. 26 letter says.
The letters indicate the writer is keenly aware of the unprecedented cost and administrative challenges of the court proceedings.
The August letter praises Pickton's trial judge, Justice James Williams, for choosing the "short road" by severing 20 of the counts against Pickton, meaning he will likely be tried on only six murder charges at his first trial. The author notes that, to pursue all 26 counts in one trial would have meant "waisted" court time, difficulty in keeping a jury together, and the potential for a mistrial.
All three letters provide a tally of the number of days Pickton has been behind bars since his arrest on Feb. 22, 2002.
"By the time date of Augest 29th 2006 I will have been in hear at N.F.P.T.C. for a total of -- 1, 650 days to date, of which is just over 4 1/2 years in a-waiting for trial," the letter says.
The author details how multiple court sheriffs provide an elaborate escort each day from the pretrial centre in Port Coquitlam to New Westminster Supreme Court, where Pickton's pre-trial hearings have been underway since January.
The second and third letters speak about the cost of the massive investigation, and accuse the police of having a weak case and of arresting the wrong man.
"I have heard my case is over $100,000,000.00 one hundred million dollar case and for the police are no ferther a-head now than when they had first started way back in February of 2002," the Aug. 22 letter says.
"The short way is to put surveillance-cameras and to see who is doing all this. For then they well know the truth and to have the right people behind bars . . . they would save many other lives while the criminals that are in-volved still at large but no-body-cares for they got me as a fall-guy-any-ways."
(The provincial government estimated the cost of the missing women investigation to be $70 million by the end of 2003, and set aside an additional $46 million to fund the case between 2004 and 2007.)
The letters claim to know the number of lawyers and other people who will be involved in the trial -- "Over 20,000 people and 130 police officers all in total" -- but allege that much of the testimony will be fabricated.
"The police got so much money invested -- in this case, there will be many, many lies through-out as many things all come to surface. The police have paid many for them what to say when they are on the stand," the Feb. 26 letter says.
The author of the February letter indicates he has been pen pals with a "girl" for some time and, although he says he's worried she is not being honest, he wants to give her a chance to explain. "I do not like liers or cheaters, for I am honest and my word is true, for that I will never fall back on my word."
In an overly cautious and exceedingly polite manner, the writer of the letters asks Mya Barnett to send him a picture but discourages her from visiting the pre-trial centre out of concern for her safety.
Friends have said Pickton didn't smoke or drink, and the letter asks Mya if she does either.
The letters are written as if the author is an old friend of Mya's, and tenderly wishes her well. For example, the first page of the February letter goes into great detail about hoping she has a speedy recovery from a recent car accident, and encourages her to keep her new job at a travel agency.
"I am really very proud of you for that," the letter says.
The letter includes a religious poem which the author claims to have written with "my father," and also encourages Mya in glowing terms to remain strong despite the challenges in her life.
"Who ever you will end up with they will be a ver very -- lucky person to have you. Do not degrade you-self by any means for you de-serve the best, as the best is yet to come which you must wait."
Loudamy could not provide The Sun with the first letter he said he received from Pickton, because he left it in storage in Texas before moving to California in late 2005.
However, he recalled the first letter being similar to the last two in that it was printed in capital letters, it appeared to be religious, and the author made references to the legal proceedings against Pickton.
One difference Loudamy remembered is that the first letter indicated the author had been reading quite a bit.
Loudamy sends handwritten letters to inmates and does not keep copies. However, he recalled the initial letter he sent to Pickton was one page long and said Mya could use someone to speak with, that she was often between jobs, and would welcome any comments from Pickton.
Loudamy, who maintains he has no sympathy for Pickton, hopes that by releasing these letters publicly for the first time, they will provide a window for the public to learn more about the accused serial killer.
lculbert@png.canwest.com
Edited versions of both Pickton letters are available online at www.vancouversun.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, September 02, 2006
FREMONT, Calif. -- A series of letters purportedly penned by Robert (Willie) Pickton, who is accused of killing 26 missing women, maintain his innocence and claim he is just the "fall guy" arrested in the multi-million investigation.
