Butcher (11 page)

Vancouver residents continued closely watching the Robert Pickton pig farm investigation as it unfolded. Investigators had focused much of their attention on Pickton’s filthy trailer as they searched for evidence. RCMP sergeant Margaret Kingsbury had been assigned to go over the trailer with a fine-tooth-comb, and she had worked inside it nearly every day since the task force had taken over the farm, searching for any shred of evidence that might support one or more murder charges against Pickton.

By February 14, 2002, Kingsbury and other investigators had removed several DNA samples from the trailer, and had begun asking women who had been to Pickton’s trailer to come forward and provide DNA samples to help the investigators in their effort to differentiate or eliminate people whose DNA did not match up with that which had so far been found. Police were still publicly saying that Pickton was only a person of interest in the case of the missing women, and they avoided media questions about whether Willie’s trailer was used for parties, which were held on the farm, and whether prostitutes had been brought there regularly.

In the meantime, Kingsbury and others found numerous items of a feminine nature in nearly every room of Robert Pickton’s trailer. They removed a woman’s purse, a black boot, and makeup inside a closet; there was also a plastic storage tub with a variety of women’s makeup inside it as well. They also found inside the closet a woman’s black shirt, a woman’s leather jacket, and two tubes of lipstick. Perfume, a hairbrush, and a mishmash of other items were removed from his nightstand and adjacent areas of his bedroom, and a black jacket was taken from the foot area of his bed. Although the investigators did not know to whom all of the female items being found inside Pickton’s trailer belonged, each discovery was nearly as chilling as the last, considering the fact that they had earlier found an asthma inhaler that had been prescribed to Sereena Abotsway.

They also removed a pillowcase from Pickton’s laundry room, hoping that it would be a good source for DNA. When they more thoroughly went through his office, where Abotsway’s inhaler had been found inside the silver sports bag, they found women’s running shoes, black high heels, and two hypodermic syringes.

At one point during the first two weeks of searching, detectives began going through garbage outside Pickton’s trailer. It was not long before they found three more asthma inhalers prescribed to Sereena Abotsway, dated July 16, 2001. They would later discover that those inhalers, and the one found inside Pickton’s office that was dated July 19, 2001, were the last four inhalers that had been prescribed to her—she disappeared a short time later. According to one of the officers, the name on the label for all four inhalers was Sereena Abotsway.

Nearby a group of investigators began going through Pickton’s old motor home. As filthy as his trailer, if not more so, the motor home was cluttered with empty bottles, and cigarette butts were all over the place. It was musty inside, as several articles of clothing and other items had begun to mildew. Officers observed blood smudges on the bathroom door, on a kitchen counter-top and the cupboard above it, and on the refrigerator. There was a trail of blood spots that led to the front seat area, where blood evidence was present on the console between the two seats. It appeared that someone who was badly bleeding had been dragged out of the motor home.

The blood spots, it seemed at this juncture, had originated from a mattress inside the motor home. The mattress was heavily stained with blood. When they flipped it over, they found what appeared to be a bloody handprint on the other side. An expert on blood spatter said that he believed “bloodletting” had occurred there. Everyone agreed that there was certainly no shortage of DNA evidence anywhere on the farm—the challenge would be matching it to a victim.

After finding the asthma inhalers that had belonged to Sereena Abotsway, as well as all of the blood evidence, the syringe filled with a blue liquid, the dildo on the end of a handgun, among other things, the task force took their case to prosecutors and asked that Pickton be charged with murder. The Crown, however, told the task force it needed additional evidence before charges could be brought against Pickton. They hoped that DNA evidence would be their ticket.

It turned out that their hope was soon realized as the effort of DNA collection from relatives of the missing women paid off. By Friday, February 22, 2002, crime lab analysts had determined that the DNA of Sereena Abotsway and Mona Wilson were found on Pickton’s farm. The black shirt found in Pickton’s bedroom closet was also linked to Abotsway. Mona Wilson’s DNA was found inside the motor home, and on the tip of the dildo that was attached to the loaded .22-caliber revolver found inside Pickton’s trailer. Wilson’s blood was not present on the mattress that contained the bloodstains, nor did it contain DNA that could be linked to anyone.

