Robert Pickton: The Final Chapter [4]

[Part 4 of 5] A single tip-off finally leads police to raid the Pickton farm with a search warrant for illegal firearms. What they stumble into instead would unravel one of the most devastating investigations in Canadian history, connecting Robert Pickton to dozens of women who vanished from the Downtown Eastside. * Part 5 - Robert Pickton's final chapter will be coming later this week. Thanks for your patience! CONTENT WARNING: mention of sexual assault, Indigenous issues, child abuse and an in-episode TW for animal abuse and neglect. Crisis referral services: Free National Indian Residential School Crisis Line https://www.irsss.ca/irsss-services: call 1-866-925-4419 toll free Hope for Wellness https://www.hopeforwellness.ca/ free chatline - 1-800-721-0066 or using the chat box on the website Government of Canada Crisis and Mental Health support https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/mental-health-services/mental-health-get-help.html Resources for Sexual assault survivors https://www.beyondtheverdict.ca/resources-for-suvivors Canadian True Crime donates monthly to those facing injustice. Proceeds from this series are being donated to the WISH Drop-in Centre Society, https://wish-vancouver.net/ supporting street-based sex workers on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside since 1984. Full list of resources, information sources, and more: www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes https://www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:05Speaker 01

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• 1:50Speaker 01

  Gab: Tech in Steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production funded mainly through advertising. You can listen to Canadian True Crime ad-free and early on Amazon Music included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast. The podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language. It's not for everyone. Please take care when listening.

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Hi there, it's Christy. Thank you so much for joining me for part four of this series. A quick message before we start. Longtime listeners know that I already covered this case more than eight years ago in my first year of podcasting, when it was just a hobby. It's a lot more than that now, and I've learned a lot more since then. And in the last few years, when the news broke that Robert Pickton had been murdered, and why, I decided to revisit my original series, rewrite it and add his final update to replace the original. Well, I pulled on one thread, then found myself digging through all the evidence again to find answers to questions I didn't really know to ask last time.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  This final chapter has turned out to be one very long episode, so I've had to split it in two. It's now a five-part series, I'm so sorry, I always do this. I just don't want to rush it or cut corners or get sloppy. Thanks for your patience and for hanging in. You won't have to wait so long for part five. An additional content warning: graphic and disturbing details. I'll also let you know when we get to the part with details of animal abuse, for those who want to fast-forward.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  Where we left off, it was early 2000, and it had been three years since Wendy escaped the farm after surviving a brutal knife fight with Robert Pickton. Despite her credible account, the Crown decided she was not fit to testify at trial and dropped all the charges. Robert Pickton slipped through the cracks.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  That was 1997. The next year saw a noticeable spike in women vanishing. Bill Hiscox, a former employee, reported multiple times to the Vancouver Police and the RCMP that Robert Willie Pickton talked openly about disposing of bodies in the pig ery, but senior officers dismissed the information as hearsay. In 99, Ross Caldwell, associate of Robert Pickton, reported to the RCMP that Lynne Ellingson had told him she was staying on the farm and walked in on Willie killing a woman in the barn. Willie told him directly that he could dispose of bodies on the farm without a trace.

• 4:49Speaker 03

  He also heard that Willie was taking human remains to a depot. The police did not apply for a search warrant, even after surveillance caught the pig farmer delivering barrels to West Coast Reduction twice and lost him twice. Those barrels were never inspected. By the end of 99, Robert and his brother had repeatedly ducked the police's attempts at an interview. In early 2000, that interview finally happened, but it was unplanned and poorly handled. Once again, the investigation was stalled at a critical moment, allowing Robert Pickton

• 5:30Speaker 03

  to continue targeting vulnerable women for another two years.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  By this point, Robert Pickton had picked up a new female friend, Deana Taylor, who went by Dinah, according to court records. An Ojibwe woman in her late twenties, Dinah Taylor originally came from Thunder Bay, Ontario, but she'd reportedly been living in the downtown east side since she was a teenager. She was extremely thin, with shoulder-length curly hair, and engaged in hazardous use of heroin and cocaine, according to a later article in the province. She was also described as bold, aggressive, and reluctant to discuss her past, generally uncooperative.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  There's always been a lot of mystery around Dinah Taylor. What is known is that she had quite the rap sheet, mostly for drug trafficking, and she was a known pimp on the downtown east side. People tried to stay out of her way. Staff at local outreach centres, like the Wish Droppin Centre, reported at the time that Dinah never wanted to engage with them. She only went in when she had clients waiting for dates and needed to find a sex worker to drag out.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Dinah Taylor reportedly began staying on the Pickton Farm for a night here and there, and then for weeks. He gave her clothes, money, drugs, and whatever else she wanted. And at some point, she began procuring sex workers to bring back to the farm, just like Gina Houston had been doing.

