BC police charge pig farmer with seventh murder

Associated Press

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Police filed a seventh first-degree murder charge Wednesday against a man being investigated in the disappearances of 50 women missing from Vancouver’s drug-infested downtown east side.

Robert Pickton, a pig farmer from the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam, has been charged with Brenda Wolfe’s death, said Geoff Gaul of the criminal justice branch of the provincial Attorney General’s Ministry.

Wolfe, 32, was last seen in February 1999 but wasn’t reported missing until 14 months later.

Police began searching Pickton’s pig farm in February, and the search was expanded last month to a nearby property.

Police wouldn’t say what evidence led them to file the latest charge against Pickton, nor would Vancouver police Detective Scott Driemel say whether DNA evidence was found.

Investigators, who have been collecting DNA samples from family members of the missing women, have previously said they have found human remains.

Pickton, 52, will begin a preliminary hearing Nov. 4. He makes a court appearance Thursday on the latest charge.

There are about 80 officers on the joint Royal Canadian Mounted Police-Vancouver city police task force investigating the disappearances.

Investigators originally anticipated the search at Pickton’s farm would take a few months but that estimate has since increased. Officers say they will be at the farm for at least a year collecting evidence.

Driemel said police are finalizing the hiring of about 50 specialists in human osteology, a branch of archeology, who will start work in a few weeks.

"The individuals who will be hired for a period ranging from a few months to a year come from the academic and science community in Canada," Driemel said.

All have signed confidentiality agreements.

"The individuals have also been told — in very clear terms — that public disclosure about their work could result in not only them getting fired but facing charges under relevant legislation," Driemel said.

The women began disappearing in 1983. Thirty-nine of them have gone missing in the last six years.

Family and friends have been highly critical of the way Vancouver police handled the disappearances before the RCMP joined the investigation a year ago.

Community activists have complained that because most of the women were prostitutes and addicted to drugs, police ignored concerns that a serial killer was prowling the poverty-stricken downtown east side neighborhood. A Victoria lawyer has launched class-action suits against Pickton and police.

The province’s solicitor general has rejected calls for an inquiry into police handling of the case while Pickton is before the courts.

Pickton is also charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of:

  • Mona Wilson, who was 26 when she was last seen in November.

  • Sereena Abotsway, 29 when she disappeared in August 2001.

  • Jacqueline McDonell, 23 when she was last seen in January 1999.

  • Diane Rock, 34 when last seen in October 2001.

  • Heather Bottomley, 25 when she disappeared in April 2001.

  • Andrea Joesbury, 22 when last seen in June, 2001.

    Pickton was arrested in February, about two weeks after police began the search at the farm. Family and friends of the missing women have made the fence around the Pickton farm a makeshift shrine, leaving flowers and cards.

    Pickton and his younger brother Dave ran "Piggy’s Palace," a place to party, in an old building they owned near the farm. Dave Pickton, through a lawyer, has denied involvement in the disappearances.

    That site is being searched as well, but that effort "is still in the preliminary stages and we’ll still be acquiring resources to conduct a search out there," said RCMP spokeswoman Constable Kate Galliford. "We’re assessing the property and determining exactly where we’re going to start first."

    Robert Pickton was charged in 1997 with attempted murder — accused of stabbing a drug-addicted prostitute — but the charge was dropped.

    Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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