The Devil's Dozen (34 page)

At this writing, Pickton faces trial for another twenty counts of murder, and there are still more than a dozen women on the list of the missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The estimated cost of the investigation thus far is over $100 million.

After some deliberation, the Crown decided to appeal the verdict. Since there were irregularities about the trial—the judge’s change of mind during deliberations and some of his decisions about evidence admissibility—there was reason to argue for a new trial. However, the defense attorneys, who also filed an appeal, insisted that since Pickton’s trial for the twenty remaining murder charges would involve entirely different personnel all around, it should begin as soon as possible. The prosecution said that a second trial should involve all twenty-six counts, since a considerable amount of evidence had been left out of the trial for the six murders. It remains for the legal system to sort it all out. The most likely outcome is that if Pickton’s appeal fails, the second trial will be considered unnecessary, since he is already serving the maximum penalty.

In December 2007, the
Sun
published copies of two letters that Pickton had written the year before to a pen pal. He said he’d been put on earth to rid people of their evil ways and it bothered him when others failed to live by the Ten Commandments, stating that “the terrible anger of God comes upon all those who disobey him.” He indicated that he was writing a book about his life. “I myself is not from this world,” he wrote, and showed himself to be amused about all the attention paid to him. He was impressed with how much the investigation and trial had cost.

One of the lessons of this case, we could say, is that despite the intensity and complexity of the Pickton investigation, a conviction for first-degree murders had not been a sure thing. Indeed, there are some important lessons that law enforcement can take from each of the twelve cases we have presented. The next chapter offers a summary.

 

 

“A Look at the Final Summation from Pickton’s Defence Lawyer.”
Canadian Press,
November 21, 2007.

Baron, Ethan. “Crown Details Horrific Evidence in Pig Farmer’s Murder Trial.”
Vancouver Province,
January 22, 2007.

_. “Pickton Sent Barrels of Meat to Rendering Plant.”
CanWest News,
May 16, 2007.

_. “Prostitute Said She Was Invited to Pickton Farm.”
CanWest News,
May 31, 2007.

_. “Pal Ate with Pickton After Story About Feeding Victims to Pigs.”
Vancouver Province,
July 19, 2007.

Cameron, Stevie.
The Pickton Files.
Canada: Knopf, 2007.

Culbert, Lori. “Pickton’s Lawyer’s File Appeal, Allege Errors in Six Areas.”
National Post,
January 9, 2008.

_. “Exclusive Pickton Letters.”
Vancouver Sun,
December 11, 2007.

_. “Jury Hears Autopsy Results.”
CanWest News,
May 3, 2007.

_. “Pickton’s Friend’s DNA Found in Slaughterhouse.”
CanWest News,
September 12, 2007.

DiManno, Rosie. “IQ Tests Can’t Gauge Capacity to Kill.”
Star,
October 22, 2007.

Glaister, Dan. “Pig Farmer and Pillar of Community: Alleged Serial Killer Faces Trial.”
The Guardian,
January 20, 2007.

Hibbitts, Bernard. “Canada Serial Killer Given Maximum Sentence for BC Pig Farm Murders.”
Jurist,
December 12, 2007.

Jones, Deborah. “The Case of the Serial Killer.”
Time,
January 26, 2007.

Joyce, Greg, and Terri Theodore. “RCMP Interrogator Says He Concluded Pickton Was a Serial Killer in Interview.”
Canadian Press,
January 31, 2007.

_. “Eleven-hour Interrogation Gives Some Indication of Accused Serial Killer’s Personality.”
Ottawa Sun,
January 27, 2007.

_. “Judge in Pickton Murder Trial Calls for Short Recess.”
Canadian Press,
May 1, 2007.

“Judge in Pickton Trial Explains Law and Evidence in Lengthy Jury Charge.”
Canadian Press,
November 28, 2007.

Matas, Robert. “Exclusion of Evidence Sparks Debate.”
Globe and Mail,
December 18, 2007.

_. “Rookie Officer Responsible for Raid on Pig Farm.”
Globe and Mail,
December 3, 2007.

_. “Trial Pathologist Describes Dismemberment.”
Globe and Mail,
May 3, 2007.

“RCMP Blood Expert at Pickton Trial Testifies About Bloodletting at Farm.”
International Herald Tribune,
February 12, 2007.

Rolfsen, Catherine. “Crown to Appeal Pickton’s Second-Degree Convictions.”
Vancouver Sun,
January 6, 2008.

