WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.180 I want you to close your eyes for a second. Imagine, 00:00:02.299 --> 00:00:05.259 if you will, a piece of land. It's vast, it's 00:00:05.259 --> 00:00:08.460 muddy, and it smells. It smells of manure, of 00:00:08.460 --> 00:00:12.539 damp earth, of rusting metal, and of rot. A sweet, 00:00:12.699 --> 00:00:15.439 cloying rot that hangs in the heavy Pacific air. 00:00:15.939 --> 00:00:18.519 This isn't a farm in the middle of nowhere, miles 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:22.120 from civilization. This is 953 Dominion Avenue 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:25.260 in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. We are talking 00:00:25.260 --> 00:00:28.160 about a location that sits just 27 kilometers 00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:30.839 east of Vancouver. That's right. And it's that 00:00:30.839 --> 00:00:33.640 geography that makes this story so incredibly 00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:37.679 jarring. You have the shadow of a gleaning cosmopolitan, 00:00:37.719 --> 00:00:42.960 major city glass towers, ocean views, five -star 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:44.659 sushi restaurants, you know, some of the most 00:00:44.659 --> 00:00:46.619 expensive real estate in North America. Right. 00:00:46.679 --> 00:00:48.799 And then, less than a half -hour drive away, 00:00:49.039 --> 00:00:52.649 you have this squalid, chaotic pig farm. that 00:00:52.649 --> 00:00:55.289 became the epicenter of a nightmare. We are diving 00:00:55.289 --> 00:00:57.670 deep today into the story of Robert William Pickton. 00:00:57.729 --> 00:00:59.369 And I know, I know, you've probably seen the 00:00:59.369 --> 00:01:01.250 headlines. You know the name. He's the pig farmer 00:01:01.250 --> 00:01:04.709 killer. He is one of, if not the most notorious 00:01:04.709 --> 00:01:07.629 serial killer in Canadian history. The numbers 00:01:07.629 --> 00:01:09.670 alone are just, they're enough to make your stomach 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:12.670 turn. He was convicted of six murders. He was 00:01:12.670 --> 00:01:16.310 charged with 27. But, and here's where it gets 00:01:16.310 --> 00:01:19.959 truly chilling. He confessed to 49. And he didn't 00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:23.540 just confess to 49. He explicitly stated, you 00:01:23.540 --> 00:01:25.640 know, that he wanted to make it an even 50. He 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:28.659 viewed it as a quota he failed to meet. It's 00:01:28.659 --> 00:01:30.840 just incredible. Exactly. It's like a project 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:33.719 he didn't finish. But today, our mission isn't 00:01:33.719 --> 00:01:35.980 just to recount the gore. We aren't here to just 00:01:35.980 --> 00:01:38.120 read a list of crimes or, you know, turn this 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:40.319 into a horror movie script. We want to understand 00:01:40.319 --> 00:01:43.900 how. How does a man kill that many women over 00:01:43.900 --> 00:01:46.420 that many years while operating a farm that was, 00:01:46.420 --> 00:01:48.439 I mean, it was frequently visited by the public, 00:01:48.459 --> 00:01:51.180 by biker gangs, and even by the police? That 00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:53.510 is a central question. This isn't just a biography 00:01:53.510 --> 00:01:56.230 of a monster. It is a case study in systemic 00:01:56.230 --> 00:01:58.769 failure. It's about missed opportunities. It's 00:01:58.769 --> 00:02:01.290 about legal loopholes. And a society that decided 00:02:01.290 --> 00:02:04.209 certain victims, specifically women from Vancouver's 00:02:04.209 --> 00:02:06.670 downtown Eastside, were, for all intents and 00:02:06.670 --> 00:02:09.870 purposes, invisible. We need to unpack the forensic 00:02:09.870 --> 00:02:13.310 nightmare of that farm, the complex legal conclusion 00:02:13.310 --> 00:02:16.370 that left so many families feeling cheated, and 00:02:16.370 --> 00:02:18.740 really... the background that created robert 00:02:18.740 --> 00:02:20.960 picton in the first place we are pulling all 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:23.419 of this from a stack of legal records inquiry 00:02:23.419 --> 00:02:27.319 reports and detailed biographical entries we're 00:02:27.319 --> 00:02:28.979 going to walk through his life the investigation 00:02:28.979 --> 00:02:32.199 the trial and his eventual death in prison just 00:02:32.199 --> 00:02:35.580 recently in 2024 so buckle up this is going to 00:02:35.580 --> 00:02:38.379 be a heavy one but it's a story that demands 00:02:38.379 --> 00:02:40.740 to be understood let's start at the beginning 00:02:40.740 --> 00:02:43.699 because monsters aren't usually born they're 00:02:43.699 --> 00:02:46.129 made Or at least they're cultivated in specific 00:02:46.129 --> 00:02:48.969 soil. Robert William Picton was born in October 00:02:48.969 --> 00:02:52.849 1949. His parents were Leonard and Louise. And 00:02:52.849 --> 00:02:54.949 by all accounts, this was not a happy home. The 00:02:54.949 --> 00:02:58.229 farm environment itself was just harsh. But it 00:02:58.229 --> 00:03:00.310 seems like the mother, Louise, was the dominant 00:03:00.310 --> 00:03:03.270 force here. Oh, very much so. The sources paint 00:03:03.270 --> 00:03:05.430 a picture of a woman who was incredibly demanding. 00:03:05.870 --> 00:03:09.639 She was the iron hand of that farm. She prioritized 00:03:09.639 --> 00:03:11.860 the livestock over her own children. And I don't 00:03:11.860 --> 00:03:14.080 mean that metaphorically. We have reports that 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:16.419 she would force Robert and his brother David 00:03:16.419 --> 00:03:19.580 to work these long hours in the muck. And she 00:03:19.580 --> 00:03:21.580 simply didn't care about their personal hygiene. 00:03:22.159 --> 00:03:24.860 They were tools for the farm, first and foremost. 00:03:25.099 --> 00:03:27.500 This is where we get that detail that kind of 00:03:27.500 --> 00:03:29.340 sticks with you. You know, the kind of detail 00:03:29.340 --> 00:03:32.439 that defines a childhood. Picton and his brother 00:03:32.439 --> 00:03:34.680 would be sent to school literally reeking of 00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:38.460 manure. They were dirty. And kids, being kids, 00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:41.419 were cruel. Of course. He wasn't just the quiet 00:03:41.419 --> 00:03:43.060 kid in the back of the class. He was the kid 00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:45.879 everyone avoided. He was nicknamed Stinky Piggy. 