I started Vancouver True Crime, which was my original platform
and it just a boom because they seem to be, I don't think
there's a little investigative journalism as they used to be,
like the way I grew up with, you know, watch like A&E shows and
which I loved or Unsolved Mysteries, which maybe you know,
more of a entertainment, but I always like that very hardcore
journalism, you know, look for the pieces of evidence, follow
the trail wherever the evidence leave no spin.
No, you know, right. And, and I, and I, so I try to
bring that to table by bringing like really breaking down what
exactly took place in these horrific crimes, because I feel
that a lot of times in the media and maybe even social media with
like click baity, either there, there's one ass that gets so
focused on. Like for me, the Picton thing,
the the headline is all this crazy pig farmer murdered women
and fed them to the pigs and the story, right?
And there's a lot more to the story.
Obviously there's a lot more, a lot more depth to it.
And that to me, in my opinion, the least important part of the
story, if that makes sense. And and if that you know what I
mean, the more important is why it was allowed to go on for 20.
So I'm not trying not to swear, but why it was allowed to go on
for as long as it didn't. All the red flags with all the,
you know, people involved. This guy wasn't way out in the
Bush. He wasn't like in rural Florida
or way up in middle of nowhere. He was half an hour from a major
city who butchered pigs illegally on his property for 20
years. And you know, most disgusting
horrific conditions like why was even not even allowed to
continue the way he was treating his animals and stuff.
And from reports, I understand the way he treated animals were
were completely barbaric too. So there's so many aspects of
this case that I feel that's been glossed over and that's why
I really appreciate what both of you are doing it.
And at the end of the day, why the most important thing is, is
how the victims were treated and how they, the family victims are
still are treated, you know, So, you know, it's pretty awful,
yeah. Well, that's definitely
something that drew me to this case as well.
It's just I grew up and I went to high school and the wall
beside me in my high school law class was newspaper cutouts of
the Robert Picton case. So I grew up thinking, there's
this man who murdered all of these people.
And I, I kept that in my mind as like, a factual piece of
knowledge. But at the longest, I mean, it
wasn't until 2020 with a deep dive that I realized, whoa,
there's a lot more, Yeah, lot more to this story.
And you're right. Illegal, you know, issues with
animals, not to mention the fact that Piggy's palace was
continuously being did and in trouble because they violated
fire codes and nothing ever happened there.
So there's there's a lot of interesting troubling
curiosities around this case. Because I grew up in Vancouver
and I mean, I've grown up, I've known some pretty, you know,
scary dudes. I, you know, my older brother
was a legitimate tough guy. His the word on the street while
the story was breaking down was what was going on there
primarily besides of, you know, the Piggy Palace, which was a it
was, it was like a thriving nightclub.
You know, May 1020, I heard some nights made-up to forty $50,000
a day. Then there's drug sales that
they did. There never was facilitating
prostitutes at the Piggy Palace parties, right?
Then there was the the rooster fighting that was a big money
maker. The there was the call a stolen
car ring. But the most disgusting thing,
and this is goes way back from what I've heard, you know, from
from sources that were, you know, I would say pretty
credible. They were saying straight up
they were making snuff movies at the farm.
And that goes back. Those rumors even go back to the
80s in the 1980s. Myself researching this case,
I've never seen any evidence of actual like having, you know,
finding like film production stuff like that.
But who knows, right? One thing I did find when I was
digging deeply into an archive, there was a little article was
in the Vancouver Sun and they talked about these nights they
had there. They called it blood sports.
So basically these scumbags were paying to facilitate these
nights where these scumbags were going on the farm to beat the
crap out of these women probably to an inch of their life, maybe
murdering them if it was being filmed, who knows, right?
It came back, came out in the trial a little bit and cross
examination, even mentioning blood sports, you know, so it's
very chilling, right? It's, it's very, it's really
chilling. Plus there's a DNA evidence
that, you know, male DNA 580 DNA profiles, half of them are
males. Who are these men?
So we get I think we got the sanitized, you know, like it's
all picked in personally, what I think I think he did murder
women. Absolutely.
I think he you know that that was his you know, definitely did
that. You know, evidence points that,
however, I believe he was also a clean up person if he got my
drift. Criminal element that takes the
bodies to the farm to removal to get rid of them.
You know it your failure. BCBC is this rife with organized
crime like absolutely and and and it has been for a very long
time. You know, so there's there's
definitely more of a story. There is a story being
suppressed. There's you know, and then
there's something really disturbing.