• 7:26Speaker 03

  And the women continued going missing. One of them was Sharon Abraham, who was 39 years old. Sharon was of Saginaw First Nation in Manitoba, according to a 2024 APTN News article. In 1989, at 24 years old, Sharon left an abusive relationship and moved into a transition house in Vancouver, trying to build a safer life for herself and her two young daughters. A friend who met her there and later shared an apartment with her remembered Sharon as a happy, confident mother. Sharon ended up back in Manitoba.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  She gave birth to three more children, but lost custody of them all. Her son would later tell APTN News that she was a very loving mum, and all she wanted was to have all her kids together. But the system made her jump through hoops to get them back. She was crushed and ended up back in Vancouver. Sharon Abraham disappeared in 2000, aged 39. Her DNA, a fingernail, would later be found on the Pickton Farm.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  Next to go missing was 42-year-old Dawn Cray, one of nine children from a Stalo First Nation family. Dawn's parents were residential school survivors, and her early life was marked by profound loss. As a young child, she witnessed her father die of a heart attack. Her mother began engaging in hazardous use of alcohol, and Dawn and her siblings were largely separated and put into the foster system in Chilliwack, about an hour and a half drive from Vancouver. At 16, Dawn gave birth to a son, and her foster family later took over his care. She began experimenting with drug use in her teens,

• 9:33Speaker 03

  and by her early twenties she had substance use disorder and significant mental health challenges. Dawn Cray lived with her brother Ernie Cray for a time, before moving into a hotel with an elderly man, who she reportedly attacked in an attempt to have herself committed to a psychiatric facility so she could finally get some help. Despite multiple attempts at treatment, Dawn continued to struggle and eventually moved to the downtown east side, where she would live for about 20 years. In the early 1990s, Dawn survived a brutal acid attack by two women, leaving her with severe scarring and chronic pain.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Her substance use escalated afterward. She stayed closely connected to several of her siblings and was a regular at the Wish Drop-In Centre. Dawn Cray vanished from the downtown east side in 2000. Her DNA would be found on a woman's undergarment and Robert Pickton's mobile trailer. Dinah Taylor, Pickton's latest best friend, would admit she had seen Dawn Cray in the time immediately before she'd been reported missing. And in fact, rumours among the sex worker community were that Dinah had persuaded Dawn to go back with her to the Pickton farm.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  The last to vanish in the year 2000 was Deborah Jones. Not a lot is publicly known about Deborah's background, except that she was a mother and an identical twin. She was close with her four brothers and sisters. Deborah was described as friendly and had an amazing musical talent that included guitar, piano, and a singing voice similar to Janis Joplin. Deborah Jones was last seen in December of 2000, aged 43. Her blood would be found on a purse and a broken crack pipe found at the foot of Robert Pickton's bed.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  In her book On The Farm, author Stevie Cameron includes personal accounts of two women who alleged they escaped from Robert Pickton in 2001. The women never officially reported it to the police for various reasons, so their stories didn't appear in the case files or the later inquiry. One is a 35-year-old woman referred to as Katrina, who was out on bail awaiting trial and going to visit her husband in prison. Katrina and her husband were longtime criminals and had robbed at least 19 banks. She had a ride to Kent Institution, about an hour and 20 minutes' drive from Port Coquitlam,

• 12:40Speaker 03

  but she had to hitchhike home after the visit. A van stopped to pick her up, and the driver said, "Hi, I'm Willie." He had a toothy grin. He was bald on top, with matted hair at the back. Willie told Katrina he was going to Port Coquitlam and agreed to make a short detour and drop her off in Surrey. The van was absolutely filthy. Katrina couldn't even make out what color it was, and it smelled disgusting inside, too. It's known that Robert Pickton had access to several old vehicles on the farm, including a van. As they drove down the Trans-Canada Highway, Willie offered Katrina a cannabis joint.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  She lit it up and handed it to him, but he shook his head. Remember, Robert Pickton never took drugs himself, he only kept them to control and manipulate. He said a few strange things that made her feel uncomfortable, and then she noticed her door was missing the handle. She was literally trapped. When he drove past her stop, she became frantic and searched her bag for something to use as a weapon. She noticed he exited the highway and was heading towards an industrial park. When he went to turn a corner, she stabbed a pencil into the side of his neck and tried to gouge his eye.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  She then threw herself across his lap and pushed open the driver's door, landing headfirst on the gravel. All she could hear was him laughing as she jumped up and ran for her life.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Katrina made it to a gas station and reported it to the RCMP, who left her standing there, saying they were going after the van. A few weeks later, Katrina was convicted of armed robbery and returned to prison. She never actually reported what happened, and she didn't find out if the RCMP officer actually did follow after the van.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  In 2001, another woman disappeared. Patricia Johnson, known to her family as Patty, was 24 years old. Patty Johnson grew up in East Vancouver with her mother and half-sister, where she was described as bubbly, always laughing. She left home at 16 and began experimenting with drugs. In her late teens, Patty entered a long-term relationship and became a mother to two children she adored. She had their names tattooed on each of her shoulders. After the relationship ended, the children remained in their father's care,

• 15:30Speaker 03

  but Patty called or visited whenever she could and never missed birthdays or holidays. Later, Patty became involved with a partner who introduced her to heroin. They entered rehab together, but while he managed to stop using, Patty was not able to. She ended up living on Vancouver's downtown east side, surviving on welfare. Still, people who knew her spoke of her dignity, warmth, and determination to recover.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  It was there that Patty met photographer Lincoln Clarks. He asked if he could take her photo and she agreed. She became the first woman photographed for his heroin series, which documented women living in the downtown east side. Clarks later described Patty as bright, outgoing, and upbeat, someone who talked about her children all the time.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  In early March 2001, Patty stopped calling. When she missed her son's birthday, her family knew something was wrong. She was 24 years old. Patty's mother would tell author Stevie Cameron that the police had told her Patty had gone to Montreal. Patty Johnson's blood would be found on plywood in the slaughterhouse at the Pickton farm. Her DNA would be found on sex toys found in Robert Pickton's bedroom and on a syringe outside his mobile trailer home.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  That same year, Yvonne Marie Boone disappeared. Yvonne was born in Saskatchewan and her father died when she was a baby. Her mother remarried and had two more children. Yvonne was said to be popular at school, tall, with curly blonde hair. But she had a strong rebellious streak. She dropped out in early high school. At age fifteen, she married a man who was twenty-five. Over the next three years, Yvonne gave birth to three boys, but then she and her husband separated. Yvonne got a job with a travelling carnival and left her children with her mother to work.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  At some point, Yvonne started using drugs and ended up living in Vancouver's downtown east side. She promised her son Troy that they would spend spring break of two thousand one together, but she failed to show up. He would later tell a Canadian press journalist that he called her back repeatedly, but she didn't answer. Yvonne Marie Boone was thirty-four years old. Her DNA would later be found on the Pickton farm.