Nonetheless, the task force went back to the Crown with their new findings and again asked that Pickton be charged with murder. This time the Crown agreed, and later that same day Pickton was located at a demolition site in Steveston, part of the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, where he was arrested and brought to the Surrey RCMP substation and jail. He was placed inside a cell with an undercover police officer, who pretended to be his cellmate. The next day Robert Pickton was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Sereena Abotsway and Mona Wilson. Abotsway and Wilson were two of the last three women to disappear in Vancouver in 2001, at least insofar as this investigation was concerned.

RCMP constable Cate Galliford said that as the investigation progressed, additional people may face charges.

“We do have hundreds of potential suspects,” Galliford said at a news conference announcing Pickton’s arrest. “As the investigation unfolds and we continue to follow up on tips, we may start focusing on other potential suspects.”

While Galliford had kept her statement short and to the point, the talk of additional potential suspects created an additional aura of mystery surrounding the already bizarre case. It was unclear whether she was just blowing smoke, or whether her remarks had been made as an effort to smoke possible witnesses out of the woodwork, people who knew things but had been afraid to talk. But now, it seemed possible that such people might begin coming forward with information out of fear of being charged with crimes right alongside Pickton. Only time would tell.

Robert Pickton settled quietly into his ten-by-ten cinder block cell at 3:57
P.M
. on February 22, 2002, after being led into it by an RCMP officer. The walls were beige, and two single bunks were joined together, each against separate walls, and formed an L-shape. They were hard and uncomfortable, making the otherwise austere cell even more unpleasant. A toilet was situated against a third wall. When Pickton was placed in the cell, a man was lying on the right bunk. Dirty and unkempt, Pickton took the bunk on the left, unaware that the man across from him was an undercover officer, who had been placed there to gather information. Pickton, dressed in a dark-colored jogging suit, looked somewhat surprised when his cellmate jumped up from his bunk and yelled at the officer who had placed Pickton in the cell with him.

“Hey! Where’s my f***ing lawyer?” yelled the cellmate. “I pay my f***ing lawyer!”

The police officer told him that his lawyer was on his way to see him, but he did not know precisely when he would arrive.

“F***ing yeah! I don’t f***ing share cells here,” exclaimed the cellmate. “What’s going on?”

Pickton, who had been seated on the edge where his bunk connected with his cellmate’s, got up during the commotion and walked to the toilet, where he urinated.

“F***ing bastards,” his cellmate said as Pickton finished his business at the commode. “I’m f***ing wait-in’ for my lawyer to call.”

“So, what are you in here for?” Pickton asked.

“Hey?”

“What are you in here for?” Pickton repeated, rubbing one of his dirty hands against his untrimmed facial hair.

“Well, for my health,” the cellmate responded flippantly. “Yeah, it’s f***ing bullshit.”

“What’s your charges?” Pickton persisted.

“F*** me. It’s f***ing warrants from back east.”

As he was explaining to Pickton that the warrants were from six months earlier, a jail officer brought Pickton a thin mattress and a blanket. Pickton laid it out on his bunk, and then made a makeshift pillow out of his blanket. When the guard left, Pickton began speaking to his cellmate again.

“That happens,” Pickton said of the warrants. “F***. I can’t believe this here.”

“What’s up?” the cellmate asked.

Pickton explained how he had been arrested upon leaving a demolition site.

“Why they want to f***ing throw you in jail for driving?” said the cellmate. “Not where I come from.”

“Oh yeah, I know,” Pickton said. “They said they got attempted murder, I got murder charges against me. Two murder charges.”

“You?”

“Well, f*** me,” Pickton said. “F***ing a working kinda guy. I’ve been working all the time, f***. Anyways, they’re trying, and I don’t know what’s goin’ on,” Pickton said.

He lay down on his bunk and covered his face with one of his arms.

“They got to f***ing prove it, too,” his cellmate responded.

“No, they don’t have to prove anything. They don’t have to prove nothing,” Pickton said.

Pickton’s cellmate told him that the authorities could not keep him in jail if they did not have anything on him. They needed evidence to hold him for very long.

“They can set you up. They can set you up. They can set you up,” Pickton repeatedly said.

“You think?”

“F***ing right. These are cops, and dirty at that,” Pickton said.

“Can’t trust a cop, man, believe that,” his cellmate offered.

“They got me up for murder one, two counts,” Pickton said. “And I know nothing about it,” Pickton said.

“I wouldn’t worry about it then.”