Two weeks before he was arrested, he was paid a visit.
I think I have the cops name paid a visit to Pickton and and
and told them like, Hey, you know, you're being right and
even giving them even giving picked in the confidential
informants name. Was that Lynn Ellison right,
informing him, Hey, do you know this person's talking about you?
You know that there are, you know why, like, you know, like
that that's really odd. So there's a lot of odd stuff.
You know, why was he allowed to do it for the long why?
You know the why, Why why, why is right so.
I don't think there's any doubt whatsoever about Picton's
involvement or the fact that he is.
He's definitely a guilty party. But I think the question has
always been, is he the only guilty party?
And I think the preponderance of evidence shows probably not.
Most likely not. And that I get in a way and in
part is what the whole Preserve the Evidence campaign is about.
It's about making sure that we're doing our due diligence
and asking those questions. As you can see from the trial
itself, the jury had questions as to what Robert's role in all
of this was and whether he was a sole perpetrator.
So these are these are the big questions.
Well, maybe so you could talk about maybe the legal aspects of
it because again, maybe the first thing is as simple as
this, right? I know this is a massive
historical case for BC law. However, there has been big
cases, you know, in our history, right?
Is this unusual for them to destroy evidence?
Like is that is that that in itself?
Is that an unusual thing? I mean, that's a an interesting
question. I think the the better question
to ask is what are best practices and what are standards
for MIK herbation in cases like this.
And the reason I say that isn't is because everything about the
picked in case is unusual and like from start to finish.
And so then to me, it comes down to what should we be expecting
out of an investigation of this scale and magnitude and
significance. The reality is that what
happened on the Picton farm and all of the, you know, activities
that we know and suspect happened there have touched
many, many, many lives. And, you know, I also live in
British Columbia. And, yeah, I see how organized
crime, I see how cases like the Picton case shape the world that
we live in here in Denver. And they shape a lot of the
culture and they shape a lot of the history, particularly in the
Downtown East Side. And that didn't start with the
Picton Farm. And that doesn't end with the
Picton Farm in terms of the stuff that was going on that led
those women to the farm in the 1st place or is rooted in
extreme poverty, is treated in exploitation of women, misogyny,
racism, institutional failures on every scale to, you know,
provide for the basic necessities of life and a
dignified life in human rights on east side.
And what happened on the Picton farm was a depraved outcome,
like the the depraved logical outcome of a culture that allows
all of that to happen in the 1st place and and provides for
someone like Robert Picton to act with and, and whomever else
was involved to act with impunity.
Act. Hopefully we have that backdrop
and then we have the what we also know to be the largest
investigation in Canadian history.
They I believe, I'm not entirely sure what the scale of evidence
was that that they had in the Olson case, but obviously that
was a large number of of victims and I'm sure a lot of physical
evidence, but nothing compares to the physical evidence they
collected from the fiction farm and related associates.
And we don't actually know what a lot of that evidence was
because very, very a portion of it was actually used in trial to
convict Robert Picton. And so, but what we have heard
at least you know, anecdotally and what I believe to be true is
there was about 200,000 physically exhibits that were
collected from the farm and related properties and has been
sword for what 20 years now. So what I can say is of that the
the sheer size and sheer volume being completely unusual thing.
And then you know, them coming and saying at this state less
than 20 years after he exhausted his appeals, barely less than 20
years since he was convicted and really only 20 years since the
the farm was actually searched is really short period of time
in relation to other cold case homicides.
And when we look, you know, we've done a bunch of research
obviously on the standards best practices is for evidence
retention and cold case homicides.
And we've looked to other jurisdictions, we've spoken with
experts in other jurisdictions about like what the standards
are. There are no standards in
Canada. We don't have any obligations on
any of our law enforcement. And what we've come to
understand is that it's actually up to the discretion of
individual departments and jurisdictions as to what they do
with exhibits and when they seek to dispose of those exhibits.
The only thing I'll say from a legal perspective about the
process, there is a process that comes out of our Criminal Code
that provides for the disposal of evidence in the possession of
the police that they've seized in the course of an
investigation and not Section 490 of the Criminal Code.
But there is absolutely, contrary to what the RCMP are
saying, there's absolutely no obligation upon them to dispose
of evidence at any given time. The only obligation that rests
with them. They do have some obligation to
at some point come before court and say we've exhausted all of
our investigative leads. We don't believe this evidence
has any more value to any investigation, therefore we
would like to dispose of it or return it.