• 18:33Speaker 03

  The other woman who alleged she escaped from Robert Pickton in two thousand one was referred to as Terry. She lived on the downtown east side and had substance use disorder. She would later tell author Stevie Cameron that one night a pickup truck stopped next to her. It was Willie Pickton and he had a couple of other women in the truck. He asked Terry if she wanted to join them. The promise of free drugs and a hundred dollars cash was too good to pass up, so Terry agreed to go to the farm. Her memories of the encounter were vivid. She recalled being overcome with the stench of animals inside his truck.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  And because she had asthma, it sparked a full asthma attack. Terry screamed at Willie to stop and let her out of the truck, so loudly that he did stop and belted her across the face. Then he let her out.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  Terry had negative experiences with the police before after a previous attack with someone else and decided this wasn't enough to report.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Heather Bottomley came from a loving, ordinary home in a nice neighbourhood in the Greater Vancouver area. Her friends described her as funny, with a quirky sense of humour. She was petite with thick curly hair, known for her elfin looks, according to the later inquiry. Heather loved playing baseball and putting on funny skits for her family. She was known for her great sense of humour. In grade nine, she dropped out of school and met a boyfriend who was a drug user. Heather gave birth to a baby when she was seventeen and began using drugs herself. She ended up living in the downtown east side. She became pregnant with her second child,

• 20:39Speaker 03

  and her uncle would tell author Stevie Cameron that she spoke about wanting to stop using drugs and that the family had been discussing how to help her. But then, she stopped calling them back. They looked for her in local hospitals and recovery centres. Heather Bottomley had vanished, aged 25. Her DNA was one of several that would be found in a bucket in one of the freezers on the Pickton Farm.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Heather Chinock was originally from Colorado, but her mother married a Canadian and they moved to the Kootenays in British Columbia. Heather wasn't settled there and kept taking off, and sometime along the way, she started using drugs and alcohol. She got married and had a son, but she wasn't able to care for him after her husband was incarcerated for second degree murder. Heather was convicted herself of soliciting two times in the Vancouver area. She was known to wear a distinctive wolf head ring. At the time she disappeared, Heather Chinock was living with a boyfriend, but he would later tell the press that she visited the Pickton Farm often

• 22:00Speaker 03

  and enjoyed it there, thinking of it as a refuge. And then, she just disappeared, aged 31.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  Heather Chinock's wolf head ring would be found in the pig pen at the Pickton farm. Her DNA was also found in that bucket in one of the freezers.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Andrea Josbury was 23 years old. She grew up on Vancouver Island, where she was said to love sports and drama. Her childhood was marked by her parents' alcohol use and mental illness. She witnessed her father physically assaulting her mother many times, to the point where he served a four-year prison sentence for it. Andrea and her siblings ended up living with her maternal grandparents. But she ran away from home when she was 16 and ended up living on the downtown east side with her drug dealer and pimp, who was 20 years older than her. She gave birth to a baby with that man,

• 23:09Speaker 03

  but the baby was taken by social services. Her mother would say that her drug use escalated after that.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Andrea began a methadone programme and was known to visit Wish Drop-in Centre every night, where she was known for her bright smile.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Robert Willie Pickton's two friends were still active getting women for him from the downtown east side. Gina Houston would later testify that Dinah Taylor showed up to the farm with a woman who she introduced as Andrea, and the three women used drugs together.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Andrea's family were notified that she had missed a methadone appointment. Her brother looked for her on the downtown east side, then reported her missing. Andrea Josbury was 23 years old.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  By now, the community was again reeling with shock. Clearly, the reports that suggested the number of missing women had begun to decline had created a false sense that the threat had passed. Women were still going missing at an alarming rate.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  Meanwhile, Project Evenhanded, the joint task force between the Vancouver PD and the RCMP, had expanded slightly. As they dug deeper into the files, they discovered that far more women had gone missing from the downtown east side than anyone had initially acknowledged. The VPD was forced to take the issue of the missing women seriously. Project Evenhanded officially opened the lines of communication with the victims' families. They held a meeting with 50 family members and, for the first time, told them exactly where they were up to with the investigation and that they intended to keep the communication

• 25:22Speaker 03

  up. Most of the family members left the meeting feeling reassured, or at least like they'd finally been heard.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  The next day, October 15th of 2001, the police publicly announced that they would be treating the missing women cases as homicide cases. This was a huge moment for everyone involved. Robert Pickton didn't know it yet, but his time was running out. In just four months, he would be arrested.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Proceeds from this series are being donated to the Wish-Drop-In Centre Society, supporting street-based sex workers on Vancouver's downtown east side since 1984.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  The youth mental health crisis is growing, and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised, and studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media, tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time, or tech in steps. From GPS-tracking-enabled watches for younger kids, to phones with parent-enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com/getgab and use code GETGAB for an exclusive offer.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  That's G A B B dot com forward slash get gab. Gab: Tech in Steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents.