Pickton laughed at his cellmate’s suggestion.

“Easy to say,” Pickton said. “Easy to say.”

“Hey, f***ing relax.”

Pickton told his cellmate that he did not do what he was being charged with, and his cellmate advised him not to worry about it then. He predicted that Pickton would be out of jail before he knew it.

“Maybe, maybe,” Pickton responded. “Maybe never, either.”

“Won’t you get a good lawyer?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the answer,” Pickton said.

“No?”

“Lawyers can only do so much,” Pickton continued. “The news media and everything else on my back.”

“F***ing news media don’t give a shit about you,” his cellmate said.

“I know that. That’s what I says, they might be on my back, like yesterday,” Pickton said.

“Why the f*** would they be on your back? Am I f***ing sharing my f***ing bunk here with a celebrity?”

“Yeah, I’m on top of the world,” Pickton said sarcastically. “I’m just a plain old pig farmer,” Pickton said.

“Pig farmer,” repeated the cellmate. “So you’re that f***ing guy that…Ah, yeah, sure you are. F***ing pig farmer.”

“You must have heard about me from the paper,” Pickton said. “Everybody knows about me, right?”

“I heard something about…a place called…,” the cellmate trailed off, feigning that he could not recall the location.

“Port Coquitlam,” Pickton offered matter-of-factly.

“F***, is that it?” the cellmate asked. “
F***
…you’re a celebrity, man.”

Pickton, who was by now lying faceup on his bunk, laughed at his cellmate’s characterization of him.

“I could f***ing cry,” Pickton responded. “You know what? I was supposed to be there (on the farm) till age forty. I’m fifty now, and I’m buried.”

“Age of forty. What’s that?” his cellmate asked, attempting to elicit information.

Pickton repeated what he had said about being fifty years old, and being buried. In reality he was fifty-three, and his plans had been to be free of the farm by age forty. He said that it was the farm that had buried him.

“Maybe they got f***ing nothing,” his cellmate said.

“I’m just too big—me up so high,” Pickton said as he sat up in his bunk. “I’ll fall like a ton of lead.”

After a few moments of silence, Pickton laughed.

“I’m a legend already,” Pickton pondered aloud.

“Yeah, you’re a f***ing pig farmer,” his cellmate said.

“That’s all I am.”

After a few moments had passed, Pickton told his cellmate that his hometown was now being referred to as “Pork Coquitlam” because of him, an obvious reference to the fact that people were saying that he had fed humans to his pigs. His comments had brought laughter from his cellmate.

“I heard of mad cow disease—I heard this, I heard that,” Pickton said. “Now you…now you got f***ing pigs eating people.”

“That’s funny,” his cellmate said, laughing.

A short time later, Pickton told his cellmate that there were too many cops at his farm.

“Yeah…they can’t even find their ass with both hands, they’re so f***ing stupid,” his cellmate said. “Look at O.J., remember that f***ing trial?”

“O.J. Simpson?”

“There you go. F***, there’s a f***ing great example for you. Where’s he today?”

“I don’t know whatever happened to him,” Pickton said quietly. “Is he okay?”

“He’s a f***ing…free man,” the cellmate said. “Like I say, cops can screw things up so bad.”

“F***ing pig farm,” Pickton said, reflecting on his situation as he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. “Over a f***ing gun. Now I’m up for murder. Murder, on two counts.”

Pickton and his cellmate each lay in silence in their bunks for what must have been several minutes. The silence was broken at 4:30
P.M
. when an officer came into the cell and told Pickton that his lawyer was there to see him.

“Follow me and we’ll put you in a private room,” the RCMP officer said.

Pickton did not return to his cell until 5:21
P.M
. He lay on his bunk and said nothing until dinner arrived. The evening meal consisted of a bowl of brown beans, two pieces of bread, and a cup of coffee. Not being a coffee drinker, Pickton gave his cup to his cellmate. He told the cellmate that he did not drink coffee or alcohol, smoke, or use drugs.

“Come on now, nobody’s that f***ing straight,” his cellmate said.

“I’m a workin’ boy,” he responded, sounding as if he were beginning to feel sorry for himself. “And here I got charged for murder.”

Although he complained to his cellmate that his food tasted “shitty,” Pickton, sitting cross-legged on his bunk, nonetheless ate it until it was finished. At one point during the meal, Pickton told his cellmate that he had been charged with attempted murder in 1997.