There's no obligation on them to come to that point until they've
decided and made the decision that they've exhausted all of
their investigative leads in the case.
And I don't see how it's fathomable based upon the scale
of evidence, the volume of evidence, the number of unsolved
cases, the number of potential Co conspirators that they could
possibly have an exhausted all investigative leads in this case
and I so that is what legally we take issue with.
Maybe break this down a little bit because you know, I have a,
you know, a fair size American audience and they don't
understand certain things like when I talk or talk about
charges being stayed. And then Robert picked his case
right. He was charged with for six
counts of second degree murder. 26.
Sorry, 26 all together. Sorry, I might have but such.
Indictments. 27 indictments. 27 Yeah, there was a Jane Doe that
was dropped and now and then there was another 20 and then
those charges were stayed. So for especially, maybe even
for Canadian audience too because of for the, you know,
people listening, what does it mean when they stay the charges?
Well, there's different meanings for staying, like there's
different points at which charges could be laid against
somebody and then stayed or withdrawn or otherwise.
In this in this particular situation, they initially laid
27 charges and then at some point during the trial, the
Crown at the direction to my understanding of the Attorney
General, who at the time was Wally Opal, came to the
conclusion that they didn't have sufficient evidence or they felt
that there possibly wasn't sufficient evidence for them to
get a conviction on those remaining 21 charges.
And so they decided to preserve the integrity of the six cases
that they were proceeding with where they felt they had enough
evidence, they decided to stay the remaining charges.
And what that means is that they could at some point decide again
to come back back and recharge. But obviously that didn't happen
in this case been made quite clear from the attorney
general's communications that that that was never going to
happen. And since that time, the BC
government has made it quite clear that they feel that, you
know, Robert Picton has been convicted of 6 cases.
He's probably most likely going to spend the rest of his natural
life in prison. Therefore, justice has been
served. We want to balance the resources
of our justice system with, you know, the, the rights of the
public to be safe and the rights of, of people to have remedies
for the deaths of their loved ones.
And that's the balance that we're going to in a strike.
Yeah. So that's that's it in a
nutshell. Another question then that comes
up a lot is how come or is it still on the table for him to be
declared a dangerous offender? That's not on the table that a
dangerous offender legislation or designation, I should say,
comes out of the Criminal Code. There's a certain set of
criteria that are applied and usually a dangerous offender
application is made during sentencing and all that that
really means is that somebody has an indeterminate sentence
and they don't have the ability to do.
They have a stronger threshold essentially to overcome in order
to be able to come before the parole board for some form of
conditional release. Whereas somebody who's serving a
life sentence, the maximum parole ineligibility date is 25
years, and then it can be set lower depending upon what the
court decides. So in both cases, whether you're
a dangerous offender or you're serving a life sentence, you're
actually serving an indeterminate sentence.
The only difference is that for lifers, they have a parole
eligibility date and dangerous offenders do not.
OK. Yeah, yeah, it's it's so
disturbing like this again, right when you talk with it for
myself, when I when I research this case first is just the
sheer number of victim. The victim pool is massive.
And then I was reading, I forget which books I've been reading
three different books for sourcing information seem I'm so
I don't recall which book, but it was one.
I do believe it was one that Stevie Cameron wrote.
I believe it was the picked in files and 1:00 when he was put
into a cell, the the he he taught and they had the
informant in the cell and, you know, they had the picture of
the missing women in the interviewing room.
I guess to kind of get under his skin or something.
You know what he said, he said that he didn't.
He said that, you know, he didn't, you know, did the
admission of 49 that he murdered, but he said he said he
didn't recognize half those women there.
So that that that, you know, I don't know if he's just saying
that to both. But however, when you have like
situations where he had in mission in 1995 when they found
the half a skull cut in half, you know, far away from the farm
and then the bones that match on his farm, you know, in the pig
pen, there's probably, you know, just speculation here.
Of course, there's probably other body parts have been shrun
all over because I I don't see how that could be the only one
that one time he decided to frisbee it.
You know, again, I'm not I'm not trying to be disrespectful to
the victims. It's kind of little gallows
humor. But it's like that.
You're saying that one time when he was driving down the freeway
decided to, you know, fling a skull out the window.
You know what I mean? Like it like there's so many
strange aspects to this case, right?
And and again with the again, we've been emphasizing the mass
amount of unidentified DNA on the on, you know, it was male
and body parts that were also found not on the farm, right?