00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:48.360 And that kind of isolation is so critical. If 00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:50.219 you are ostracized from your peer group from 00:03:50.219 --> 00:03:52.460 the moment you enter the school system, you just... 00:03:52.750 --> 00:03:55.669 You retreat. You stop socializing normally. You 00:03:55.669 --> 00:03:57.770 don't learn the nuances of human interaction, 00:03:58.009 --> 00:04:00.449 of empathy, of friendship. You bond with the 00:04:00.449 --> 00:04:02.509 only things that accept you. Which in his case 00:04:02.509 --> 00:04:04.469 was the animals. In Picton's case, that was the 00:04:04.469 --> 00:04:07.110 animals. But even that bond was betrayed. This 00:04:07.110 --> 00:04:09.650 is the story about the calf, isn't it? This feels 00:04:09.650 --> 00:04:12.310 like a major psychological turning point. Yes. 00:04:12.870 --> 00:04:14.969 This is what psychologists might call the pivot 00:04:14.969 --> 00:04:18.389 point. When Picton was 12 years old, he started 00:04:18.389 --> 00:04:20.730 raising a calf. He loved this thing. He was a 00:04:20.730 --> 00:04:23.430 pet. He bottle fed it. He spent his time with 00:04:23.430 --> 00:04:25.870 it. It was likely the only living creature that 00:04:25.870 --> 00:04:28.209 he felt a genuine reciprocal connection with. 00:04:28.329 --> 00:04:30.589 Right. A real bond. He took care of it for two 00:04:30.589 --> 00:04:32.370 weeks. Then he comes home from school one day, 00:04:32.430 --> 00:04:34.829 goes to the barn to find his friend, and it's 00:04:34.829 --> 00:04:36.829 gone. His parents had slaughtered it. That is 00:04:36.829 --> 00:04:40.009 devastating for a 12 -year -old. Just absolutely 00:04:40.009 --> 00:04:42.839 brutal. It is. He was distraught. But... If you 00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:44.980 look at it through the lens of his future crimes, 00:04:45.259 --> 00:04:48.959 it teaches a brutal foundational lesson. Emotional 00:04:48.959 --> 00:04:51.579 attachment is dangerous. It gets you hurt. And 00:04:51.579 --> 00:04:53.360 it teaches you something else too, right? It 00:04:53.360 --> 00:04:56.199 teaches you that living things, things that breathe 00:04:56.199 --> 00:04:58.980 and look at you, are ultimately just meat. It 00:04:58.980 --> 00:05:01.399 desensitizes you to death. It just completely 00:05:01.399 --> 00:05:03.980 blurs the line between a living being and a commodity. 00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:06.620 I mean, if the thing you love most can be turned 00:05:06.620 --> 00:05:10.139 into dinner by your own parents, what value does 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:12.730 a stranger have? That's a terrifying perspective. 00:05:13.170 --> 00:05:16.730 So, OK, he's isolated. He's traumatized. He drops 00:05:16.730 --> 00:05:20.370 out of school in 1963. He's essentially functionally 00:05:20.370 --> 00:05:22.889 illiterate or close to it. And he goes to work 00:05:22.889 --> 00:05:25.389 as a meat cutter. A skill set that becomes horrific 00:05:25.389 --> 00:05:28.509 later on. He learns how to dismantle a body. 00:05:28.610 --> 00:05:31.170 He learns the anatomy of muscle and bone. He's 00:05:31.170 --> 00:05:33.569 literally training for his future crimes without 00:05:33.569 --> 00:05:35.750 even knowing it. Right. So he does that for about 00:05:35.750 --> 00:05:38.089 seven years, then goes back to the farm full 00:05:38.089 --> 00:05:40.189 time. Now let's fast forward to the late 70s. 00:05:40.189 --> 00:05:43.629 His parents pass away and suddenly Stinky Piggy 00:05:43.629 --> 00:05:46.310 and his brother are sitting on a gold mine. The 00:05:46.310 --> 00:05:48.759 real estate boom. This is the irony of the location 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:51.180 we talked about. They inherited the farm, and 00:05:51.180 --> 00:05:53.800 as Vancouver expanded, that land became incredibly 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:56.279 valuable. They sold off parts of it to developers 00:05:56.279 --> 00:05:58.420 for townhouses and subdivisions. And they made 00:05:58.420 --> 00:06:01.120 a fortune. They made about 5 .16 million Canadian 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:04.759 dollars. So these aren't poor, struggling farmers 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:07.279 scratching a living from the dirt anymore. They 00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:10.839 are wealthy, land -rich eccentrics. And this 00:06:10.839 --> 00:06:12.740 is where the story takes a turn toward the surreal. 00:06:13.180 --> 00:06:15.339 They didn't just quietly farm pigs and count 00:06:15.339 --> 00:06:17.439 their money. They decided to turn a slaughterhouse 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:21.060 on the property into an ad hoc nightclub. Piggy's 00:06:21.060 --> 00:06:23.160 Palace. It sounds like a bad joke, doesn't it? 00:06:23.220 --> 00:06:26.480 But it was real. They actually converted a literal 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:29.819 slaughterhouse into a venue. They threw these 00:06:29.819 --> 00:06:32.560 huge rave -style parties. We're talking events 00:06:32.560 --> 00:06:35.160 attracting up to 2 ,000 people. You had members 00:06:35.160 --> 00:06:37.420 of the Hells Angels. You had local business figures. 00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:39.339 You had people from the city coming out to this 00:06:39.339 --> 00:06:41.920 farm to party in a converted slaughterhouse. 