EP56: Serial Killer Robert Pickton: Pig Farmer (Part 1)
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All right, welcome back to another episode of the Psychopedia podcast. I am your co-host, Hank Sinatra, here with my micro host. Investigator Slater. You're welcome. Yes, thank you. Yeah, I know you needed that. I kind of do. Yeah, I mean, you can tell me before we record also which one you want me to say. It's not authentic.

authentic that way, I need it to come from you. But I need you to know that I need you to do that. Yeah, you want me to read your mind? Yeah. I don't have that power yet. It's not a big ask. Yeah. Here's the difference between men and women. I just want to know what to do. Just take your shot. You should know. And if you don't know, I'm going to be very mad at you. Yeah. I know. I get it. So I'm over here in my seat strapped down with my...

eyelids pried open by two toothpicks because this is apparently going to be the longest case we've ever done. You're nervous for me. Okay. Not the longest case we've ever, ever, ever done. Yeah. It's going to be very long. Yes. It's going to be very detailed, very involved. Um,

where, you know, it's over an extended period of time. Yeah. So this isn't like a one and done type of case. A lot of stuff happens. Yeah. And I like the details. So you're getting them. Well, I can't wait. And I know the listeners love the details as well. I told you to drink a monster. Did you? I did. You did? You don't have to tell me to do that. I do that every single day. You should have had to. I kind of did. I had at the gym, I had a little, cause I was so tired and I'd worked out and I didn't even really do anything. I had a Celsius. So I only drank half.

But now I have a coffee and I'm going to be so annoying during this podcast. Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait. But I'm locked in. Good, good. I'm not actually strapped down for those of you who are worried about, you know, my safety. It's just metaphorically, I've been warned multiple times that this is going to be a doozy. Well, they have seen me. It's been a while. They have seen me wearing clothing that has straps and chains on it. So you can't make jokes like that. Edward Scissorhands. Right, right.

I also would like to let you know that I've dedicated this case to someone. Who? This episode to someone. Who? To you. Wow. Yeah. This episode, this case. By the way, it's a two-parter. I'm going to let everybody know that now. It's a two-parter because it's a very, very, very intense case. Two things to say about it. One, it's dedicated to Tank Sinatra. And two, it is the most requested case we've ever had. Look at that smile.

I know who we're doing. Finally. Oh, my God. That's why I'm dedicating it to you because you've been asking me for so long and our listeners have been asking both of us for so long.

But it took a minute to put this together. Yeah, so many people asked us about it that I started asking you about it. I was like, yo, we're going to do this fucking case or what? Like everybody wants it. Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. But, you know, to do it right, you got to really get into it. Understood. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm ready to get into it. Quick little housekeeping, which is a term I like. Yeah, I can tell you're smiling. If you love us and you just find yourself...

Wednesday at 11 a.m. when the episode's over for you, you're like, this is going to suck the next week. That's how I feel. I know. Yeah, me too. Just head on over to patreon.com slash psychopedia pod where every 500 Patreon members that sign up, we have somebody come fly out or sit with us on a live recording session, which we just did with Chris Hansen. Jill from New Gerbil was our guest. And we want nothing more than to just keep having people out.

You also get an episode of what we call psychopedia unhinged, where the roles are reversed. I take us through a case that we've already done and barely at all. Like I can't even, it's a misnomer to even call it going through a case, but we have to, because otherwise people won't listen. So that's that. And if you want some merch, head on over to psychopedia podcast.com, where you can also find the Patreon sign up for our email list and

Get notified of upcoming tour dates. I don't know. Whatever you want to do. Yeah. Just meet us over there. We'll guide you through it. It's very user-friendly, and we're there already waiting to walk you through this labyrinth of... Labyrinthine? Labyrinthine. Yeah. David Bowie. Oz-tron. All right. Well, without further...

Adieu. Z. Let's hear about this case that is the most requested case of all time by far. Not even close. Nothing even compares to it. Okay. Part one. In the shadowed fringes of society where the light of acknowledgement seldom reaches, there exists an aching invisibility that gnaws at the people who exist there.

And this invisibility causes a pain that doesn't just whisper. It howls in the silence of indifference, in the vast expanse between being vaguely acknowledged versus being truly seen.

Like a wad of gum on the sidewalk, you see it, you slightly register its existence enough to avoid it, sidestep it, and then never think about it again. For marginalized individuals, which will often include people of color, drug addicts, sex workers, and homeless individuals in society. And severely mentally ill. Yes. This invisibility is a heavy cloak woven from coarse threads of neglect, misunderstanding, and crushing indifference.