• 27:19Speaker 04

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• 27:56Speaker 03

  As the Vancouver Police Department publicly shifted the missing women investigation to a homicide investigation, Robert Pickton continued to troll the downtown east side and target marginalized women. Just four days after that announcement, 34-year-old Diane Rock was seen for the last time.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  Diane was born in Welland, Ontario to a fifteen-year-old mother. She ended up being adopted by the Maron family, who were family friends. And they were said to have doted on her. In a later article in the Vancouver Sun, Diane's family described her as outgoing and high-spirited, a prankster with a fiery temper. At fifteen, Diane became pregnant herself and dropped out of school. Her adopted family, the Marons, set her up to live in a place of her own. And by the time she was twenty, she was married with another daughter and a son. The marriage ended after a couple of years and Diane and her ex-husband shared custody.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Still in Welland, she worked as a healthcare aide and started taking shifts as an adult dancer to provide for her children. She started using drugs, telling her mother it gave her confidence and that she was ashamed of having to dance for men. Diane got married for a second time, had another child, and her new husband eventually got a job in Vancouver. So the family moved to British Columbia for a fresh start. And for quite a few years, it was. Diane studied nursing part-time and continued working in assisted living, supporting adults with disabilities,

• 29:47Speaker 03

  where she was known as a fierce advocate for her clients. She gave birth to another child when she was twenty-eight. That was nineteen ninety-five.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  But Diane's life began to spiral in two thousand, when she separated from her second husband and moved into her own apartment. She began using cocaine and her life became increasingly unstable. She lost custody of her children. In April of two thousand one, she took a leave of absence from work. She never returned and began to struggle financially. She entered a relationship with an abusive man. The following month, she was arrested for unknown reasons. And by June of two thousand one, she was living on the downtown east side. That month, she missed her daughter's birthday.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  In August, she phoned her sister, Lilianne and Welland, sounding distraught. She told Lilianne that she'd been to a party on a farm in Pork Equitlum, but had instead been held captive for a few days, where she was sexually assaulted and beaten.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  October of 2001 was the last confirmed sighting of Diane Rock by her social worker. Once her family back in Ontario realised she was missing, one of her daughters, just a teenager, came to the downtown east side of Vancouver by herself to look for her mother. There was no sign. Diane Rock was 34 years old. Her DNA would be found in one of the workshop freezers on the Pickton farm and in several areas of the old motorhome Robert Pickton lived in for a time. And Diane's handbag would be found in a pile of debris in the old piggery.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  Inside that bag was a fluid-filled condom that contained Robert Pickton's DNA.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  The following month, 26-year-old Mona Wilson vanished. She was the youngest of seven children from an Ochies First Nation family from Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. As a child, Mona loved unicorns and the colour pink, but her life was marked by upheaval and trauma. When she was young, her mother moved to Vancouver and the children were separated, some raised by their grandparents. Mona stayed with her mother, but was removed from her home when the authorities discovered she'd been suffering repeated physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her mother's boyfriend.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  She was placed with a foster mother who was a community worker in the downtown east side, where Mona made a few friends. Then she was placed with a different foster family who ran a small hobby farm in the Fraser Valley. She adored helping out in the garden and feeding the animals. Mona was described as a happy, bubbly child, for the most part, but the demons of her childhood haunted her. As Mona Wilson entered her teenage years, she moved through a series of group homes and began using alcohol and harder drugs. She dropped out of school in grade nine and a few years later returned to the downtown east side

• 33:29Speaker 03

  to meet some of the friends she'd met when she lived there. Mona was well-known at the Wish Drop-In Centre and a needle exchange centre. She was sweet but also feisty and independent. She entered several drug treatment programmes for heroin use. In 2000, Mona was incarcerated for a short time at the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women. She told her older sister that when she was released, she planned to go and live with her, but instead she returned to the downtown east side.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  Shortly before her disappearance, Mona was living in a basement suite in East Vancouver with her common-law partner, who accompanied her to the Wish Drop-In Centre every night. The staff there would later tell author Stevie Cameron that he was an obnoxious, aggressive bully who expected Mona to provide for him through survival sex work and squeegeeing car windshields at a local intersection. He claims that the last time he saw the 26-year-old was at the end of November 2001. He reported her missing a week later. Mona Wilson's DNA would be found inside the door of the slaughterhouse,

• 34:53Speaker 03

  mixed with the DNA of another individual, Pat Casanova, Robert Pickton's partner in butchering and barbecue pork.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Now we circle back to Scott Chubb, the former employee of the Pickton brothers who had spent quite a bit of time on the farm over the years. He'd been a truck driver for David Pickton's demolition business and worked security at Piggy's Palace, that is, before it was closed. At this point, it had been more than two years since Willie offered him $1,000 to hurt Lynne Ellingson for the reason that she was blackmailing him and it was costing him a lot of money. Scott would also claim that Willie mentioned it was easy to kill a person who used drugs. He just needed to fill a syringe with antifreeze

• 35:53Speaker 03

  or window washer fluid and inject that. They'll die and police will think they died of an overdose. They were just junkies, right?

• 36:04Speaker 03

  Scott Chubb did not take Willie up on his offer to hurt Lynne Ellingson. He needed money at the time, but not that much. He sat on that information for two years, but now he was desperate. Scott Chubb and his spouse had separated and he owed thousands of dollars in child support. To make matters worse, he'd just lost his job and he owed rent in a week. But one thing he could sell was information and he knew exactly who to contact. A few months earlier, Scott Chubb had called the police during a heated domestic dispute with his spouse.