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:46.060 Imagery is just, it's insane. The irony is almost 00:06:46.060 --> 00:06:47.980 too much to handle. You have this intersection 00:06:47.980 --> 00:06:50.839 of, you know, high society and low society, of 00:06:50.839 --> 00:06:53.079 legal and illegal, all happening on a property 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:56.579 soaked in blood. And in 1996, they even registered 00:06:56.579 --> 00:06:59.060 a nonprofit charity called the Piggy Palace Good 00:06:59.060 --> 00:07:02.339 Time Society. A charity? You're kidding me. A 00:07:02.339 --> 00:07:04.699 registered nonprofit. They claimed they were 00:07:04.699 --> 00:07:07.379 organizing events for worthy groups, raising 00:07:07.379 --> 00:07:09.720 money for charity. But the reality was what? 00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:12.899 The reality was unregulated raves. It was a tax 00:07:12.899 --> 00:07:16.139 dodge and a way to legitimize the chaos. In fact, 00:07:16.139 --> 00:07:17.980 the only reason they got in trouble initially 00:07:17.980 --> 00:07:20.560 wasn't because of violence or anything sinister. 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:23.620 It was zoning violations. Right, right. Bureaucracy. 00:07:23.740 --> 00:07:26.680 Exactly. The city of Port Coquitlam sued them 00:07:26.680 --> 00:07:30.019 because, legally speaking, you can't hold a rave 00:07:30.019 --> 00:07:32.300 in a slaughterhouse on agricultural land. They 00:07:32.300 --> 00:07:34.759 were flouting the rules, holding these massive 00:07:34.759 --> 00:07:37.610 New Year's Eve parties, and eventually... The 00:07:37.610 --> 00:07:39.629 charity status was stripped because they couldn't 00:07:39.629 --> 00:07:42.089 produce any financial statements. So the government 00:07:42.089 --> 00:07:44.129 was watching them, but for all the wrong reasons. 00:07:44.350 --> 00:07:47.089 Precisely. They were on the radar for taxes and 00:07:47.089 --> 00:07:49.889 zoning, not for murder. But while the music is 00:07:49.889 --> 00:07:51.790 playing and the bikers were drinking at Piggy's 00:07:51.790 --> 00:07:55.230 Palace, something much darker was already happening 00:07:55.230 --> 00:07:57.589 in the background. And this brings us to what 00:07:57.589 --> 00:07:59.829 you've called the critical missed opportunity. 00:08:00.269 --> 00:08:02.189 This is the moment where history could have been 00:08:02.189 --> 00:08:03.970 different. If you were listening to this and 00:08:03.970 --> 00:08:07.170 asking, why wasn't he stopped? This is the year 00:08:07.170 --> 00:08:12.449 you need to look at. 1997. March 23, 1997. Picton 00:08:12.449 --> 00:08:16.069 is 47 years old. A woman named Wendy Lynn Eistetter 00:08:16.069 --> 00:08:19.089 is at the farm. She is a sex worker Picton had 00:08:19.089 --> 00:08:21.430 picked up in Vancouver. And an altercation occurs. 00:08:21.790 --> 00:08:25.470 A violent one. Eistetter told police that Picton 00:08:25.470 --> 00:08:27.370 handcuffed her. He pulled a knife. He stabbed 00:08:27.370 --> 00:08:30.089 her. But Wendy Lynn Eistetter was a fighter. 00:08:30.329 --> 00:08:32.850 She was. She managed to disarm him. She took 00:08:32.850 --> 00:08:35.700 his own knife and stabbed him with it. She fought 00:08:35.700 --> 00:08:38.639 for her life. That is incredible. She saved her 00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:40.779 own life. She did. They both ended up in the 00:08:40.779 --> 00:08:42.899 hospital. Picton went to Eagle Ridge Hospital. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:45.519 She went to a nearby emergency room. And the 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:48.320 police got involved. This wasn't a secret. Picton 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:50.340 was charged with attempted murder. Okay, so let's 00:08:50.340 --> 00:08:52.299 pause and look at the board here. We have a woman 00:08:52.299 --> 00:08:54.620 with stabbed wounds. We have handcuffs dangling 00:08:54.620 --> 00:08:57.120 from her wrist. And a stabbing victim who is 00:08:57.120 --> 00:09:00.059 also the perpetrator in the hospital. This seems 00:09:00.059 --> 00:09:02.120 like an open and shut case to get this guy off 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:04.799 the streets. He was charged. He was. He was released 00:09:04.799 --> 00:09:07.220 on a $2 ,000 bond. But he was facing serious 00:09:07.220 --> 00:09:09.860 time. I mean, attempted murder is a major charge. 00:09:09.899 --> 00:09:13.039 But then, in January 1998, the charges were stayed. 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:16.159 They were dropped. They were dropped. Why? How 00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:18.840 on earth does that happen? Because Wendy Lynn 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:21.759 Eistetter struggled with drug addiction. The 00:09:21.759 --> 00:09:24.220 prosecutors looked at her and decided that she 00:09:24.220 --> 00:09:28.159 was too unstable to secure a conviction. They 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:30.679 didn't think a jury would believe her or they 00:09:30.679 --> 00:09:32.480 didn't think she could hold up on the stand under 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:34.559 a tough cross -examination. So they didn't think 00:09:34.559 --> 00:09:36.820 she was a credible witness. They looked at her 00:09:36.820 --> 00:09:38.799 history, her lifestyle, and they decided she 00:09:38.799 --> 00:09:41.059 wasn't a credible witness. They thought Pickton's 00:09:41.059 --> 00:09:42.779 lawyer would tear her apart and he'd walk anyway, 00:09:42.940 --> 00:09:44.940 so he just dropped it. So because she was an 00:09:44.940 --> 00:09:48.179 addict, they let a man who handcuffed and stabbed 00:09:48.179 --> 00:09:51.399 her walk free. Precisely. And this is the systemic 00:09:51.399 --> 00:09:53.740 bias we talked about. The legal system looked 00:09:53.740 --> 00:09:56.700 at the perfect victim profile, saw that Eyesteader 00:09:56.700 --> 00:09:58.659 didn't fit it, and decided it wasn't worth the 00:09:58.659 --> 00:10:01.200 risk of a trial. And just think about the timeline. 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:04.360 This is early 1998, Pickton's most active period 00:10:04.360 --> 00:10:06.720 of killing, the time when the vast majority of 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:09.259 women disappeared, was between the late 90s and 00:10:09.259 --> 00:10:11.659 2001. That is just heartbreaking. If they had 00:10:11.659 --> 00:10:14.379 prosecuted him in 1997, even if he got a few 00:10:14.379 --> 00:10:17.529 years, a plea deal, anything. Dozens of women 00:10:17.529 --> 00:10:20.389 might still be alive. It is the single most tragic 00:10:20.389 --> 00:10:23.690 what if in this entire case. And just to add 00:10:23.690 --> 00:10:25.649 a layer of forensic frustration to this. Oh, 00:10:25.669 --> 00:10:27.789 there's more. When they arrested him in 1997, 00:10:28.110 --> 00:10:31.289 after that attack, they seized the clothes and 00:10:31.289 --> 00:10:33.350 the rubber boots he was wearing. They put them 00:10:33.350 --> 00:10:36.450 in an RCMP storage locker. Standard procedure. 