It's the cold shoulder from a world too preoccupied with its own narratives to notice their stories crumbling in the periphery. This invisibility of people who are marginalized is not just an absence, it's a presence that mutes their voices, buries their worth, and disregards their pain.

But by delving into the case at hand today, we're going to challenge the very essence of invisibility by giving voice to the silenced, harrowing tales of 49 female victims ensnared in a pipeline of vulnerability before their lives were cruelly ended by a merciless serial killer. These innocent souls who are marginalized by poverty, addiction, and their need to engage in survival sex work.

were noticed and preyed upon by one evil man as a result of remaining otherwise unnoticed by an entire society and intentionally ignored by an entire police force that metaphorically sidestepped their sticky, inconvenient existence on the sidewalk.

But to tell their stories, we'll need to discuss in full detail Canada's most depraved killer and the series of devastating murders he committed that ultimately led, about a decade too late, to the largest serial killer investigation in Canadian history. Today, we are talking about none other than...

Then Robert Pickton. The pig farmer. Also known as the pig farmer killer. So all of you who have asked us about this case, here it is. This is for you. And let it not be lost on you that you're about to hear it probably in a way you've never heard it before. And you're going to enjoy it more than any other podcast you've ever listened to on this topic. No pressure, Slater. No pressure, me. Both of us. Yeah. I just know that for a fact.

I hope I'm doing the victims justice. I just hope I'm doing a case of this magnitude justice. I waited to do this case until I felt that I could do it right. I have absolutely zero doubt that you're going to do literally the best job that anybody's ever done on this case. That's huge. Thank you already. I have no concerns about your efficacy or research or delivery or anything. Well, I have no concern about your comedic timing and levity. I just...

I just want to drive the point home that if you've asked for this, it's not that we were ignoring you. She just needed to come to the ability to present. It's like she said, it is from what I've heard, a tremendous case. Right. A lot of different moving parts. And to you who requested it, I'm talking to you, listener and listener and listener and everyone who requested it. This one's for you. Yep. So it is dedicated to them, not me. Okay, fine.

Robert William, or Willie Pickton, was born on October 24, 1949, to his parents, Leonard and Helen Louise Pickton.

The Picton family, including Robert's siblings, David and Linda, lived in Port Coquitlam, Canada, which was a working class town of about 50,000 people. Robert's birth was complicated as he entered the world with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, which at the time sparked concerns about potential brain damage. That happened to my younger sister. Did it? Yeah. Wow.

Very, very terrifying. I know. But regardless of any medical repercussions that were never actually confirmed in Robert Pickton's case, his childhood was both tumultuous and

and very peculiar. With the exception of Robert's sister, Linda, who managed to escape the farm to live with a different family, so she ended up leaving the Picton crew, the entire dysfunctional Picton clan was properly fucked up. Robert's mom, Helen Louise, who went by just Louise, was difficult, morally bankrupt, and just plain strange.

She was an industrious workaholic who, despite being financially stable, fed her children with food out of a dumpster, had more hair on her chin than she did teeth in her mouth, waddled like a duck when she walked, was almost completely bald, and consistently donned a pair of thick rubber boots along with a house dress over a pair of men's jeans. Now, none of her physical attributes made her a strange bad mother. I just want to describe what she looked like to paint a picture of

But let's not bully the woman for how she looked, right? We can come down on her behavior if we so choose because Louise was a neglectful mother who placed the needs of her butcher business above that of her struggling children. She also neglected herself by the description. And it's kind of one of those things where if you listen to all that she did and then you saw a picture, you'd be like, yeah, that makes sense.

Looks aside, it's just kind of like it's all part of the picture that you're painting. Exactly. Yeah. The Picton household existed in a perpetual state of chaos with dirt clinging to every surface and a pungent odor that permeated the air, clinging stubbornly to the hair and clothing of everybody inside that house. Oh my God. Furniture was a rarity in the home, but for a lone mattress in the living room, and there were copious amounts of food left out to openly rot and decay. So all those kids and...

Family members went out into public and they were the family that smelled like... Yes. Yeah. Any source you read says it exactly that way too. Yeah. Specifically regarding Robert, like he was the smelly kid. Yeah. It's sad. It is sad. Yes, it is.