“Really,” said his roommate, sounding interested. “What the f*** did you do for that?”

“The problems is I got knifed,” Pickton said, referring to the Wendy Eistetter incident without mentioning any names. “I got thirty-four hundred dollars on me, and the bitch wanted my money. I got slashed from here, my chest, across my throat, through my tongue, right through my bottom jaw,” he said, motioning to the various body locations with his hands. “Took the whole top of my tongue right off.”

“No shit!”

“And across the back,” Pickton added. “And I got an attempted murder charge and went down to the police station. You see my testimony…was true. Hers wasn’t.”

He explained that the case had not gone to court.

“I don’t f***ing understand how did you get charged if she f***ing stuck you,” his cellmate said.

Having taken off his shoes, Pickton answered that he guessed he had been charged because he was a male. “Now I got a murder charge, two murder charges.”

“What the f***. Well, you beat the one, you know what I’m saying?”

“But I haven’t been in jail,” Pickton said.

“You’ll f***ing walk,” the cellmate said. “Kinda like Teflon man. You can’t make that stuff stick to you.”

Pickton explained that his brother had advised him not to go near the work site because the cops would know where to find him. But he had not listened, and had gone there anyway.

“You should have f***ing flew, man, jump on a plane,” his cellmate said. “F***. I’m sure someone would f***ing throw you a few bucks to go—”

“Oh, I got no problem there,” Pickton said. “Money, everything else.”

“You got money? F***! You could have just f***ing bought a plane ticket.”

Pickton acknowledged that he could have left the area, but he admitted that he would not have known what to do.

“Yeah, but you gotta f***ing cover your own ass, I’m telling you,” his cellmate said.

“That’s what my brother said to me,” Pickton said.

“Well, it sounds like your brother’s a pretty smart guy, been around awhile.”

“Yeah.”

“He knows how business is done,” the cellmate said.

“He warned me,” Pickton responded, feeling sorry for himself again. “Now the farm buries you…. I worked hard…. No, I’m screwed, tattooed and nailed to the cross, and now I’m a mass murderer.”

“Hey?”

“Now they’re coming after me, f***ing pig man, because they says pigs…ate people now,” Pickton said.

“Since when?” the cellmate asked.

After some silence Pickton changed the subject somewhat and began explaining to his cellmate how he did not have a computer and that he had never been on the Internet. He indicated that he was not prepared “for the modern stuff,” and indicated that he was concerned about the past but wanted things to be “the way it used to be.” He said that his crime was being “stupid” and not being “up with the times.”

After lamenting his current problems a bit more, Pickton, lying on his bunk and staring at the ceiling, asked if the light was ever turned off. The conversation eventually turned toward the camera in the ceiling, which Pickton apparently had not noticed.

“There’s a f***ing camera,” his cellmate said.

“Is that a camera?” Pickton asked as he stared at the ceiling.

“Oh f***, yeah,” his cellmate responded. “F***in gotta watch us somehow. You think those lazy guards are gonna get off their fat asses and walk around all the time?”

“So that’s a camera,” Pickton said.

“You sound surprised,” his cellmate said, laughing at Pickton’s apparent naiveté.

“I didn’t know that.”

“No?”

“I thought it was an ornament,” Pickton said.

“Come on, you’re f***ing with me.”

“Nope.”

“They always have these in f***ing cells,” his cellmate said. “They get a camera here with a plastic thing over it—like a clear plastic, you know?”

Pickton stood up and walked beneath the camera so that he could see it more clearly. He stared at it for several seconds, much like a child would do when examining something that he was not familiar with.

“I’m be God-darned,” he said. “I had a good life.”

“So times were good?” his cellmate asked.

Pickton seemed like he was in deep thought for a few moments.

“Those street people are wasting their lives away,” Pickton finally said. “They throw their whole life away…doing nothing.”

“F***ing stealing from you and me is what they’re doing,” his cellmate said, “so they can f***ing stick a needle in their arm. F***ing trash, that’s all it is. I’ve worked hard.”

“I’ve worked hard all my life,” Pickton chimed.

“You don’t get to where you are, from sitting on your ass f***ing living off the street,” his cellmate added.

“That’s right—very, very true,” Pickton agreed. “And here I’m in jail for murder, murder one.”

“Yeah.”