00:10:36.750 --> 00:10:38.710 And they just sat there. They sat there. For 00:10:38.710 --> 00:10:42.490 years. In 2004, when the full investigation was 00:10:42.490 --> 00:10:44.950 finally underway, they went back and tested those 00:10:44.950 --> 00:10:48.149 items. They found the DNA of two later victims, 00:10:48.429 --> 00:10:51.669 Andrea Borhaven and Kara Ellis, on those boots 00:10:51.669 --> 00:10:53.830 and clothes. Wait, wait. Unpack that timeline 00:10:53.830 --> 00:10:56.230 for me. The DNA of victims was on the clothes 00:10:56.230 --> 00:10:58.509 he wore during the 1997 attack. Well, let's look 00:10:58.509 --> 00:11:00.929 at the dates. Borhaven was last seen in March 00:11:00.929 --> 00:11:04.490 1997. Ellis was reported missing in January 1997. 00:11:05.429 --> 00:11:07.870 So these women were likely already dead or had 00:11:07.870 --> 00:11:09.429 been attacked right around the same time as the 00:11:09.429 --> 00:11:11.360 Ice Center incident. So the evidence linking 00:11:11.360 --> 00:11:13.399 him to at least two murders was literally in 00:11:13.399 --> 00:11:15.440 the police's possession. It was in a box in an 00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:17.879 evidence locker. It was right there. But because 00:11:17.879 --> 00:11:20.019 they dropped the Eisstetter case, nobody ever 00:11:20.019 --> 00:11:22.919 looked at it. The file was closed. The evidence 00:11:22.919 --> 00:11:25.340 was forgotten. That is infuriating. It really 00:11:25.340 --> 00:11:27.740 highlights how the system failed on every single 00:11:27.740 --> 00:11:31.019 level. The evidence was right there. So, OK, 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:35.320 Pickton is free. He's back at the farm. And the 00:11:35.320 --> 00:11:37.500 disappearances start ramping up. We are moving 00:11:37.500 --> 00:11:40.809 into the late 90s now. Women are vanishing from 00:11:40.809 --> 00:11:43.490 the downtown east side of Vancouver. Now, for 00:11:43.490 --> 00:11:46.129 listeners who don't know the DTES or downtown 00:11:46.129 --> 00:11:47.950 east side, it's a very specific neighborhood. 00:11:48.230 --> 00:11:50.590 It has historically struggled with high poverty, 00:11:50.789 --> 00:11:53.210 high rates of drug use, and a large population 00:11:53.210 --> 00:11:55.370 of sex workers. It's a vulnerable community. 00:11:55.610 --> 00:11:57.809 A deeply vulnerable community, often described 00:11:57.809 --> 00:11:59.909 as one of the poorest postal codes in the country, 00:12:00.049 --> 00:12:01.870 a place where people can fall through the cracks 00:12:01.870 --> 00:12:04.269 very easily. And rumors started flying, didn't 00:12:04.269 --> 00:12:06.129 they? The women on the street, they knew something 00:12:06.129 --> 00:12:09.059 was wrong. They always know first. The community 00:12:09.059 --> 00:12:11.500 on the street talks. There was talk of a serial 00:12:11.500 --> 00:12:14.080 killer. There was talk of a pig farm. There was 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:16.480 talk of a man named Willie. But the police were 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:19.460 incredibly slow to connect the dots. Why, though, 00:12:19.559 --> 00:12:21.460 were they just not listening? They treated these 00:12:21.460 --> 00:12:24.659 as individual runaway cases. Or they assumed 00:12:24.659 --> 00:12:27.039 the women had just moved on or gone back home 00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:29.299 to their families or maybe overdosed somewhere 00:12:29.299 --> 00:12:31.620 and hadn't been found yet. There was this prevailing 00:12:31.620 --> 00:12:34.519 attitude that this was just the lifestyle. That 00:12:34.519 --> 00:12:36.480 this was normal for those people. That's the 00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:39.799 ugly truth of it, yes. But there were tips. It's 00:12:39.799 --> 00:12:41.500 not like no one was saying anything to the authorities. 00:12:41.799 --> 00:12:44.080 No, this wasn't just vague rumor. Not at all. 00:12:44.460 --> 00:12:47.100 An employee at the farm actually found purses 00:12:47.100 --> 00:12:50.220 belonging to missing women and reported it. Purses? 00:12:50.220 --> 00:12:53.220 That's a trophy. And the police did what? They 00:12:53.220 --> 00:12:55.919 conducted searches, but initially found no evidence. 00:12:56.279 --> 00:12:58.759 They'd go out, look around, picked and would 00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:01.159 give them some story, and they'd leave. Then 00:13:01.159 --> 00:13:04.039 in 1999, they received a tip that Pickton had 00:13:04.039 --> 00:13:07.059 a freezer full of human flesh. A freezer full 00:13:07.059 --> 00:13:09.480 of human flesh. That is not a subtle tip. That 00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:12.840 is a neon sign flashing murder. It was ignored, 00:13:12.919 --> 00:13:15.779 or at least not acted upon with the urgency it 00:13:15.779 --> 00:13:17.759 required. They interviewed him again. They looked 00:13:17.759 --> 00:13:19.879 around, but they didn't have that smoking gun 00:13:19.879 --> 00:13:22.059 or perhaps the will to tear the place apart. 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:24.470 And he was good at playing dumb, wasn't he? He 00:13:24.470 --> 00:13:27.190 was. I'm just dinky piggy. He leaned into that 00:13:27.190 --> 00:13:29.870 persona. He played the dumb farmer card very 00:13:29.870 --> 00:13:32.309 well. He acted like this simpleton who wouldn't 00:13:32.309 --> 00:13:34.509 hurt a fly, just a guy trying to run a farm and 00:13:34.509 --> 00:13:37.049 help people out. And it seems the police bought 00:13:37.049 --> 00:13:39.429 it. So how did it finally break? Because eventually 00:13:39.429 --> 00:13:41.929 they did catch him, but my understanding is that 00:13:41.929 --> 00:13:43.990 it wasn't a brilliant homicide detective finally 00:13:43.990 --> 00:13:46.129 cracking the toad. It wasn't some Sherlock Holmes 00:13:46.129 --> 00:13:49.950 moment. No. It was a fluke. Or rather, it was 00:13:49.950 --> 00:13:51.509 a completely different department looking for 00:13:51.509 --> 00:13:55.250 something else entirely. February 6, 2002. The 00:13:55.250 --> 00:13:57.169 police execute a search warrant at the Picton 00:13:57.169 --> 00:13:59.190 property. Okay. But they aren't looking for bodies. 