Pickton has given no media interviews since his 2002 arrest, and his court proceedings have been muzzled by a publication ban, so any letters written by him would provide the first public glimpse into the thoughts of the man accused of being Canada's worst serial killer.
"I my-self is not from this world, but I am born into this world through my earthly mother and if I had to change any-thing I would not, for I have done no wrong," says a letter dated Feb. 26, 2006, signed "Willie."
The four-page note, hand-printed in capital letters, is one of three that California resident Thomas Loudamy says were mailed to him by Pickton, who is being held in the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam awaiting his January 2007 trial.
The letters show the author believes he will be exonerated and is highly critical of police; is following the legal proceedings closely and plans to write a book; and has religious leanings, quoting two Bible passages in one letter.
One Bible passage included in the most recent letter, dated Aug. 22, 2006, is identified as being from the New Testament, Acts 14:22: "In each city they helped Christians to be strong and true to the faith. They told them that we must suffer many hard things to get into -- the holy nation of God."
The Sun has taken several steps to try to confirm that the letters and envelopes, which have Robert William Pickton's name in the return address, were in fact written by the accused killer. (The newspaper couldn't ask him directly because his lawyer has previously denied all requests for media interviews.)
The envelopes are stamped with the name and address of the North Fraser Pretrial Centre; all provincial correctional facilities use such stamps on outgoing mail for public safety, so that recipients know they are receiving correspondence from an inmate, said B.C. Corrections spokesperson Bruce Bannerman.
The Sun sent a copy of the envelope from the Feb. 26 letter to Canada Post, confirming the postage stamp -- which came from a stamping machine, as opposed to the type that is licked -- and the other Canada Post codings put on the envelope are not forgeries.
In addition, the meter number on the stamping machine belongs to an agency that does mailings for the B.C. government, said Canada Post spokeswoman Teresa Williams. (The pretrial centre is run by the province.)
"Canada Post reviewed the envelope and all appearances are that it is legitimately sent from who it says it was sent from [the pretrial centre]," Williams said.
The Canada Post markings on the envelope also confirm it was stamped on March 1, 2006 and put in the mail on March 2.
Ardith Watson, the warden of the pretrial centre, confirmed mail written by prisoners is sent to a mail centre, where it is stamped and sent along to Canada Post for delivery.
Loudamy, a 27-year-old warehouse worker from Fremont, Calif., has a unique hobby of writing to American and Canadian inmates who are convicted of crimes or are awaiting trial.
He showed The Sun hundreds of envelopes with return addresses representing a who's-who gallery of infamous killers, locked behind bars across North America.
Loudamy, an aspiring journalist, researches the background of the inmates to determine what type of person they would most likely write to; he uses his own name for some inmates, such as Clifford Olson, but for others he adopts a new persona.
Loudamy wrote three times to Pickton as Mya Barnett, a woman down on her luck but determined to survive.
He says he has received three replies from Pickton, in late 2005, in March 2006 and on Aug. 29 -- just four days ago. He provided The Sun with the originals of the last two letters; he was not able to locate the first note he says he received from Pickton.
The letters contain many grammatical and spelling errors. Many portions of them are also underlined for effect, and some words are repeatedly traced over.
The letters are laced with biblical overtones, and to date it has never been clear to the public that Pickton could be religious. The phrase "my father" in the letters appears to refer to God, as opposed to a biological dad.
(Pickton's dad died when Pickton was a young man.)
"I like what the judge has said in coart (sic)," he said, "that I want to give this con-demn-man a half decent-trial and I smiled and said to myself my father also was a condemned man of no wrongdoing, and for that I am very proud to be in this situation for they are the biggest fools that ever walked the earth, but I am not worried for every thing on earth will be judged including Angles," the Feb. 26 letter says.
The letters indicate the writer is keenly aware of the unprecedented cost and administrative challenges of the court proceedings.