• 36:47Speaker 03

  One of the RCMP officers who responded to the call was a rookie constable named Nathan Wells and the two got to talking. Scott complained that he was sick of the violence and being involved in the criminal underworld and was keen to stay in contact. Constable Wells suspected Scott might be a useful source of information down the line. They exchanged details.

• 37:13Speaker 03

  It was a few months after that, in late January of 2002, that Scott Chubb reached out to the rookie constable to see if he could trade information for money. By this point, Wells had just moved to the Kekuitlim RCMP's drugs section, and Scott offered him some names tied to drug trafficking and a cannabis grow-up. But this information was not new to Wells and his colleagues. So Scott Chubb asked, were they interested in hearing about illegal, unregistered firearms connected to the Pickton Farm? That was the moment everything changed.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  Constable Wells knew about the farm, most people in the area did, but his colleague had actually worked on the investigation into the knife attack on Wendy, which by this point was five years earlier. But was this information about three illegal firearms credible enough to apply for a search warrant? That was the question. Scott Chubb claimed he'd seen them in the laundry of Robert Pickton's mobile trailer within the previous 36 hours, when it had probably been about two years since he really saw those firearms. For now, he also admitted the fact that Willie had given him one to borrow, along with some ammunition.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  In any event, the rookie constable Wells took this information to his staff sergeant, who immediately realised the significance of it. The Vancouver PD's Project Evenhanded members were notified. This was an opportunity that could not be messed up. They finally applied for a search warrant to look for illegal firearms in the mobile trailer home on the Pickton Farm. It was quickly approved, and a team was assembled to execute it in the form of a surprise raid. The team included members from the Kekuitlim RCMP detachment and some members from Project Evenhanded from the Vancouver PD.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  That Tuesday evening, February the 5th of 2002, the team got together around the corner from the farm. They were told to focus on the illegal firearms and take care not to disturb anything else in case it was relevant to another investigation. The implication that everyone understood was the missing women from the downtown east side. They moved in with a battering ram and knocked down the door of the trailer. Police, search warrant. Robert Pickton was surprised and within minutes, the 52-year-old was in handcuffs in the back of a police cruiser

• 40:07Speaker 03

  as the search of his mobile trailer home began. One of the officers headed straight for the laundry. On a shelf above Robert Pickton's washing machine was a 22-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. It wasn't one of the illegal firearms Scott Chubb had specified, but it was notable because of what was attached to it. The barrel of the revolver had been wrapped in cellophane and inserted into a soft plastic dildo. The firearm had one spent cartridge and five unfired bullets. Nearby were some boxes of ammunition. On the television stand,

• 40:51Speaker 03

  officers found identification belonging to 25-year-old Heather Bottomley, who vanished about 10 months earlier. In Pickton's bedroom, in plain sight, there was a flare gun, handcuffs, large cable ties and two more dildos. They found welfare payment stubs addressed to "The Trailer" at the Dominion Avenue Pig Farm with the name Dinah Taylor. That was a familiar name to police, but not because she was one of the missing women. Dinah Taylor was someone the other women on the downtown east side said they tried to avoid, and it appeared she had been living on the Pickton farm.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  Police found a ski bag in the office area of the mobile trailer. The first thing they saw inside it was a pair of running shoes. The second thing was an asthma inhaler. One of the project even-handed officers recognised the name on the prescription immediately, Serena Abbottsway. By this point, it had been about seven months since she was reported missing. Serena Abbottsway was 29 years old, and she'd lived on the downtown east side for more than a decade. The previous summer of 2001, she was very much looking forward to her 30th birthday.

• 42:18Speaker 03

  Serena's life had been shaped by trauma from the very beginning. She was reportedly born in Vancouver to Indigenous parents who separated when she was very young, and she and her half siblings were placed in foster care. By the age of four, Serena had already experienced physical and sexual abuse. At that point, she was placed in foster care with the Dreher family in the metro Vancouver area, deeply traumatised and extremely angry.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  But she slowly began to feel safer with them. She would stay with the Dreher's until she was 17, known for being bubbly, caring and affectionate with a big heart, someone who sung loudly at church.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  Serena also lived with significant challenges. She had fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a lifelong disability caused by prenatal alcohol exposure that affects brain development and behaviour. At school, Serena struggled with learning difficulties and often got into trouble. As she entered her teens, her behaviour became harder to manage, and the Dreher's couldn't cope anymore. At 17, she was moved into a group home, but she remained close with her foster family. Serena began using drugs, she was charged with a couple of criminal offences, and eventually made her way to the downtown east side.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  She engaged in survival sex work and hazardous drug use, and drifted in and out of homelessness, cycling through shelters and recovery programmes. At twenty-four, Serena narrowly survived a brutal physical assault by a sex work client, or trick. She was left in a coma with a fractured skull that required a steel plate, and might have caused her further cognitive issues. She was reportedly never quite the same after that. She enrolled in multiple treatment programmes to stop using drugs, but she soon ended up back on the streets. Serena was a regular at drop-in centres like Wish,

• 44:39Speaker 03

  and known for being extroverted and opinionated. She was rarely without her inhaler, which helped her manage the symptoms of severe asthma. She still dropped into church, she still sang loudly, and continued to call the Dreher family often.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  In nineteen ninety-nine, Serena was reportedly stopped for an interview by a Seattle Times reporter about the increase in missing women. She described herself as "an avid crack user", and said that it was no fun, that she has to get out of the downtown east side. She said she was afraid of being killed. She joined the Women's Memorial March, held on February fourteenth every year, to honour and commemorate the women in the downtown east side who were missing or murdered. In July of two thousand and one, Serena was still calling the Dreher family often,

• 45:41Speaker 03

  as they planned for her to come and celebrate her thirtieth birthday at the end of August. And then, suddenly, she stopped calling. She never made it to her thirtieth birthday. When Serena Abbotsway's inhaler was found in Robert Pickton's bedroom, a decision was made to stop the search for illegal firearms. They didn't want to touch anything else. It was clear the police needed a new search warrant for the entire farm, this time in relation to the investigation into the missing women from the downtown east side.