00:13:59.389 --> 00:14:01.870 They are looking for illegal firearms. Guns, 00:14:01.870 --> 00:14:04.669 of course. Exactly. They had reliable info on 00:14:04.669 --> 00:14:07.389 illegal weapons. So the tactical team goes in. 00:14:07.750 --> 00:14:10.389 And while they are searching for guns, they start 00:14:10.389 --> 00:14:13.049 seeing things in plain sight. Personal items. 00:14:13.370 --> 00:14:17.159 IDs. Inhalers. Things that belonged to the women 00:14:17.159 --> 00:14:19.279 who had been reported missing, whose faces were 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:21.279 in the news. It's almost like the universe finally 00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:23.899 forced their hand. They trip over the evidence 00:14:23.899 --> 00:14:26.659 while looking for something else. They did. This 00:14:26.659 --> 00:14:28.500 triggered a second warrant, this time for the 00:14:28.500 --> 00:14:31.379 B .C. missing women investigation. They sealed 00:14:31.379 --> 00:14:33.820 off the farm. Pickton was arrested initially 00:14:33.820 --> 00:14:36.679 on the weapons charges, then released under surveillance, 00:14:36.940 --> 00:14:40.399 and then rearrested on February 22, 2002, charged 00:14:40.399 --> 00:14:42.860 with two counts of murder. And that opened the 00:14:42.860 --> 00:14:45.309 floodgates. It began what became the largest, 00:14:45.429 --> 00:14:47.710 most complex, and most expensive crime scene 00:14:47.710 --> 00:14:50.149 investigation in Canadian history. I want to 00:14:50.149 --> 00:14:52.730 talk about the scale of this excavation. Because 00:14:52.730 --> 00:14:55.490 when you say search the farm, people might picture 00:14:55.490 --> 00:14:58.029 a few cops with shovels and maybe a sniffer dog. 00:14:58.250 --> 00:15:01.070 That is not what happened here. No. This was 00:15:01.070 --> 00:15:04.110 an industrial operation. A forensic archaeology 00:15:04.110 --> 00:15:07.389 dig, basically. The cost ran to about 70 million 00:15:07.389 --> 00:15:10.210 Canadian dollars by the end of 2003. 70 million? 00:15:10.490 --> 00:15:12.789 Yeah. They had to bring in forensic anthropologists. 00:15:13.450 --> 00:15:16.149 heavy equipment, and essentially dismantle the 00:15:16.149 --> 00:15:18.470 entire property. They took the farm apart piece 00:15:18.470 --> 00:15:21.009 by piece, soil by soil. They used conveyor belts, 00:15:21.110 --> 00:15:22.970 right? I remember seeing pictures of that. Two 00:15:22.970 --> 00:15:25.769 50 -foot conveyor belts. They were running soil 00:15:25.769 --> 00:15:29.710 sifters 24 -7. They were literally sifting the 00:15:29.710 --> 00:15:31.950 earth of the farm, bucket by bucket, looking 00:15:31.950 --> 00:15:34.860 for bone fragments, teeth. jewelry, anything 00:15:34.860 --> 00:15:37.159 that could identify a victim. They demolished 00:15:37.159 --> 00:15:39.559 the buildings. The property was fenced off and 00:15:39.559 --> 00:15:42.179 became this grim fortress of forensic science. 00:15:42.399 --> 00:15:44.080 And the reason they had to go to such lengths 00:15:44.080 --> 00:15:46.480 is because of the nature of the remains. We aren't 00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:48.600 talking about intact bodies buried in shallow 00:15:48.600 --> 00:15:50.740 graves where you can just dig them up. This is 00:15:50.740 --> 00:15:53.220 the darkest part of the deep dive. And listeners 00:15:53.220 --> 00:15:56.299 need to be prepared for this. The bodies were 00:15:56.299 --> 00:15:58.960 rarely intact. They were dismembered. They were 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:01.080 decomposed. They had been ravaged by insects. 00:16:02.399 --> 00:16:04.759 Horrific as it is to say, they had been eaten 00:16:04.759 --> 00:16:07.299 by the pigs. He used the animals. He used the 00:16:07.299 --> 00:16:09.919 farm animals as a method of disposal. It's an 00:16:09.919 --> 00:16:12.620 ancient, brutal way to get rid of a body. There 00:16:12.620 --> 00:16:14.759 was a public health warning issued about this, 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:16.840 wasn't there? This became a whole other level 00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:20.139 of horror for the public. Yes. In March 2004, 00:16:20.460 --> 00:16:23.019 the revelation came out. The government warned 00:16:23.019 --> 00:16:25.220 that Picton may have ground up human remains 00:16:25.220 --> 00:16:27.860 and mix them with the pork he sold to the public. 00:16:28.039 --> 00:16:31.340 He sold the meat. To people. He had friends. 00:16:31.460 --> 00:16:33.559 He had parties at Piggy's Palace. He sometimes 00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:35.720 distributed meat to neighbors or associates. 00:16:36.100 --> 00:16:38.639 The province's health authority had to issue 00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:41.340 a warning that human remains might have entered 00:16:41.340 --> 00:16:44.379 the food supply. My God. Just think about the 00:16:44.379 --> 00:16:46.100 psychological impact of that on the community. 00:16:46.240 --> 00:16:48.919 It's the stuff of nightmares. But it was real 00:16:48.919 --> 00:16:51.440 life in British Columbia. People had to wonder 00:16:51.440 --> 00:16:54.000 if they had unknowingly participated in cannibalism. 00:16:54.429 --> 00:16:56.649 It's a level of violation that is hard to even 00:16:56.649 --> 00:16:59.049 comprehend. It's absolute grotesquery. It really 00:16:59.049 --> 00:17:01.470 shows the level of depravity we are dealing with. 00:17:01.590 --> 00:17:05.049 And inside his trailer, the specific items they 00:17:05.049 --> 00:17:07.730 found, it paints a picture of a man who was deeply, 00:17:07.869 --> 00:17:10.289 deeply disturbed. It's a chaotic collection of 00:17:10.289 --> 00:17:13.470 violence and bizarre fetish items. They found 00:17:13.470 --> 00:17:17.529 a loaded .22 revolver. But on the barrel, he 00:17:17.529 --> 00:17:19.809 had attached a dildo. Oh, dildo. He claimed it 00:17:19.809 --> 00:17:21.710 was a makeshift silencer. That always won't work. 00:17:21.910 --> 00:17:24.859 No. Experts, of course, said that's impossible. 