The August letter praises Pickton's trial judge, Justice James Williams, for choosing the "short road" by severing 20 of the counts against Pickton, meaning he will likely be tried on only six murder charges at his first trial. The author notes that, to pursue all 26 counts in one trial would have meant "waisted" court time, difficulty in keeping a jury together, and the potential for a mistrial.
All three letters provide a tally of the number of days Pickton has been behind bars since his arrest on Feb. 22, 2002.
"By the time date of Augest 29th 2006 I will have been in hear at N.F.P.T.C. for a total of -- 1, 650 days to date, of which is just over 4 1/2 years in a-waiting for trial," the letter says.
The author details how multiple court sheriffs provide an elaborate escort each day from the pretrial centre in Port Coquitlam to New Westminster Supreme Court, where Pickton's pre-trial hearings have been underway since January.
The second and third letters speak about the cost of the massive investigation, and accuse the police of having a weak case and of arresting the wrong man.
"I have heard my case is over $100,000,000.00 one hundred million dollar case and for the police are no ferther a-head now than when they had first started way back in February of 2002," the Aug. 22 letter says.
"The short way is to put surveillance-cameras and to see who is doing all this. For then they well know the truth and to have the right people behind bars . . . they would save many other lives while the criminals that are in-volved still at large but no-body-cares for they got me as a fall-guy-any-ways."
(The provincial government estimated the cost of the missing women investigation to be $70 million by the end of 2003, and set aside an additional $46 million to fund the case between 2004 and 2007.)
The letters claim to know the number of lawyers and other people who will be involved in the trial -- "Over 20,000 people and 130 police officers all in total" -- but allege that much of the testimony will be fabricated.
"The police got so much money invested -- in this case, there will be many, many lies through-out as many things all come to surface. The police have paid many for them what to say when they are on the stand," the Feb. 26 letter says.
The author of the February letter indicates he has been pen pals with a "girl" for some time and, although he says he's worried she is not being honest, he wants to give her a chance to explain. "I do not like liers or cheaters, for I am honest and my word is true, for that I will never fall back on my word."
In an overly cautious and exceedingly polite manner, the writer of the letters asks Mya Barnett to send him a picture but discourages her from visiting the pre-trial centre out of concern for her safety.
Friends have said Pickton didn't smoke or drink, and the letter asks Mya if she does either.
The letters are written as if the author is an old friend of Mya's, and tenderly wishes her well. For example, the first page of the February letter goes into great detail about hoping she has a speedy recovery from a recent car accident, and encourages her to keep her new job at a travel agency.
"I am really very proud of you for that," the letter says.
The letter includes a religious poem which the author claims to have written with "my father," and also encourages Mya in glowing terms to remain strong despite the challenges in her life.
"Who ever you will end up with they will be a ver very -- lucky person to have you. Do not degrade you-self by any means for you de-serve the best, as the best is yet to come which you must wait."
Loudamy could not provide The Sun with the first letter he said he received from Pickton, because he left it in storage in Texas before moving to California in late 2005.
However, he recalled the first letter being similar to the last two in that it was printed in capital letters, it appeared to be religious, and the author made references to the legal proceedings against Pickton.
One difference Loudamy remembered is that the first letter indicated the author had been reading quite a bit.
Loudamy sends handwritten letters to inmates and does not keep copies. However, he recalled the initial letter he sent to Pickton was one page long and said Mya could use someone to speak with, that she was often between jobs, and would welcome any comments from Pickton.
Loudamy, who maintains he has no sympathy for Pickton, hopes that by releasing these letters publicly for the first time, they will provide a window for the public to learn more about the accused serial killer.
lculbert@png.canwest.com
Edited versions of both Pickton letters are available online at www.vancouversun.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
Friday, September 1
Apathy ruins plans to help B.C. prostitutes
Ambitious projects fall on tough times
globeandmail.com
ROBERT MATAS
VANCOUVER -- The desperate lives of drug addicts who worked as prostitutes were thrust into the limelight after pig farmer Robert Pickton was charged in 2002 with killing women who worked along the strolls of Vancouver's skid row.