So you would think then that there is possibility for more
bodies not on the farm to be discovered and maybe it'd be
good idea to hang on to that evidence because they might, it
might match to what they have, you know, just.
Add on to that too, I mean, Sasha and I visited the location
where the mission Jones alright, mission Jane Doe skull was found
and it I mean it's really at the next like the a point where two
rivers meet. And really, I, I mean, I think
my hypothesis, I don't know if you share this view, Sasha, but
my hypothesis is that that that came from the water and that,
OK, of course, the Fraser River runs right behind the picked in.
Right, quite. Close to the.
Well, that's interesting you were thought of that.
I mean, just body disposal in a river like that.
I mean, I think it would be difficult to recover bodies in
that situation. And I have no idea whether they
dredged the river. I doubt they did in behind the
picked in farm, but there's a very high likelihood that that
that could have been a body disposal location as well.
I completely agree with you. I completely agree.
Just the idea that they would have been throwing body to parts
out of a car window at the time that they're driving over.
It doesn't make any sets however.
And when you go to that site you realize where it was located,
where it was found. It was.
No, this comes from the water. Right, that's interesting.
They they talk about like a substance that's easy found on
bones. I just can't remember the name
of it, but it was like, so it's been, it's speculated that we
obviously from the time, it's probably was in water for some
time too. That's that waxy substance.
Yeah, the waxy, I can't, I just can't recall what it's called,
right? Yeah, I don't know.
It, it, it, it this honestly, it, it's a, it's a case for me.
And I'm sure you feel this way, both of you.
It's like generally I'm pretty and I'm good at detaching
myself. There's certain cases that do
get under my skin, like the Highway of cure stuff really
upsets me and I have to stop because I, I actually start
feeling myself getting very like really affected by it.
Because again, it's very similar to the Picton thing in the
regard to, Oh yeah, these women died.
They're probably hitchhiking, you know, you know, and it's
just, it's just like it, it, it pisses me off again because
it's, again, it's a, it's a huge amount of time.
And you know, they, it's almost like, again, I'm not trying to
be disparaging to the RCMP, but any time they do these massive
multi $1,000,000 cases, it's sort of like what's the boil
down of it? Then the, the, what's the last
paragraph is, is what if you get my drift?
Right? Like it's all we're going to do
better, you know, like we're going to try harder and catch
the person that do this, you know, like, I don't know, it's a
very frustrating. I would say, Mark, I know I, I
do want to be disparaging towards the RCMP because I mean,
at least the work that we do here at Justice for Girls has
historically been police accountability work.
And for nearly two decades, we've been working on cases of
missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and girls who
live in poverty. And the overwhelming theme of
the work that we do is that the police do not do thorough
investigations into those cases. And we have multiple cases and
Sasha and I are working on a few of them where we don't think
that the police and it's RC, it's, it's not just the RCMPI
would say because the RCMP, it does so much municipal policing
in British Columbia, overwhelming the the arts in the
province, but also municipal police forces.
I start to question whether they even know, you know, what what
the standards of policing are these days and what expectations
are from the police. Because I would expect a
thorough investigation would include collecting physical
evidence at the scene of a suspicious death.
I would expect they would include a full autopsy, which
would include a rape kit in a case involving a vulnerable
Indigenous young woman. I would expect that it would
include a thorough investigation of how a missing child from
foster care went missing for a year and was yes, and dead and
decomposing in the apartment of a serial predator in the
downtown. Soup one.
Noello soup. Oh, soup, Who else?
Yeah, Noello soup. I would expect that suspicious
deaths where there's been an opioid death isn't simply
written off as a drug toxicity accidental death, and there's
some level of investigation done into the circumstances that led
to that death. But time and time and time
again, we don't see that. And what we also don't see is
throw investigations into, we may have an opioid death or we
may have something that looks like an accidental or natural
death, but it's a vulnerable young indigenous woman living in
poverty. How the hell did she get in that
SRO in the 1st place? Oh, just hitched by way of tears
in the first place. And what we don't often see and
what we come to see time again in our work is we believe
there's sexual exploitation and trafficking happening.
It was never investigated in the 1st place and continues to not
be addressed or investigated after their death as a potential
circumstance leading to that death.
And that was very much the case in the Picton investigations as
well. And it's a big living question.
Along with the suspicions around snuff films is suspicions around
a potential trafficking ring or sexual exploitation.
You know, it's very possible that there were people in the
Downtown Eastside engaging in sex work consensually.