• 46:27Speaker 03

  The following day, Robert Pickton was charged in relation to prohibited firearms and released on bail with an order not to go back to the farm. He was ordered to stay at the house his brother David had moved to in the previous years, in Porkequillam, about a kilometre away from the farm. Police did not have enough evidence to charge him with murder, yet. Of course, police were surveilling him and his phone lines were tapped, but he was paranoid so nothing of value would be captured during this time.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  For the next part, just a quick content warning, distressing descriptions of animal abuse over the next 90 seconds or so.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  Of course, Robert ignored the order to not go back to the farm. It was the first place he went with his brother David, saying they needed to feed the animals. It turned out the animals were not cared for and lived in squalor. The pigs were already starving with no food or water, and there were sick pigs lying around with various infections. One had a rotting foot and was huddled together with some other pigs for warmth. One pig was extremely sick and had recently given birth to a litter. Her babies were all deceased. In fact, one bull pig was playing around with one of the deceased piglets.

• 47:59Speaker 03

  There were also a bunch of pig carcasses and one sheep's carcass, all in various stages of decomposition, and drums of remains. A pig's head was on a table with a hole between its eyes that appeared to be from a nail gun.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  The SPCA reportedly took forty sheep, ten goats, eight pigs, two llamas and two cows from the farm. Many of the pigs had to be put down. That discovery was horrific enough, but it was only the beginning. As police secured the farm and began searching Robert Pickton's trailer, they had no idea just how dark the investigation was about to become.

• 49:08Speaker 04

  At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  The youth mental health crisis is growing, and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised, and studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media, tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time, or tech in steps. From GPS tracking-enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent-enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com/getgab and use code GETGAB for an exclusive offer.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  That's G A B B dot com forward slash get gab. Gab: Tech in Steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Dozens of officers from the Vancouver PD and the RCMP sealed off the Pickton farm and launched a full-scale investigation. They went back to Robert's mobile trailer home first to finish the search they had started, wearing Tyvek suits, gloves, masks and booties. They collected Serena Abbotsway's inhaler from the ski bag in the office. In one of the side pockets of that bag, they found two syringes filled with a blue liquid that looked like antifreeze or window washing liquid. This finding would give credibility to what Scott Chubb had told police about how Robert

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Pickton offered to pay him to hurt Lynne Ellingson. Serena Abbotsway's DNA was found on those two syringes and on a blanket. Hairs belonging to Robert Pickton and his associate Dinah Taylor were also found on that blanket. Four more of Serena Abbotsway's inhalers had also been dumped in a garbage can. Investigators found a rosary belonging to Mona Wilson. Later testing would find Dinah Taylor's DNA also on this rosary. A thorough search of Pickton's bedroom uncovered the rest of his collection of sex toys.

• 52:04Speaker 03

  A plethora of vibrators and dildos with lubricating gel, more plastic cable ties which were likely intended for restraint, two women's belts and more syringes. Twenty-four-year-old Paddy Johnson's DNA was found on the sex toys and on a syringe found outside the trailer.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  Of course, unless the person's name was on the item, there was no way to know at the time who it belonged to or whose DNA might have been on it. It would end up taking a very long time for all the items found to be confirmed through DNA testing and comparison. Behind the headboard of Pickton's bed, there was a pair of furry handcuffs with 23-year-old Jacqueline McDonald's blood on it. She'd been missing for three years.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  At the foot of his bed was a black purse and a broken crack pipe with the blood of 43-year-old Deborah Jones on them, and an address book with 23-year-old Andrea Josbury's name on it and her DNA.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  Pickton's mattress was stained with the blood of Heather Bottomley. Police found more of her documents, including a rental application, a spiral notebook with her name on it, and handwritten notes about pregnancy tests. Heather Bottomley was pregnant with her second child when she disappeared.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Items belonging to women were found all over the mobile trailer: purses, makeup and beauty products, hairbrushes and perfume, women's clothes. Andrea Josbury's DNA would be found on a lipstick, black boots and a black jacket, on the bathroom walls and on a pillowcase in the laundry. Her hair was on a blanket.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Two lipsticks were found that had DNA belonging to 31-year-old Brenda Wolfe. DNA from a second person was also found. Robert Pickton's associate, Dinah Taylor, was a possible contributor. In his closet was a jacket that had Dinah Taylor's hair on it, as well as Brenda Wolfe's DNA. On a cowboy hat in Pickton's closet and in blood spatter in his bedroom was the DNA of 31-year-old Helen Hallmark, who had been missing for five years. On overalls in his bedroom was DNA belonging to Heather Chinock, also thirty-one.