People who said they wanted to make a difference in the lives of women addicted to drugs came out with ambitious plans to provide new detoxification beds, rural transition houses and a safe house.
But raising money proved difficult and fundraisers discovered major donors in the city were uncomfortable being associated with a charity devoted to drug-addicted prostitutes.
"Women in the sex trade are a hard sell," said Elaine Allan, who used to work at a women's drop-in centre in the eastside neighbourhood and knew some of the dead women.
"Unfortunately there is a stigma that exists around prostitution," said Anna Lilly, spokesperson for a celebrity effort that failed to raise enough funds to reach its goal.
The charities were also undermined by messy internal disputes and a bitter competition for funds. They quarrelled over who could speak on behalf of the victims' families, even arguing publicly about who could use the phrase "missing women."
Interviews this week with those involved in fundraising revealed that numerous plans have fizzled out during the past 4½ years. Trust funds for donations have withered. Ambitious plans were shelved.
Valerie Hughes was despondent when she looked back on how little has been accomplished. "Talking to you made me so sad," Ms. Hughes said about an earlier interview. Her sister, Kerry Koski, was allegedly killed by Mr. Pickton.
Ms. Hughes spearheaded a campaign by the Missing Women's Legacy Society for a new facility to help drug addicts in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. After four years of fundraising, the legacy society has assets of $21,630, according to its most recent annual statement. It collected $760 last year.
"We were so touched by the response at first," she said. "We based our plans on the continuation of the response. We learned that the media and the public have a very short attention span."
Mr. Pickton was arrested on Feb. 22, 2002. He has been charged with the murders of 26 women who were addicted to drugs and worked as prostitutes, mostly in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. If convicted on all charges, the 56-year-old Port Coquitlam bachelor would be among the deadliest serial killers in North America.
The Pickton trial, which began on Jan. 30, starts again on Sept. 8 after a month-long recess. As the lawyers work on their courtroom strategy for the next phase in the trial, family, friends and community activists said in interviews this week they are beginning to think again about how to use the onslaught of attention that will invariably accompany the court proceedings.
Numerous initiatives in recent years have helped agencies provide services to addicts and others in the Downtown Eastside. But those involved in charities specifically earmarked for drug-addicted prostitutes said their projects never really caught fire.
The Buried Heart Society planned to provide a new treatment and recovery home for addicted women in the Downtown Eastside.
The charity had to abandon its plans and settle for distributing modest grants of a few thousand dollars each to some groups active in the neighbourhood.
The facility was to be financed mostly with proceedings from a celebrity CD, recorded in 2002 by some of Canada's top music talent: Colin James, Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page, Gord Downie of Tragically Hip, Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo, Neil Osborne of 54-40 and other musicians.
Official records were not available this week. Ms. Lilly estimated the project raised around $25,000 for Buried Heart.
Plans for a recovery home never got off the ground. "It involved more funding than we provided and they had no other source," Ms. Lilly said.
The fundraisers tried to encourage corporations and non-profit groups to buy the CD in bulk and give the music to their employees. "But we got nowhere. People felt uncomfortable with the subject matter, which was discouraging," she said.
Jack Cummer worked four years on a CD in honour of his granddaughter, Andrea Joesbury. He wanted to raise money to help women with drug problems move out of prostitution. He arranged for poet Susan Musgrave to write the lyrics to a song called Missing.
The CD, which was released this spring, has not yet brought in much money. Mr. Cummer, 76, said he was frustrated by the lack of promotion for the CD. "It seems to have fallen by the wayside," he said. "Just because someone says it was a good idea does not mean people will really get behind it."
Ms. Hughes said the Missing Women's Legacy Society campaign for an opiate detoxification centre and for "legacy house," a haven for women, stalled in 2004. A house had been donated but the charity could not come up with enough money to fix up the place to meet municipal safety standards. Reluctantly, Ms. Hughes had to forfeit the donated house.
Ms. Hughes, 50, said she had serious health problems in 2004, after police told her about the fate of her sister. She became both physically and emotionally exhausted.
Since becoming active again earlier this year, she has been working mostly on putting together memorial quilts. The charity is now dedicated to providing "quilts of hope" to women and children at risk. Ms. Hughes also has plans to support an art therapy program at Peardonville House, a drug rehabilitation centre for women in Abbotsford, B.C.
"Emotionally, I'm not able to do more. I do some fundraising, public speaking. But sometimes it's really hard," she said, adding that distributing memorial quilts is now her priority. "I really need 10 more sewing machines," she said.
Limited successes of charities for troubled women
Here are some charities that had limited success in raising funds for women addicted to drugs and working as prostitutes:
The Missing Women's Legacy Society hoped to set up a rapid opiate detoxification centre in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and a "legacy house" safe haven for women.
After four years it had assets of $21,630. The society collected $760 last year.
The Streets Where You Live was patterned after the celebrity song We Are the World, which raised $50-million (U.S.) in the 1980s to help famine relief efforts in Ethiopia. Streets brought together Colin James, Steven Pages of the Barenaked Ladies, Gord Downey of the Tragically Hip, Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo, Neil Osborne of 54-40 and other musicians. The song raised $20,000 to $25,000.
Funds from the CD were given to a charity called the Buried Heart Society, which also received $27,000 in 2003 from an auction of art by inmates. Organizers hoped for enough funds to cover the cost of a treatment and recovery home for addicted women in the Downtown Eastside. Via Nova Foundation, based in a church, was to build the residential treatment centre. Via Nova fell apart after its most active supporters moved on to other projects.
Another tribute song called Missing with lyrics penned by poet Susan Musgrave took four years to put together. The recording was released this year. The money was to support a program run by Haven Society in Nanaimo, to help homeless women secure housing and develop life skills. So far, the proceeds have been minimal.
© Copyright 2006 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
globeandmail.com
ROBERT MATAS
VANCOUVER -- The desperate lives of drug addicts who worked as prostitutes were thrust into the limelight after pig farmer Robert Pickton was charged in 2002 with killing women who worked along the strolls of Vancouver's skid row.
People who said they wanted to make a difference in the lives of women addicted to drugs came out with ambitious plans to provide new detoxification beds, rural transition houses and a safe house.
But raising money proved difficult and fundraisers discovered major donors in the city were uncomfortable being associated with a charity devoted to drug-addicted prostitutes.
"Women in the sex trade are a hard sell," said Elaine Allan, who used to work at a women's drop-in centre in the eastside neighbourhood and knew some of the dead women.
"Unfortunately there is a stigma that exists around prostitution," said Anna Lilly, spokesperson for a celebrity effort that failed to raise enough funds to reach its goal.
The charities were also undermined by messy internal disputes and a bitter competition for funds. They quarrelled over who could speak on behalf of the victims' families, even arguing publicly about who could use the phrase "missing women."
Interviews this week with those involved in fundraising revealed that numerous plans have fizzled out during the past 4½ years. Trust funds for donations have withered. Ambitious plans were shelved.
Valerie Hughes was despondent when she looked back on how little has been accomplished. "Talking to you made me so sad," Ms. Hughes said about an earlier interview. Her sister, Kerry Koski, was allegedly killed by Mr. Pickton.
Ms. Hughes spearheaded a campaign by the Missing Women's Legacy Society for a new facility to help drug addicts in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. After four years of fundraising, the legacy society has assets of $21,630, according to its most recent annual statement. It collected $760 last year.
"We were so touched by the response at first," she said. "We based our plans on the continuation of the response. We learned that the media and the public have a very short attention span."
Mr. Pickton was arrested on Feb. 22, 2002. He has been charged with the murders of 26 women who were addicted to drugs and worked as prostitutes, mostly in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. If convicted on all charges, the 56-year-old Port Coquitlam bachelor would be among the deadliest serial killers in North America.
The Pickton trial, which began on Jan. 30, starts again on Sept. 8 after a month-long recess. As the lawyers work on their courtroom strategy for the next phase in the trial, family, friends and community activists said in interviews this week they are beginning to think again about how to use the onslaught of attention that will invariably accompany the court proceedings.
Numerous initiatives in recent years have helped agencies provide services to addicts and others in the Downtown Eastside. But those involved in charities specifically earmarked for drug-addicted prostitutes said their projects never really caught fire.
The Buried Heart Society planned to provide a new treatment and recovery home for addicted women in the Downtown Eastside.
The charity had to abandon its plans and settle for distributing modest grants of a few thousand dollars each to some groups active in the neighbourhood.
The facility was to be financed mostly with proceedings from a celebrity CD, recorded in 2002 by some of Canada's top music talent: Colin James, Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page, Gord Downie of Tragically Hip, Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo, Neil Osborne of 54-40 and other musicians.
Official records were not available this week. Ms. Lilly estimated the project raised around $25,000 for Buried Heart.
Plans for a recovery home never got off the ground. "It involved more funding than we provided and they had no other source," Ms. Lilly said.
The fundraisers tried to encourage corporations and non-profit groups to buy the CD in bulk and give the music to their employees. "But we got nowhere. People felt uncomfortable with the subject matter, which was discouraging," she said.
Jack Cummer worked four years on a CD in honour of his granddaughter, Andrea Joesbury. He wanted to raise money to help women with drug problems move out of prostitution. He arranged for poet Susan Musgrave to write the lyrics to a song called Missing.
The CD, which was released this spring, has not yet brought in much money. Mr. Cummer, 76, said he was frustrated by the lack of promotion for the CD. "It seems to have fallen by the wayside," he said. "Just because someone says it was a good idea does not mean people will really get behind it."
Ms. Hughes said the Missing Women's Legacy Society campaign for an opiate detoxification centre and for "legacy house," a haven for women, stalled in 2004. A house had been donated but the charity could not come up with enough money to fix up the place to meet municipal safety standards. Reluctantly, Ms. Hughes had to forfeit the donated house.
Ms. Hughes, 50, said she had serious health problems in 2004, after police told her about the fate of her sister. She became both physically and emotionally exhausted.
Since becoming active again earlier this year, she has been working mostly on putting together memorial quilts. The charity is now dedicated to providing "quilts of hope" to women and children at risk. Ms. Hughes also has plans to support an art therapy program at Peardonville House, a drug rehabilitation centre for women in Abbotsford, B.C.
"Emotionally, I'm not able to do more. I do some fundraising, public speaking. But sometimes it's really hard," she said, adding that distributing memorial quilts is now her priority. "I really need 10 more sewing machines," she said.
Limited successes of charities for troubled women
Here are some charities that had limited success in raising funds for women addicted to drugs and working as prostitutes:
The Missing Women's Legacy Society hoped to set up a rapid opiate detoxification centre in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and a "legacy house" safe haven for women.
After four years it had assets of $21,630. The society collected $760 last year.
The Streets Where You Live was patterned after the celebrity song We Are the World, which raised $50-million (U.S.) in the 1980s to help famine relief efforts in Ethiopia. Streets brought together Colin James, Steven Pages of the Barenaked Ladies, Gord Downey of the Tragically Hip, Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo, Neil Osborne of 54-40 and other musicians. The song raised $20,000 to $25,000.
Funds from the CD were given to a charity called the Buried Heart Society, which also received $27,000 in 2003 from an auction of art by inmates. Organizers hoped for enough funds to cover the cost of a treatment and recovery home for addicted women in the Downtown Eastside. Via Nova Foundation, based in a church, was to build the residential treatment centre. Via Nova fell apart after its most active supporters moved on to other projects.
Another tribute song called Missing with lyrics penned by poet Susan Musgrave took four years to put together. The recording was released this year. The money was to support a program run by Haven Society in Nanaimo, to help homeless women secure housing and develop life skills. So far, the proceeds have been minimal.
© Copyright 2006 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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