I'm not suggesting otherwise. But there is also a very large
potential that there were women and girls there who who weren't
choosing to be there and were yes, there will all of these
looming questions that we sometimes refuse to answer.
And I think the police don't do a good job.
So I I do I I don't think the RCMP have discharged their duty
of due diligence in the Picton case and continue to fail to do
so in multiple cases involving marginalized women and girls.
Yeah, just to add what you had to say, I think that there's
also a very strong level of of state responsibility here as
well. Mark, you're talking about how
upsetting the Highway of Tears is and all the issues up there.
And you also have to realize for years and years and years,
people have asked for more funding or even just funding in
general for things like streetlights along the highways
or adequate transportation so they're not having to hitchhike
or cell service. And the fact that that's not
provided. And if funding is provided, then
eventually it's withdrawn or restricted so much that you
can't actually input that necessary critical
infrastructure to stay safe. And unfortunately, it does tend
to be women and girls that are disproportionately targeted by
offenders in those areas. Between you and me and this is a
thought I've had since I started this platform and I've talked to
a lot of people, like even people that are one guy I talked
to, he's just got out of the life.
He was involved in that selling drugs for pretty scary people in
Downtown Eastside. In his opinion, as much as we
know how many drug sales are, especially the Downtown
Eastside, He says that the revenue from human trafficking
is is higher now because it's almost, I hate to say it,
especially here. It's a perfect crime if you're
if I'm me, Mark wants to start as cartel.
Well, I need to put some money together to start buying mass
amounts of cocaine, right? If I want to start human
trafficking, I can just abduct a woman, right?
Not that I would, but I'm in business, right?
And he and he's talked some pretty scary things and other
people have told me about this stuff as well.
And I also do podcasts with this guy named David who used to be a
a mob hitman, Colombian cartels, Mexican cartels, you know, every
person that's scary on the face there at this guy worked for
him. He ran a building in blood alley
and he was a bodyguard for the head honcho that was running at
and, and the stuff he told tells me it's just, is this the, is
this the same city I live in where this is loud to go on,
right? And we're talking massive drug
sales. He told me that some days they
had $100,000 days in drug sales at that in their building,
right. So if you think about it, if
human trafficking is, is that par or bigger?
It's just the, the, the, the, the possibilities of that just
just completely blow my mind and, and scary as well.
It's it's, it's extremely scary. And then it then on top of it
too. It's frightening that I would
have to blame men again, who facilitate this stuff.
You know, I'm not, you know, saying like all men that see sex
workers are scumbags, but a lot of them are right.
And a lot of them are about it to exploit, look for someone
more vulnerable. Look for someone that they can,
you know, take their, you know, I'm trying to control my what
I'm going to say. But you, you get the idea,
right? So why is there such a demand,
right? For we're not talking about high
end brothels or you know, escorts that work in safe
environments where they have drivers and stuff.
These are men. Think about this, you're going
to a pig farm or piggy palace in the middle of the night and to
see sex workers, right? You know what I mean?
Most likely those guys are going there with bad intentions.
And, and So what bothers me or upsets me is why is there such
a, a hunger for this? And you know, especially in our
province, in this province, right?
And it, and it goes on and on and gone.
The stuff of the Picton was the 80s through the 90s and ended
in, in the the 2000s. And like I said, when we first
started, it's even worse now. It's even more monstrous.
The drugs are worse. The there's more people that are
especially women that are vulnerable that are in these
vulnerable situations. And, and like you were saying,
Sue, where is the funding to stop this?
For real? Not the bullshit talking points.
Oh, we're going to do this. We're going to give some penance
amount $1,000,000 when you know, again, you're not trebling up
the Ukraine or other stuff. They have billions for that.
Billions and billions and billions and unlimited money.
You know, it's unlimited, but for stuff that has been going on
here since the 80s really, because this, this stuff, in my
opinion, really started in the 80s, maybe in the 70s, but 80s
it seemed to it started to become a destination and, and
you know, a few good talking points, a few good commissions,
you know, the question of missing women inquiry, He said,
Wally Opal, was he the right person for that job?
That's another discussion, but there, there there's something
at play here is what what I'm getting at.
There's something at play. There's a massive industry and
and it's sick that it's allowed to go on.
Never mind that it does, in my opinion.
Evening. And I appreciate your time and
I'll be in touch with you guys. OK.
Thanks, Sir. You're welcome.
Have a good day. Thank you again.
Bye. Bye.