• 54:49Speaker 03

  There was an undergarment with the DNA of forty-two-year-old Dawn Cray, and a leather jacket with twenty-eight-year-old Jennifer Ferminger's blood on it. There was also jewellery, some of it in the closet, some of it hidden in a kitchen floor vent, with the DNA of twenty-five-year-old Andrea Bohaven, thirty-nine-year-old Kerry Lynn Kosky, and twenty-three-year-old Jaclyn McDonald. They'd been missing for at least four years.

• 55:21Speaker 03

  And that was just one structure on the farm. The entire fourteen-acre property had to be examined. The slaughterhouse and old pigery, the old dilapidated motorhome Robert Pickton used to live in, the old barn, the mechanical shop, the garage and the workshop, and the farmhouse that David Pickton had vacated. There was all the old cars and machinery, the mounds of junk and dirt. Everything would need to be combed through and searched. Many of the officers involved would later recall how overwhelmed they felt. It was going to be a logistical nightmare. A large trailer was brought in to serve as a mobile command centre.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  Forensic teams arrived with the equipment needed to process an enormous crime scene. A photographer documented what investigators were facing. Software was set up to catalogue evidence and protocols were established. All items were bagged, sealed, barcoded and labelled. Every time searchers went off the site to the central command trailer, they would need to replace their Tyvek suits and all their equipment. It would be a long, drawn-out process, but it had to be done. There was no other way. Within a week, there would be eighty officers. Then it would balloon out to a hundred and thirty, and then more than two hundred and fifty people.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  So far, the police hadn't found a single body or body part, but they had so much more to search and they had to be thorough, slow and methodical. This would be declared the largest crime scene in Canadian history.

• 57:19Speaker 03

  The activity around the farm was big news to the residents of Port Coquitlam. The police had sealed it off the morning after the raid because a growing number of local reporters were showing up and waiting outside the fence along Dominion Avenue for any information on what was going on. During this time, a scrawny-looking woman with dark hair came up to the gate looking for Willie Pickton. A young officer told her it wasn't possible and took down her name and details: Dinah Taylor.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  Meanwhile, project even-handed officers had begun calling the families of the missing women to let them know they had a suspect in custody. The crowd outside the front fence grew as family members began arriving. Then, the press announced that pig farmer Robert Pickton was now a suspect in relation to the dozens of women who vanished from Vancouver's downtown east side over the past decade and more. It was also announced that the police would be testing items found during the search for DNA and were also obtaining DNA samples from the missing women to compare. The crowds at the fence grew like a circus of sorts,

• 58:41Speaker 03

  as reporter Kim Boland described it for the Vancouver Sun. Helicopters circled overhead. Media crews from across Canada and the United States descended on the area with reporters delivering live updates from outside the farm. News trucks lined the road. Workers showed up from nearby businesses and teenagers skipped school to witness the commotion.

• 59:07Speaker 03

  Neighbours and other locals traded stories about the Pickton brothers and the weird things that had happened there. Like that night five years earlier, when a woman came running out of the farm, holding a knife, half naked and bleeding, and flagged down a passing car, and how nothing came of that. Then there was the rumours of the Howells Angels Chop Shop, Piggy's Palace, and how the Pickton brothers were always butting heads with local government and flouting the fact that they didn't follow the rules.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  As night fell, the cameras packed up and the spectacle faded, the loved ones of the missing women lit candles and kept vigil. They had no idea they would have to wait five years before they learned what happened to their loved ones. And some of them would never find out, because no trace would ever be found.

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  Robert Pickton's younger brother David agreed to a two-hour interview with two reporters for the province. They described him as having a strong odour and grimy hands, but he was very talkative about certain topics. The 50-year-old talked himself up as the owner of several businesses, including a demolition and contracting company, and described himself as the one who pushes the pencils and counts the dollars, whereas Willie was just a pig farmer, a loner who was too trusting and always, quote, "taken advantage of by losers".

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  David Pickton proudly pointed out that the farm was an entirely in-house business. Quote, "We do all our own slaughtering out there." He also confirmed he owned an eight-metre-long boat and a big motorcycle, but he denied any association with the Howells Angels. He also said he didn't know anything about sex workers at the downtown east side. He'd never paid for one himself, and he dismissed any connection between outlaw bikers and sex workers. Quote, "Bikers don't need hookers. You ride a bike, you've got women coming out of the woodwork. Leathers attract women."

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  When asked about his criminal record, David Pickton responded, "I might have been in trouble with the law when I was younger, but any charges I've ever got, I've beat."

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  This was quickly revealed to be a flat-out lie. The woman he was convicted of sexually assaulting 10 years earlier in 1992 was incensed when she read this in the paper and contacted the province herself from behind her publication ban, saying the public has a right to know what David Pickton did. She recounted being cornered by him in a construction office trailer at the site where she was working, and how he groped her and only stopped because he was interrupted by someone else. She told the reporters she remained terrified by David Pickton, and her heart was now breaking for the families of the missing women at this chilling news.

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  Of course, David Pickton didn't have to tell the journalists that when he was 16 years old, he'd been charged in juvenile court with failing to remain at the scene of a fatal accident in relation to the hit-and-run of Timothy Barrett. And he certainly wouldn't have told anyone that his mother pushed the 14-year-old into the water-filled ditch where he drowned. Author Stevie Cameron later confirmed that Louise Pickton had told her son Robert and at least one other person about this.