It's sad. In my neighborhood growing up, there was a kid who smelled and one time he put his hand in my face because we were like wrestling or like, you know, playing bad. But I don't remember what we were doing. Yeah. But I was done at that moment. I was like, that's, I've never smelled that before. I don't know what just happened. And as an adult though, how heartbreaking is it, right? Like, what kind of house was he coming from? What kind of supervision and protection was he receiving to go to school like that?

This is what I try to teach my kids. Quick little side note. Yeah. Whenever they talk about somebody who's like, this kid, you know, came to school, he wears the same thing every day or he's dirty. I'm like, boys, we got to talk about this for a second. Think of it this way. Maybe, you know, he's not getting the love and support at home that you're lucky enough to get me. You know, I'm trying to like,

They don't get it and that's fine. They're young. It's their first time living. I learned it at some point in my life. You learned it. They haven't learned it yet. Well, they need to be taught. But if, side note, The Way of the Warrior Kid, which is a book series written by Jocko Willink, do you know it? Dave and my younger son read it every night together. Yeah, I read my older son all six or however many of those books it was. Every single night. That's their bedtime story. It's so fun. Yeah.

So adding to the disorder, the family's menagerie of animals, including chickens, ducks, dogs, and pigs, roamed freely indoors, leaving trails of fresh shit in their wake, a sight either unnoticed or unoffensive to Louise. In addition to the highly unsanitary conditions, Robert and his brother Dave were burdened with arduous farm chores before the start of every single school day. They lived like farm animals. They did.

They did, yes. Slopping 200 pigs, which means basically just feeding them, and cleaning out their pens, as well as milking eight cows, was a mandatory task each and every morning, which left little time for personal hygiene. With one weekly bath granted to the Picton children, the lack of cleanliness became an accepted norm within the household. According to a book I read on this case called On the Farm by Stevie Cameron, which, by the way, is an indisputable

insanely thorough and outstanding book. I highly recommend it. But according to this book, and this is a quote, Louise's eccentricities and penny-pinching were legendary. Ha ha ha!

Pretty intense. She was such a miser, she was known for it. She was. Yeah, that's wild. Yet within the intricate web of Robert's psyche, a disturbing yet familiar pattern emerged, one we often see in the minds of serial killers, and that was an intense, abnormal attachment to his mother.

Yeah. Yeah.

undoubtedly contributed to his deeply rooted psychological issues and a skewed perception of women and relationships. In many ways, Louise served as both a central figure of attachment and also a target of latent hostility in Robert's turbulent world. Conversely, Robert's father, Leonard, played almost no role in raising him or his siblings.

Dained is a good word. Yeah.

Yeah. So can you imagine, right? A father figure who's barely there, but when he is there, he's beating the shit out of you. Yeah, no, fuck that. I just looked Robert Pickton up. Can you confirm the rat face? I don't want to. Okay. It's like a known thing about Robert Pickton. It's like a... But yeah, he looks like a rat. Okay. I don't know why you were hesitating so much. Well, you made me think before about the mother with like, you know...

It looks have nothing to do with behavior. So to bully somebody for how they look, even if they're a serial killer. Maybe genetics don't have anything to do with how you behave. But the way you present yourself, I feel like does. Well, I think genetics might.

Well, no, I'm talking about facial genetics. Oh, I'm sorry. Got it. But if you're walking around with one shoe off, you know, pig shit on your shoes and your one other shoe, your hair is like, you know, it's like, you know, what are you doing? You okay? Yeah. I mean, when they're older, when they're kids, they're just. Even kids. Like I always joke around with my kids and I tell them, you got to let me brush your hair. People are going to think you have no parents. Oh my God, Tank, I see this.

I say you need to walk out of this house looking like somebody loves you. That's how I say it. You need to look like somebody loves you. If they had it their way, CPS would be at my house. I know. I know. I don't want to wear pants. Yep. Well, you gotta. Yeah. You have to wear clothes to school, guy.

My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.

My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be.

Robert also performed below average at school and in third grade was placed into a special education class, which is where he stayed for the remainder of his education. He was socially withdrawn, smelled like pig shit, was visibly filthy, and spoke with a high voice and strangely fast-paced cadence. For these reasons, unsurprisingly, he was an easy and regular target for bullying.

Pop quiz. All right. What would Robert do in response to all the bullying? A. Climb into the carcasses of gutted hogs to hide. B. Throw pig shit at them. C. Stuff butchered pig innards into their school bags.

Fuck. Climbing to a carcass. Like, what's her name? We talked about that in another story, right? Oh my God. Yes, we did. Elizabeth Bathory. Yes, that's right. Elizabeth Bathory. And like the scene from Ace Ventura 2 when he comes out of the rhinoceros' ass. Throw pig shit or... Stuff innards. Stuff innards. They're school bags. I'm going to go with the Elizabeth Bathory choice.

