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On Sunday, December 9, a Canadian jury declared Robert Pickton, a BC pig farmer, guilty on six counts of second-degree murder. There were cheers in the courtroom. There were tears. There were people there, and across the country, who wondered why he wasn't found guilty of murder in the first-degree. On Tuesday, December 11, Pickton was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility for parole for twenty-five years - the maximum sentence. When that day comes Pickton will be 83 years of age. Canadians breathed a collective sigh of relief and we hope that he will never again see the light of day as a free man. But questions still remain.
Disclaimer: The following links may contain information that is disturbing and/or graphic in nature. Pickton is accused of murdering twenty-six women. They died horrible deaths. Please follow links at your own discretion.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Pickton case I recommend the CBC's background coverage or the Toronto's Star's Pickton coverage. Here's the (very) condensed version. In 1998 the Vancouver Police begin to review the dozens of files concerning women who were missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. In February 2002 Pickton's pig farm is raided by police with a firearms warrant. Shortly after the raid Robert Pickton is arrested on two counts of murder. In the spring of 2002 archaeologists (52 of them) are brought in to excavate the pig farm. Between that date and the present Pickton is charged with murdering 26 women. In January 2007 a trial begins in which Pickton is accused of murdering six women. It is the largest serial-killer investigation and the most expensive court case in Canadian history. In December 2007 Pickton is found guilty of second-degree murder in all six cases. He is still waiting to face trial in the murder of the other twenty women.
There was an official publication ban on the details of the case and of the evidence against Pickton. But, of course, nothing is truly secret. How much of it is fact or fiction we can't know for sure but what we've heard is enough to give us nightmares.
Thinking about all of the horror movies I'd watched as a kid and how I've rationalized them by proclaiming their impossibility, I realized last night, that this Pickton story is far scarier than any movie I'll ever see and that my bubble is going to need thicker walls than that to keep up with the pace of the incredulity of the horror world.
The Portable Eva
Following the verdict on December 9 many people asked how the jury could not have found him guilty of first-degree murder. And why don't we have the option of life in prison without parole?
Also, let's remember that the jury found him guilty of second-degree murder, believing that the murders were not planned. How do you murder that many people and not plan it?
Antigone Magazine
What constitutes planning to the courts?
Can you indeliberately do something six times?
Say I went to a bar, got drunk and got in a bar fight and killed someone. That could be an accident and thus second-degree murder.
If I did this six times the judge would be right to say I should have known when I went to that bar and had all those drinks that I was going to kill someone. Putting myself in that situation for the sixth time seems deliberate to me.
Did he act alone? If he didn't was justice really served?
At any rate, most people feel it is certain he was not in on this alone and it's just unfortunate the police could never pin anything on the other culprits -- namely his brother.[...]
And, strangely, there didn't seem to any sign of his 'supporters', including his brother or other family members. Was 'justice' really done if these other suspects are never called into account?
Conversations with Myself
Will there be a trial for the other twenty women?
It's just hoped that the next long trial, for the 20 other victims, will go ahead as planned. These women deserve justice.
Conversations with Myself
Through out the case it has been suggested that police ignored the cases of the missing women from the Downtown Eastside because many of them were prostitutes and drug users. If it's true, is what Paul Willcocks says right? Did we all help Pickton kill those women?
Robert Pickton had it right. If you're going to kill somebody, pick someone whose death won't much matter, at least