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  David Pickton told the province he was stunned when his older brother Robert phoned him from jail the night the farm was raided. He described the farm search as devastating, and then went on to casually bring up some random pieces of information, like the fact that Willie had been collecting salvage vehicles to tinker with. David claimed that many of these vehicles originated from the Vancouver Police Department's impound lot, and one car had blood spatter inside it, but it came from the police in the first place, so why report it? He said Willie would often find random stuff in those cars, like identification and women's clothing.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  "One time, they even found an asthma inhaler," he said.

• 1:03:59Speaker 03

  But he and Willie didn't sort through all those items because they believed a good number of these cars had been used by homeless sex workers as crash pads. David Pickton also brought up landfill. Over the years, he said he had dumped seventy-five thousand truckloads of dirt onto the farm. Quote, "We get dirt from all over. How do you know what's in there?"

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  Reporters also came across Robert Pickton's gal pal Gina Houston outside the fence on Dominion Avenue, and she was also very keen to talk to them about a number of topics. Gina described Willie Pickton as a nice, caring man who liked to help people out. She'd known him for years. He befriended sex workers from the downtown east side and gave them money because he felt sorry for them. But these sex workers were also crazy for drugs and would accuse him of doing things he didn't do. Gina said that she'd spoken with Willie just after he was released on bail, and he told her he'd been having problems with some of these women.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  She even mentioned one in particular that she'd met in a transition house, a woman who has a great personality but goes right off when she's using drugs. Gina told the reporters this woman watched Willie slaughter the pigs and got some bad ideas. Quote, "I've been hauled into the police umpteen times over this crackhead. When Willie doesn't give her money for drugs, she phones and says he's slaughtering the hookers and burying them on the property."

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  She didn't name the woman, but it's clear in hindsight that Gina Houston was talking about Lynn Ellingson. And then, she too casually brought up the dirt. Quote, "They're going to have fun with that dirt, I tell you, because, I mean, with all the houses being built and all the dirt being brought in, and then being that that's farmland for years, there's been cows, pigs, goats. You know, when they do the DNA testing, they're going to have lots of fun."

• 1:06:22Speaker 03

  The farm continued to be a spectacle and crowds continued to gather at the front gate on Dominion Avenue. A tent was put up across the road as a sort of safe space for the families to find refuge with victim services workers. It was soon referred to as the family tent or the healing tent. Before long, it was decorated with dozens of pictures of the missing women, notes to them, wreaths of flowers, ribbons and lit candles. Back at the police office, officers were putting together a plan of action to interrogate Robert Pickton. They wanted to be prepared with the right people to conduct the interviews and the

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  right approach, but first, they needed more evidence. Another team of officers were dealing with the hundreds of tips that had begun flooding in and conducting other interviews. Dinah Taylor’s name was heard over and over again. Just four days after the police raided the farm, they arrested Dinah Taylor, the first arrest in relation to the missing women of the downtown east side. They questioned her aggressively, but she was tough and wouldn’t buckle. They had no choice but to release her without charge, but they would continue to surveil her and had wiretapped her phone.

• 1:07:51Speaker 03

  The next day, the police arrested Lynne Ellingson. They’d heard from too many people that she’d told them she had seen Robert Pickton butchering a woman in the slaughterhouse that night. Maybe she was involved herself, but she was using drugs when they picked her up and once again, she was completely uncooperative. Lynne Ellingson was absolutely terrified to speak the truth, but soon, she would gather the courage.

• 1:08:26Speaker 03

  By this point, the search had moved to the derelict old motorhome Robert Pickton had lived in for a time. It was of course filthy, and there was litter everywhere: bottles, cigarette butts, a crack pipe, syringes, musty clothing and other debris. There was a foam mattress heavily stained with blood, and there was blood spatter on the walls. Forensic specialists would determine a bloodletting event had happened in there, and evidence suggesting a person had been dragged out of the motorhome. There was a bloody handprint on the turned-over mattress, and spots of blood along the bathroom

• 1:09:07Speaker 03

  door, fridge, kitchen counter and cupboard, and on the compartment between the two front seats.

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  Multiple samples were taken and fast-tracked to the forensics lab for DNA testing. The search had only just begun, and even though they hadn't found a single body or body part yet, there was no way a person could have survived this amount of blood loss. Police were already getting approval for a first-degree murder charge for Serena Abbotzway, and if this blood in the motorhome was matched to a DNA sample they had for any of the other missing women, Robert Pickton would be arrested for a second time.

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  Thanks for listening. Part five will be the final chapter of the story of Robert Pickton. When the news of his eventual demise broke, it felt like a satisfying ending to the story for many, but for the families of the women who were killed, including the more than 98 children left without their mothers, it doesn't feel like closure at all.

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  That's coming up as soon as it's ready. For the full list of resources, sources, research studies and anything else you want to know about the podcast, see the show notes or visit canadiantruecrime.ca. We donate monthly to those facing injustice. Proceeds from this series are going to the Wish Drop-in Centre Society. Special thanks to Danielle Paradi for family outreach and additional research. Audio editing was by Crosby Audio and Eric Crosby voiced the disclaimer. Our senior producer is Lindsay Eldridge and Carol Weinberg is our script consultant.

• 1:11:11Speaker 03

  Research, writing, narration and sound design was by me and the theme songs were composed by We Talk of Dreams. I'll be back soon with another Canadian True Crime episode. See you then.

• 1:11:51Speaker 04

  At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honour and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  The youth mental health crisis is growing and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised, and studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social Media tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time, or tech in steps. From GPS tracking-enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent-enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com/getgab and use code GETGAB for an exclusive offer. That's G A B B dot com forward slash get gab.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Gab, tech in steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents.