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Cameron speaks about Pickton murder case at local university

Published Saturday October 25th, 2008

By KYLE MULLIN
For The Daily Gleaner

Award-winning author and journalist Stevie Cameron spoke at St. Thomas University recently about her investigation into one of Canada's most notorious serial killers, Robert Pickton.

Pickton's case has been largely unheard of because of court publication bans and a lack of public interest, Cameron said, but it is a story that must be told.

"When people hear about what I'm working on they shudder and say they don't want to know about it because of the gruesome details," she said.

Cameron is waiting for Pickton's trial to finish and the publication ban to be lifted before releasing her book about the case, The Pig Farm.

In 2007, Cameron published The Pickton File, a memoir of her six-year investigation of the women who disappeared from Vancouver's infamous Downtown East Side.

"If you visit the Downtown East Side, I know you'll be shocked by the poverty you see," Cameron said. "The wounded and the aimless - there's nothing else like it in Canada. But it is a community and when someone goes missing in it, the people notice."

Cameron said more than 60 per cent of the evidence in the case is covered by the publication ban and that it won't be lifted until after the appeals are complete, no sooner than March.

Pickton, a pig farmer from Vancouver, has been charged with the murder of 27 women and convicted of killing six, but he claims to have killed 49 people.

The case has been ongoing for nearly seven years. At a cost of $200 million, it has become the most expensive in Canadian history.

About 600 swabs of DNA evidence were taken from Pickton's farm, which is believed to be the largest crime scene in Canadian history.

Cameron said many of the missing women were prostitutes, poverty stricken and addicted to drugs, but their stories need to be told.

"People say these women made their choice (by being prostitutes). I don't believe that," she said.

"It's easy to forget the people at the heart of this story. I don't recoil at the gruesome details because I know the families and I feel I know the girls who were murdered. And I feel they should matter."

Cameron is currently the Irving chairwoman of journalism at STU.

She is best known for her book, On the Take, an expose of the corruption and scandals surrounding the Mulroney government during the Airbus scandal.

Cameron has also worked as a contributing editor of Maclean's magazine, the founder and editor Elm Street magazine and the host of the Fifth Estate.

© 2008 CanadaEast Interactive, Brunswick News Inc. All rights reserved.

Stevie Cameron

http://www.steviecameron.com/

Media seeks access to videos and other exhibits filed at Robert Pickton's first trial

Neal Hall
Vancouver Sun

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

NEW WESTMINSTER - Nothing could be more prejudicial to the possible second trial of serial killer Robert (Willie) Pickton than the guilty verdict and sentencing at the first trial last year, a media lawyer argued recently in an effort to get videotapes and other exhibits from that trial released.

"Multiple trial scenarios are nothing new," media lawyer Dan Burnett told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Jim Williams during a three-day hearing last week.

The judge, who has reserved judgment on the media application, initially banned publication of the legal arguments but subsequently lifted most of the ban, allowing the media to report on the proceedings.

Burnett told the judge that in this case, it was Pickton who sought to be tried first on six of the 26 charges he was facing "with the obvious effect of creating the situation in which the second trial must occur with the evidence and verdict from the first trial known to the public."

The lawyer cited previous cases involving multiple trials, such as that of Kelly Ellard, who is facing a fourth trial, and that of Abbotsford killer Terry Driver.

Burnett said "our justice system is not so fragile that it cannot handle those situations."

He argued: "Where the basis of the ban is to guard against prejudicing a future jury, the jurisprudence emphasizes the faith the courts have in jurors, the selection procedures, and other safeguards, even in the face of extreme publicity and even in situations of multiple trials."

Burnett cited a ruling by former judge Wally Oppal, who observed: "It should also be noted that in the past, in this jurisdiction and in this country, there have been some noteworthy cases that involved an inordinate amount of pretrial publicity followed by multiple trials."

Oppal cited the cases of killers Darren Huenemann (1993), Jelka Pesic (1993), and Josephakis Charalambous, which all proceeded "in an uneventful manner in spite of extensive pretrial publicity and overlapping evidence" from multiple trials involving co-accused.

Burnett argued that the courts, including rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada, have established principles in favour of court openness because most people learn about court proceedings through the media.

Among the trial exhibits the media seeks access to are two videotapes that were considered key evidence at Pickton's trial.

One is a so-called confession tape, where Pickton made a number of incriminating statements to his cellmate in jail, who was an undercover police officer posing as a criminal.

The other is the videotape of Pickton's formal statement to police after his arrest for murder on Feb. 22, 2002.

Burnett argued that the media have already provided full transcriptions of what was said on the videotapes and described Pickton's demeanour at the time.

The defence, which opposed releasing the tapes, cited an affidavit by Sonya Chopra, a California jury consultant who viewed the videotapes.

Chopra concluded the videos could be prejudicial because they are more "vivid" than other ways of conveying information, pointing out some research indicates "vivid" information has more impact than non-vivid information.

The media retained Jonathan Freedman, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, who prepared a rebuttal report to Chopra's findings.

The media is also seeking access to a number of voir dire rulings, which involved some evidence never heard by the jury because it was ruled inadmissible.

"Justice must be done and must be seen to be done," Burnett argued. "The lengthy list of voir dires illustrates the vast amount of important information about this trial which has not been reported to the public.

"The principles regarding the importance of open court, public scrutiny, and role of the media in reporting to the public on court proceedings, are all encompassed in the fundamental importance of s. 2(b) [of the Canadian Charter]. Open justice and public scrutiny is a fundamental cornerstone of our justice system."

The judge's ruling on the media application is expected sometime next month.

Pickton, 59, was originally charged with 26 counts of first-degree murder but the judge decided to sever 20 counts, splitting the charges into two trials.

The first trial, which dealt with a six-count murder indictment, ended last Dec. 9 with a jury convicting Pickton on six counts of second-degree murder. He received a life sentence with no chance of parole for at least 25 years.

All his victims were women who lived and worked in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The 11-month trial heard evidence of how Pickton lured women to his farm in Port Coquitlam, where Pickton regularly slaughtered pigs.

Pickton has filed an appeal of his conviction - and the Crown has filed a cross appeal - that will be heard next March 30. It is set for seven days.

Oppal, now B.C. attorney-general, announced earlier this year that if Pickton's appeal fails and his conviction is upheld, the Crown will not proceed with a second murder trial on the remaining 20 counts, a decision that disappointed victims' families.

Rick Frey, the father of one of Pickton's victims, Marnie Frey, has expressed his support for the media gaining access to the exhibits that have not been made public.

So has Lilliane Beaudoin, the sister of Dianne Rock, one of Pickton's alleged victims to be dealt with at the second trial.

"We thank Dan Burnett and we ask that he keeps up the fight for justice for the families that want justice," Beaudoin said.

nhall@vancouversun.com

© Vancouver Sun

Cold Cases: Seeking justice for Molly, 65 years later

Saanich police take new look at case of teen girl stabbed to death at Swan Lake in 1943

Lindsay Kines and Rob Shaw
Times Colonist

Sunday, October 19, 2008

A single brown cardboard box filled with letters, notebooks, an unidentified knife, three leather gloves and other curious bits of evidence is all that remains of one of the most famous cold cases in Victoria's history.

Last reviewed in 1996, the file officially remains open, inactive and unsolved. But Saanich police have long believed they know who killed the 15-year-old seamstress on Jan. 18, 1943; they just never got a chance to prove it.

"As I read the evidence at the disposal of investigators, I'm saying to myself, 'If I had that much evidence today, I think I could make that fly," Insp. Rob McColl, head of the Saanich police major crime section, said in a recent interview at his office -- which, in a case rich with irony, now overlooks the spot where a girl named Justice fell 65 years ago.

Few crimes still resonate on Vancouver Island like Molly's killing.

The Times Colonist's recent efforts to highlight cold cases of missing or murdered people prompted numerous calls from readers wondering about the status of the 65-year-old homicide.

So, at the newspaper's request, Saanich police pulled the file from a storage locker one more time and pored over the evidence.

- - -

It was just after 6 p.m. when Anneta Margaret Clive "Molly" Justice stepped off the bus on Douglas Street near Swan Lake on her way home from work at a Victoria garment factory on Jan. 18, 1943.

Taking a shortcut, the 15-year-old headed along the CN rail line at what is now the Galloping Goose Trail near Saanich municipal hall, but never made it to her home on Brett Avenue.

Her body was found beside the tracks four hours later. She had been beaten and stabbed. One of the more than 30 wounds severed her jugular vein. There were no signs of sexual assault.

Retired lawyer Cecil Branson, who spent years researching and writing an unpublished manuscript about the case, was eight years old in 1943. He still remembers the shock of reading about Molly's death.

"It was in the middle of a war where people were dying overseas, but nobody at home," he said. "It's the thing that I remember from that time, other than the war news."

For three months, the police investigation failed to turn up a suspect. Then, in May, an 11-year-old girl reported being sexually assaulted near Swan Lake by a boy who threatened to do to her what he had done to Molly Justice.

Later that day, police arrested 15-year-old Frank Hulbert, also known as Frank Pepler. But, although he was charged and convicted of the assault two weeks later, Hulbert managed to convince investigators that he was no killer.

Instead, he pointed the finger at William Mitchell, a 49-year-old former RCMP officer with no criminal record who worked with Hulbert at a Victoria paint factory. Hulbert claimed Mitchell had confessed to the crime.

Police arrested Mitchell on June 15, 1943, charged him with first-degree murder and seized a bloodstained knife from his rooming house.

Fortunately for Mitchell, another co-worker, Lewis Kamann, testified at the trial five months later that Mitchell left work too late on the night of the murder to have been at the scene when the girl was killed. Mitchell, testifying in his own defence, said the blood on the knife was his own.

The jury believed Mitchell and Kamann over Hulbert and acquitted Mitchell, saving him from the death penalty.

For the next 25 years, the case appeared stalled, despite the fact Hulbert, on a number of occasions, reportedly admitted to killing Molly himself.

Then, in 1967, Saanich police succeeded in getting Hulbert charged with perjury for lying about Mitchell's involvement. After two trials, he was convicted and sentenced to four and half years in prison.

Police, however, were never able to convince the Crown to lay a murder charge. Hulbert died in 1996 in Port Alberni, and Saanich police subsequently announced their belief that he was Molly's killer.

The flurry of stories at the time raised new questions about whether Hulbert had escaped punishment because he was related to Eric Pepler, deputy attorney general from 1934 to 1954. To restore confidence in the justice system, then-attorney general Ujjal Dosanjh asked a former judge to investigate.

But Martin Taylor found no conclusive evidence that Pepler was related to Hulbert, let alone that he interfered in the case. Nor was Taylor able to say for sure that Hulbert was guilty.

"Before saying today that we believe on reasonable grounds that Frank Hulbert murdered Molly Justice, we would do well to remember that those responsible for the Saanich police investigation said the same thing of William Mitchell," Taylor wrote in his 147-page report.

Today, police might have been able to provide a more definitive answer, given advances in forensic techniques. Hair that was apparently found underneath Molly's fingernails could have been analyzed to obtain a DNA profile. A fingerprint recovered from the contents of her discarded purse could have been run through a databank system for a possible match.

But both those pieces of evidence have been lost to history.

"We believe all the real evidence was destroyed at some point, or it never made it back here and where it went we don't know," Saanich Sgt. John Price said.

"If we could locate the exhibits that I know of, which are limited to the print and the hair, then yes, modern technology could assist us there," added Saanich Insp. Rob McColl.

There's no paper record to show where they went for sure, but they aren't in today's police evidence box. Without them, McColl admits, investigators can only reread old letters and previous reviews of the file. All the witnesses and suspects are dead.

The Molly Justice file bears little resemblance to the meticulous work demanded of police today. In preparation for this story, Saanich police reread documents and submitted evidence to the department's forensic identification division. A set of previously unlabelled fingerprints were found to belong to Molly, taken after she was killed.

Nobody is quite sure of the significance of a small, unlabelled brown-handled knife found in an envelope in the evidence box. The forensics division determined there were no traces of blood on the blade.

"Is it the murder weapon? I don't know," said McColl.

The case appears to both frustrate and fascinate the veteran cop. But McColl said there's not enough hope of solving it to pull busy detectives off other files.

It would require new evidence, and a court order, to exhume Molly's or Hulbert's body for DNA collection, and even then there's no guarantee of finding samples or having anything to compare them to, said McColl.

For the most part, the surviving members of Molly's family say they've also moved on. Molly's sister-in-law, Marjorie, was instrumental in pushing police to review the case in 1996. She passed away last November.

"I don't think we talk about it anymore," said Ken Justice, 56, Marjorie's son and Molly's nephew. "Her feelings were that it was put to rest."

Using DNA to find evidence seems pointless, he added. "There's no real source of justice going to happen, because the fella has passed away himself."

"We've left it alone and we ourselves as a family haven't gone into it any more. It was so long ago now. But the generation of Justices is still going on, right in Victoria. Dad had six of us, four girls, myself and a brother. There's 14 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren."

The killing of Molly Justice is one of only four unsolved murders in Saanich. Pregnant teenager Cheri Lynn Smith was found dead in the bushes on Munns Road in 1990. Bobby Johal was gunned down in his Cordova Bay driveway in 2003. Realtor Lindsay Buziak, 24, was stabbed to death Feb. 2 in an empty house she was trying to sell in Gordon Head.

Molly's killing is also one of the oldest on Vancouver Island. But her case seems destined to remain officially open, partially solved, and perhaps permanently stalled.

"You can't say unequivocally that Frank Hulbert did it, and I'm not prepared to say that either," McColl said. "I think that's a matter that has to be decided by a competent court.

"However, all of the evidence would lead an ordinary, normal, common individual, a person of sound mind, to come to a reasonable conclusion that there's a strong likelihood Frank Hulbert was responsible for this homicide."

If you have information about any cold cases, or suggestions for future stories, you can reach Lindsay Kines at 250-381-7890 or lkines@tc.canwest.com and Rob Shaw at 250-380-5350 or rfshaw@tc.canwest.com.

The story of the killing of Molly Justice is part of an ongoing Times Colonist series by reporters Lindsay Kines and Rob Shaw that highlights unsolved cases of missing or murdered people from the Island, and examines new techniques being used to solve old crimes.

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008

More needs to be done about missing women

More needs to be done about missing women: aboriginal group

Lana Haight

The StarPhoenix

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Government and the media ought to be making more of the issue of missing aboriginal women in Canada, says a national Native organization.

"There is this silence going on in Canada, with the media, with the government. And why are our women being targeted?" said Theresa Ducharme, community development co-ordinator with the Native Women's Association of Canada in Ottawa.

On Friday, at a seminar in Saskatoon aimed at raising awareness among those working in the justice community, Ducharme and colleague Andrea Still confirmed that since 1944, 509 aboriginal women and girls have either been murdered or have gone missing in Canada. Most of those women were younger than 30. In all these years, only 12 missing aboriginal women have been found alive.

Problems such as poverty, lack of housing and insufficient services aimed at aboriginal people are rooted in larger issues.

"That all stems back to colonization. That all stems back to residential schools. That all stems back to the Indian Act. It's a continuation of genocide. It's a strong word, but that's the reality," said Ducharme.

Among the 40 people registered for Friday's workshop were Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill, several justice students, officials with Saskatchewan Justice and community workers. Saskatoon was the eighth stop on a 10-city tour of the Sisters in Spirit Justice Community Awareness workshops.

Three years ago, the Native Women's Association of Canada launched Sisters in Spirit to raise awareness of missing women and girls, to develop ways of improving how the community responds to violence against aboriginal women and to conduct research into the issue of missing women.

In its short history, the organization has accomplished much, Ducharme and Still said. In 2006, Sisters in Spirit vigils were held in 11 communities in Canada. The next year, that number was up to 30. And this year, 40 communities held vigils, remembering missing and murdered aboriginal women.

Several "toolkits" -- resources for women, community members and justice officials -- have been developed. After this year's tour, Ducharme and Still have another idea of a needed resource. Families of missing women need information about what role they play in finding missing women.

lhaight@sp.canwest.com

© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2008