00:17:25.059 --> 00:17:27.019 It wouldn't work at all. The gas expansion would 00:17:27.019 --> 00:17:31.000 just blow it apart. But the imagery, the sexual 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:35.059 object combined with the lethal weapon, it speaks 00:17:35.059 --> 00:17:37.839 volumes about his pathology. It merges sex and 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:40.920 death in a very literal, visual way. What else? 00:17:41.240 --> 00:17:45.299 Night vision goggles. Two pairs of faux fur -lined 00:17:45.299 --> 00:17:47.960 handcuffs. A syringe containing blue liquid. 00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:50.099 Blue liquid? What was that? Windshield washer 00:17:50.099 --> 00:17:53.420 fluid. And there was a video linked to the investigation 00:17:53.420 --> 00:17:55.460 where a friend of Picton's discussed killing 00:17:55.460 --> 00:17:57.660 addicts by injecting them with washer fluid. 00:17:57.819 --> 00:18:00.440 It's a cruel, painful way to die. It causes kidney 00:18:00.440 --> 00:18:03.259 failure, blindness, agonizing pain. So this was 00:18:03.259 --> 00:18:05.650 a murder weapon in waiting. It seems so. And 00:18:05.650 --> 00:18:07.990 there was Spanish fly, which is a supposed aphrodisiac. 00:18:08.069 --> 00:18:10.069 The whole trailer was just a toolkit for predation. 00:18:10.210 --> 00:18:12.910 Exactly. He was equipped to hunt, to trap, and 00:18:12.910 --> 00:18:14.710 to kill. It wasn't accidental. It was prepared. 00:18:15.109 --> 00:18:17.289 So they have the farm. They have the DNA coming 00:18:17.289 --> 00:18:19.430 in from the sifting. They have the weapons. But 00:18:19.430 --> 00:18:22.329 they need him to talk. And Picton, despite playing 00:18:22.329 --> 00:18:24.789 the fool, was cagey. How did they get the confession? 00:18:25.190 --> 00:18:28.769 They used a classic technique, the cellmate stratagem. 00:18:29.529 --> 00:18:31.869 In Canada, this is often associated with Mr. 00:18:31.950 --> 00:18:34.289 Big Stings. But here it was a more direct cell 00:18:34.289 --> 00:18:38.170 plant. They placed Picton in a cell with an undercover 00:18:38.170 --> 00:18:41.470 RCMP officer posing as another detainee. The 00:18:41.470 --> 00:18:43.910 old, I'm a criminal too, you can trust me routine. 00:18:44.250 --> 00:18:47.150 And it worked perfectly. Picton started talking. 00:18:47.349 --> 00:18:49.670 He wanted to impress this fellow criminal. He 00:18:49.670 --> 00:18:52.170 started bragging. He confessed to 49 murders. 00:18:52.369 --> 00:18:55.430 49. 49. And the detail that chills everyone to 00:18:55.430 --> 00:18:57.230 the bone. The one that everyone remembers from 00:18:57.230 --> 00:19:00.170 this case. He told the undercover officer that 00:19:00.170 --> 00:19:03.019 he wanted to make it an even 50. He said he got 00:19:03.019 --> 00:19:05.619 sloppy at the end. Sloppy. He felt that because 00:19:05.619 --> 00:19:08.460 he was caught, he had failed his goal. Not that 00:19:08.460 --> 00:19:10.539 he felt guilt. Not that he was sorry for the 00:19:10.539 --> 00:19:13.059 lives he took. But that he was inefficient. He 00:19:13.059 --> 00:19:16.000 was aiming for a round number. A milestone. It 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:18.119 shows a complete and total lack of humanity. 00:19:18.579 --> 00:19:20.900 That brings us to the charges. With a confession 00:19:20.900 --> 00:19:24.039 of 49, you'd expect 49 charges. But that's not 00:19:24.039 --> 00:19:26.740 how it went down, is it? No, not at all. The 00:19:26.740 --> 00:19:29.460 Crown eventually laid 27 charges of first -degree 00:19:29.460 --> 00:19:33.710 murder. The victims fit a profile, sex workers, 00:19:33.950 --> 00:19:37.349 many of them indigenous women. But the legal 00:19:37.349 --> 00:19:40.289 process is slow and complex. They couldn't try 00:19:40.289 --> 00:19:42.710 all 27 at once. Why not? I mean, if he killed 00:19:42.710 --> 00:19:44.309 them, try him for them. It seems straightforward 00:19:44.309 --> 00:19:47.269 to a layperson. It's about logistics and the 00:19:47.269 --> 00:19:50.869 jury. The trial judge, Justice James Williams, 00:19:51.109 --> 00:19:53.930 made a very controversial decision. He severed 00:19:53.930 --> 00:19:56.009 the charges. He divided them into one group of 00:19:56.009 --> 00:19:58.329 six and another group of 20. So they would have 00:19:58.329 --> 00:20:01.490 two separate trials. That was the plan. The logic 00:20:01.490 --> 00:20:03.910 was that trying 27 murders in one go would take 00:20:03.910 --> 00:20:06.569 years. It would completely overwhelm the jury. 00:20:06.710 --> 00:20:09.289 There's a legal concept called cognitive load. 00:20:09.549 --> 00:20:11.609 Right. The evidence would be so voluminous that 00:20:11.609 --> 00:20:14.250 it might lead to a mistrial or a hung jury because 00:20:14.250 --> 00:20:16.269 the jurors simply couldn't keep track of the 00:20:16.269 --> 00:20:19.509 details of 27 separate cases, 27 different sets 00:20:19.509 --> 00:20:22.890 of forensic evidence. So they picked six cases 00:20:22.890 --> 00:20:25.630 that they felt were the strongest and most representative 00:20:25.630 --> 00:20:28.769 to proceed with first. Who were the six? I think 00:20:28.769 --> 00:20:40.470 it's important we say their names. These were 00:20:40.470 --> 00:20:42.470 the women whose cases went to court in 2006. 00:20:42.849 --> 00:20:45.930 So the trial happens. The jury hears about the 00:20:45.930 --> 00:20:49.150 wood chipper, the pig rendering, the DNA. They 00:20:49.150 --> 00:20:52.049 hear that Tate confession. And in December 2007, 00:20:52.349 --> 00:20:54.289 they come back with a verdict. And it wasn't 00:20:54.289 --> 00:20:56.670 exactly what people expected. No, they found 00:20:56.670 --> 00:20:58.769 him not guilty of first degree murder. Wait, 00:20:58.829 --> 00:21:01.250 unpack that. Not guilty of first degree after 00:21:01.250 --> 00:21:03.529 all of that. But guilty of second degree murder 00:21:03.529 --> 00:21:06.089 on all six counts. OK, so what's the difference 00:21:06.089 --> 00:21:08.329 here for the listener, legally speaking? First 00:21:08.329 --> 00:21:10.789 degree implies premeditation and planning for 00:21:10.789 --> 00:21:13.130 the specific act of murder. So planning and deliberate. 00:21:13.690 --> 00:21:15.890 Second degree is still intentional murder. But 00:21:15.890 --> 00:21:18.230 the jury perhaps wasn't convinced beyond a reasonable 00:21:18.230 --> 00:21:20.829 doubt that every single act was preplanned to 00:21:20.829 --> 00:21:22.549 the degree the law requires for first degree. 00:21:22.750 --> 00:21:25.809 Or maybe something else. Or, and this is a theory 00:21:25.809 --> 00:21:28.369 legal scholars discuss, they might have believed 00:21:28.369 --> 00:21:31.730 he had help. If he was an accomplice or if the 00:21:31.730 --> 00:21:33.769 specific mechanics of the killing were unclear, 00:21:34.130 --> 00:21:36.710 they might have landed on second degree as the 00:21:36.710 --> 00:21:39.009 safer conviction to ensure he didn't walk free 00:21:39.009 --> 00:21:41.769 on a technicality. But the sentence, what did 00:21:41.769 --> 00:21:44.009 that mean for his prison time? The sentence was 00:21:44.009 --> 00:21:46.690 effectively the same. Life in prison with no 00:21:46.690 --> 00:21:49.509 possibility of parole for 25 years. That is the 00:21:49.509 --> 00:21:51.970 maximum penalty under Canadian law for murder, 00:21:52.130 --> 00:21:55.809 whether it's first or second degree. So in terms 00:21:55.809 --> 00:21:57.849 of time served, it didn't matter. He was going 00:21:57.849 --> 00:22:00.180 away forever. But it mattered to the families 00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:02.079 and it mattered a great deal for their other 00:22:02.079 --> 00:22:05.039 20 charges. Huge implications. Because he was 00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:06.980 now serving the maximum sentence, the Crown made 00:22:06.980 --> 00:22:09.339 a decision in 2010. They stayed the remaining 00:22:09.339 --> 00:22:11.720 20 charges. They just dropped them after all 00:22:11.720 --> 00:22:14.980 that. Essentially. Their reasoning was pragmatic, 00:22:15.220 --> 00:22:18.200 if cold. He is already in prison for life. A 00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:20.140 second trial would cost millions of dollars, 00:22:20.279 --> 00:22:22.960 drag on for another year or more. And even if 00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:26.000 he was convicted on all 20 counts, he couldn't 00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:28.759 serve any more time. You can't serve consecutive 00:22:28.759 --> 00:22:31.839 life sentences in Canada in a way that extends 00:22:31.839 --> 00:22:35.220 the parole ineligibility indefinitely beyond 00:22:35.220 --> 00:22:38.059 a Hughton point. I can just hear the listeners 00:22:38.059 --> 00:22:40.640 right now screaming at their speakers. What about 00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:43.440 justice for those 20 families? That was exactly 00:22:43.440 --> 00:22:45.619 the reaction. It was very mixed. Some families 00:22:45.619 --> 00:22:47.000 were relieved they didn't have to sit through 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:48.519 a gruesome trial and hear how their daughters 00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:50.900 were butchered. But many others felt denied. 00:22:51.339 --> 00:22:53.480 They felt their loved ones became a footnote. 00:22:53.660 --> 00:22:55.420 They didn't get their day in court. They didn't 00:22:55.420 --> 00:22:57.380 get their day in court. They didn't get a verdict 00:22:57.380 --> 00:23:00.440 for their specific daughter or sister. It reinforced 00:23:00.440 --> 00:23:02.700 that feeling that these women, even in death, 00:23:02.920 --> 00:23:05.160 didn't matter as much to the system. Precisely. 00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:07.339 And that brings us to the aftermath. Because 00:23:07.339 --> 00:23:09.480 you can't have a disaster of this magnitude, 00:23:09.720 --> 00:23:12.539 a failure this complete, without someone eventually 00:23:12.539 --> 00:23:15.660 saying sorry. Right, the police apology. In 2010, 00:23:15.859 --> 00:23:18.920 Vancouver Police Deputy Chief Doug Leppard issued 00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:22.920 an apology. It was surprisingly candid for a 00:23:22.920 --> 00:23:26.059 police statement. He said, I wish we would have 00:23:26.059 --> 00:23:28.140 caught him sooner. I would say to the families 00:23:28.140 --> 00:23:31.119 how sorry we all are because we did not catch 00:23:31.119 --> 00:23:33.779 this monster sooner. It's a powerful quote, admitting 00:23:33.779 --> 00:23:37.000 that they failed to catch a monster. Words are 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:40.420 wind, as they say. We needed an inquiry to really 00:23:40.420 --> 00:23:44.140 dig into the why. And we got one. The Missing 00:23:44.140 --> 00:23:46.200 Women Commission of Inquiry, led by a former 00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:48.799 judge, Wally Opal. This is established to answer 00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:51.160 the question we started with, how? How did this 00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:53.099 happen? And what did Opal find? Was it just incompetence? 00:23:53.339 --> 00:23:55.559 He confirmed what everyone in the downtown Eastside 00:23:55.559 --> 00:23:58.539 already knew. It wasn't just incompetence. There 00:23:58.539 --> 00:24:01.579 was a distinct systemic police bias. He found 00:24:01.579 --> 00:24:03.440 that the police failed to pursue the case despite 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:05.519 overwhelming evidence because of who the victims 00:24:05.519 --> 00:24:08.700 were. Drug addicts, sex workers, indigenous women. 00:24:08.799 --> 00:24:11.960 Yes. The lesser dead, as criminologists sometimes 00:24:11.960 --> 00:24:14.799 call it. A horrible term. A horrible but accurate 00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:18.059 term for how they were treated. The inquiry highlighted 00:24:18.059 --> 00:24:20.319 that these crimes were treated as low priority. 00:24:20.910 --> 00:24:23.490 If women were disappearing from a wealthy suburb 00:24:23.490 --> 00:24:26.009 like West Vancouver, or if university students 00:24:26.009 --> 00:24:28.230 were vanishing, the response would have been 00:24:28.230 --> 00:24:31.809 instantaneous and massive. But because it was 00:24:31.809 --> 00:24:35.549 the DTES, it was slow, it was disjointed, it 00:24:35.549 --> 00:24:37.650 was prejudiced. There were civil lawsuits too, 00:24:37.750 --> 00:24:40.250 right? The children of the victims sued? They 00:24:40.250 --> 00:24:43.069 did. They sued the police and the Crown for negligence. 