Common to all the cases presented in this book are persistence, flexibility, the importance of innovative thinking, and the ability to initiate dialogues across disciplines. In many cases, an investigator became aware of a scientific advance as yet untested in the criminal arena. Over and over, we see someone at a dead end in a frustrating investigation looking around for a technique, approach, or technology that no one had yet considered, and boldly trying it out. Often this not only led to the arrest of a serial killer but also added or confirmed a tool that future investigators would use—sometimes with dramatic results. The discovery of DNA as a crime-fighting technique is a case in point, but in the future we’re likely to see more involvement with bio-informatics and computer technology.

Following is a list of guidelines that emerged from the successful resolution of these cases of serial murder. While not exhaustive, it’s a start. Hopefully it will inspire both dedication and invention in current and future investigations.

1. Read widely in fields that might seem relevant but have not yet been used in law enforcement. It was a police officer not a scientist who introduced the discrimination of animal and human blood, DNA analysis, and brain fingerprinting into an investigation. This requires creative thinking and awareness of what’s available. Seminars, trade journals, college courses, and even popular books or documentaries about science and technology can provoke new ideas.

2. Be proactive. Detective William King kept planting items in newspapers, even years after the crime was committed, in order to bait the offender who’d kidnapped Grace Budd. Finally, his effort paid off. The Allentown police set up a sting operation, and Viktor Burakov read up on the FBI’s profiling methods, despite rebuke, to try to stop Chikatilo. In the case of the dismembered gay men, running the fingerprint evidence again and again, as well as seeking out another technique, finally solved the case and got a killer off the streets. So take the extra step.

3. Become educated about psychological angles on criminal behavior, which get updated with research on a regular basis. This arena is not reserved for profilers or psychologists. Most good detectives already have a sense of criminal psychology, but psychopathic serial killers require greater savvy. No officer should believe he already knows enough from what he’s picked up on the streets. Too many innocent people have been harmed by detectives who are certain they can always spot a liar or who jump to conclusions based on simplistic formulas. People will often surprise you; Staniak’s admission that he started killing blondes as stand-ins for a reckless driver who killed his parents is a case in point. No one had suspected such a motive.

4. Be flexible and, in particular, prepare to be wrong. In the Village Path murders in Britain, the interrogators were certain they’d nailed the man who’d killed two young girls, but they were wrong. It’s possible that their misplaced confidence influenced this suspect’s false confession. DNA analysis exonerated him and pointed to another man, but had this case happened only two years earlier, an innocent man would have gone to prison.

5. Be persistent. With cold cases, go over old ground and get a fresh perspective from others not familiar with the crime. Blind spots can trip up investigators who won’t let go. No investigation belongs to a single cop; it’s always a coordinated effort and others might contribute in surprising ways. Detective Geyer enlisted the help of local officers as he traveled from one city to another in search of the Pitezel children, as well as getting constant feedback from his team back in Philadelphia. He also refused to give up. He could have decided he’d done enough and would never find the missing boy, but he returned to an area he’d already explored to reexamine his approach. More recently, Pierce Brooks pushed for a national database for over two decades, which finally resulted in the FBI’s VICAP. Thanks to this, a solid case was made a decade later against international serial killer Jack Unterweger using mathematical linkage analysis.

6. Be meticulous. Perhaps no case was more painstaking than the Pickton investigation, with all the forensic personnel sifting through piles of dirt and manure and underneath every building to locate fragments of human remains that would yield DNA. The Canadian government approved the expense, of course, which is certainly a factor, but the tiniest details were examined and recorded, both for the sake of the families who awaited word about their missing daughter or sister, and the attorneys waiting to prosecute.

7. Anticipate the future. Future investigations will involve cooperation among seemingly unrelated fields, especially the fields of technology and informatics. Fortunately, scientists have grown more interested in helping the police and have begun to suggest some innovations themselves. Police officers must have at least some basic technical knowledge about computers and the World Wide Web. There are courses that teach officers how criminals keep and erase records, communicate with their networks or cells, and engage in illicit acts such as child pornography. Officers who were savvy about how computers work knew how to trap Dennis Rader and then extract evidence from his hard drive.

The bottom line is this: officers eager to become detectives, and detectives hoping to excel at their jobs, will seek out knowledge in areas that offer the promise of new developments and will persist in implementing such knowledge. Dogged, educated, and flexible detectives will spot opportunities and step forth to utilize new approaches. These are the investigators who could end up being part of the kind of success stories that are described in this book. These stories are better than fiction, so let’s hope for some real-life sequels.