00:24:43.170 --> 00:24:46.490 They settled in 2014. Each child received $50 00:24:46.490 --> 00:24:49.880 ,000 Canadian dollars. $50 ,000 for the loss 00:24:49.880 --> 00:24:52.059 of a mother and the systemic failure to protect 00:24:52.059 --> 00:24:54.579 her. It feels like a token amount. It acknowledges 00:24:54.579 --> 00:24:56.380 the wrong, but it hardly compensates for the 00:24:56.380 --> 00:24:58.900 loss. It's a bureaucratic apology written on 00:24:58.900 --> 00:25:01.559 a check. Pickton is in prison. He's serving his 00:25:01.559 --> 00:25:03.380 life sentence. He's the pig farmer killer in 00:25:03.380 --> 00:25:05.880 the history books. But the story didn't end in 00:25:05.880 --> 00:25:08.240 2010. It actually had a very recent and very 00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:11.019 violent conclusion. Yes. We have to fast forward 00:25:11.019 --> 00:25:14.799 to 2024. February 2024 specifically, Robert Pickton 00:25:14.799 --> 00:25:17.140 became eligible for day parole. That must have 00:25:17.140 --> 00:25:19.480 been terrifying for the families, just seeing 00:25:19.480 --> 00:25:21.940 that in the news. It caused immense distress. 00:25:22.380 --> 00:25:24.680 Now, it's important to note, eligible doesn't 00:25:24.680 --> 00:25:28.339 mean getting out. Given his crimes, no parole 00:25:28.339 --> 00:25:29.900 board in the country would have released him. 00:25:29.940 --> 00:25:32.500 No hearing was even scheduled. He likely never 00:25:32.500 --> 00:25:34.660 would have seen the light of day. But just the 00:25:34.660 --> 00:25:36.519 fact that the date arrived on the calendar was 00:25:36.519 --> 00:25:39.339 a re -traumatization. It reminded everyone that 00:25:39.339 --> 00:25:41.900 he was still there. Still breathing. But he didn't 00:25:41.900 --> 00:25:44.920 make it much past that date. No. In May 2024, 00:25:45.339 --> 00:25:47.700 Pickton was at the Port Cartier Institution in 00:25:47.700 --> 00:25:51.039 Quebec, a maximum security prison. He was attacked. 00:25:51.380 --> 00:25:53.779 By another inmate? By another inmate, a man named 00:25:53.779 --> 00:25:56.599 Martin Cherist, a man with a history of assaulting 00:25:56.599 --> 00:25:59.220 other prisoners. And the details of the attack 00:25:59.220 --> 00:26:02.319 are, well, they're grimly ironic in their brutality. 00:26:02.660 --> 00:26:05.359 Yeah. Cherist used a broken broomstick handle. 00:26:05.900 --> 00:26:08.180 He shoved it into Pickton's face, specifically 00:26:08.180 --> 00:26:10.859 up his nose. That is visceral, a very specific 00:26:10.859 --> 00:26:12.859 kind of violence. It caused massive internal 00:26:12.859 --> 00:26:15.380 damage to his brain. Pickton was airlifted to 00:26:15.380 --> 00:26:18.460 a hospital, but he died on May 31, 2024, from 00:26:18.460 --> 00:26:20.660 complications of the injury. And the assailant, 00:26:20.680 --> 00:26:22.740 Cherist, what happened to him? He was charged 00:26:22.740 --> 00:26:24.319 with first -degree murder. He pleaded guilty. 00:26:24.779 --> 00:26:27.180 And his statement was simple. He said he did 00:26:27.180 --> 00:26:29.660 it for the victims. A kind of vigilante justice 00:26:29.660 --> 00:26:33.099 ending to a saga of legal failures. In a way, 00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:36.099 yes. It brings a definitive end to the life of 00:26:36.099 --> 00:26:38.559 Robert Pickton. There is a sense of finality 00:26:38.559 --> 00:26:41.859 now. He can no longer hurt anyone. But it doesn't 00:26:41.859 --> 00:26:44.519 close the wound of the systemic issues that let 00:26:44.519 --> 00:26:47.359 him get away with it for so long. So let's wrap 00:26:47.359 --> 00:26:50.720 this up. We have six convictions, 27 charges, 00:26:51.160 --> 00:26:56.319 49 confessed murders, a $70 million crime scene, 00:26:56.480 --> 00:26:59.490 a farm that became a graveyard. And a legacy 00:26:59.490 --> 00:27:02.490 that really helped fuel the missing and murdered 00:27:02.490 --> 00:27:04.650 Indigenous women movement in Canada. That is 00:27:04.650 --> 00:27:06.829 the one positive legacy, if we can call it that. 00:27:06.930 --> 00:27:08.990 It forced Canada to look in the mirror. It forced 00:27:08.990 --> 00:27:10.410 the government and the public to acknowledge 00:27:10.410 --> 00:27:12.490 that there is a crisis of violence against Indigenous 00:27:12.490 --> 00:27:15.230 women that goes ignored. It started conversations 00:27:15.230 --> 00:27:17.089 that were long, long overdue. I want to leave 00:27:17.089 --> 00:27:18.349 the listener with a thought. We talked about 00:27:18.349 --> 00:27:21.309 1997. We talked about Wendy Lynn Eistetter. The 00:27:21.309 --> 00:27:22.930 charges were dropped because the witness was 00:27:22.930 --> 00:27:25.869 an addict. She was unstable. If the system had 00:27:25.869 --> 00:27:28.720 listened to her. If they had valued her testimony 00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:31.779 despite her addiction. If they had seen her as 00:27:31.779 --> 00:27:35.019 a human being who was attacked, not just a label. 00:27:35.359 --> 00:27:37.539 Pickton would have been behind bars before the 00:27:37.539 --> 00:27:40.460 vast majority of those 49 murders happened. The 00:27:40.460 --> 00:27:43.720 system chose to ignore a flawed witness and in 00:27:43.720 --> 00:27:46.519 doing so condemned dozens of women to the most 00:27:46.519 --> 00:27:49.019 horrible fate imaginable. It's a harsh lesson. 00:27:49.460 --> 00:27:52.079 Credibility shouldn't be based on social standing 00:27:52.079 --> 00:27:54.180 or your bank account or whether you're sober. 00:27:54.440 --> 00:27:57.079 Truth is truth. regardless of who speaks it. 00:27:57.160 --> 00:27:59.400 So here's the question for you to mull over as 00:27:59.400 --> 00:28:01.640 you go about your day. In today's world right 00:28:01.640 --> 00:28:04.099 now, who are the people whose disappearances 00:28:04.099 --> 00:28:07.099 might still go unnoticed? Who are the unstable 00:28:07.099 --> 00:28:10.119 witnesses we are ignoring today? Because history 00:28:10.119 --> 00:28:12.779 has a nasty habit of repeating itself if we don't 00:28:12.779 --> 00:28:15.000 watch the shadows. It certainly does. Yeah. We 00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:16.759 have to keep watching. Thank you for joining 00:28:16.759 --> 00:28:18.920 us on this difficult deep dive. It wasn't easy, 00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:21.460 but it was necessary. Thank you. Stay safe out 00:28:21.460 --> 00:28:21.599 there.