You are correct. You've been doing this too long. Nice. Very good. Yeah. So he would. He would climb allegedly into the carcasses of gutted hogs to get away from the bullies. And that's just heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking. I'm like, I know. I don't mean to like yell at you. I'm agreeing with you, but

I stand firm that we can hate somebody for what they do later, and we will. Yeah. We can empathize with the broken child. But as bizarre as Robert was perceived to be by the other children, and obviously he very much was, some still described him as having a kind heart at this stage. One anecdote from his childhood involves a little girl in his neighborhood named Lisa Yields, who recalls Robert giving her a bag of hot dogs as a gift when she was just five years old.

Too bad he wound up becoming a bag of dicks later in life. But Lisa wasn't accustomed to being treated nicely given the complexities of her mixed race background. I think she was 50% Chinese, 50% Caucasian. And this was during a time when societal attitudes were less accepting. But Robert accepted her.

Years and years later, as adults, Robert and Lisa became best friends, in spite of the fact that Lisa always felt that Robert reminded her of infamous American serial killer Ed Gein. As a child. Right. Like Gein, Robert was an uneducated farmer who didn't fit in with the other kids. They both had domineering mothers and abusive fathers. And of course, they wound up

to both share the whole serial killer, human butcher thing. Yeah. Right? So while Robert's childhood steadily diverged significantly from what would likely be considered typical, even amongst those raised on farms...

There were also a few pivotal events that occurred that left lasting, indelible marks on Robert. And one of these events unfolded when Robert was 12 years old and used $35 that he saved up to buy a three-week-old black and white calf at a livestock auction with his parents. He bought an animal? Yes, he did. That's cute. A little cute baby calf. And he loved this calf and intended to take care of her for the rest of her life as his beloved, cherished pet.

Each day after school, young Robert would rush home, propelled by the anticipation of seeing her, the one pure, unadulterated joy he had in his life at that moment. But then, one fateful day after Robert rushed home from school to attend to his baby calf, he couldn't find her.

Why?

He was distraught. I'm going to tell you why. He ran to his mother for comfort and said, or asked, why? And Louise simply told him, and this is a quote, that was a good dollar for the calf. You can go buy another. Wait, hold on. Hold on a second. That was a good... Dollar, meaning she butchered the calf and sold the meat and made money. But he bought the calf. Yeah, so? I mean... She's cruel.

I mean, fuck, dude. $35 for the calf? Yeah. In 1950-whatever? Yeah. For essentially a child? That's so much money. This is what we're getting at when we discuss Louise, right? Yeah. And at a young age, Robert was essentially taught now, do not get close to anyone or anything because if you do, it will get taken away and you will suffer tremendously. That's so sad. And it would be sad even if he bought, let's say...

I don't know, saved up money for a telescope. Yes. Went and got it and then found it smashed on the floor one day. Parents typically try to protect their children from that type of trauma. I'm not saying that you can't have discussions about death if a pet dies or something like that, but this is why parents buy goldfish over and over and over again so that a child so young with such a devotion doesn't have to experience loss just yet. Yeah, there'll be enough of that. Exactly. Yeah.

As Robert continued to get older, life on the farm went on and the Picton butchering business continued to grow. In 1963, when Robert was 14 years old, the Pictons purchased 40 acres of land for $18,000 on the far eastern side of Port Coquitlam. That's a good dollar for that land. Yeah. Oh, you like that. Yeah.

This location would not only serve as Robert's residence and business hub throughout his adult life, but would also wind up becoming the largest crime scene in Canadian history. And what was the name of the area again? It was on the east side of Port Coquitlam. No idea where that is. It's in Canada. Canada's huge. It's in Port Coquitlam. I'll look it up.

Not great. Scary. Yeah.

They invested in several commercial-sized freezers in 1965, which was a significant asset at the time and a very rare commodity. Nicknamed the Meat Locker, the Picton farm stored beef, pork, lamb, and poultry for other farmers and butchers and made a pretty penny doing so. Or... A good dollar. A good dollar. Ha ha ha.

I can't wait to see that Patreon. Oh yeah, I thought about that. Yeah. In addition to managing an impressive herd of 700, 700 free roaming pigs as well as hundreds of chickens, the family's extensive livestock demanded significant manual labor, as you can imagine. And this obligation often caused Robert and his brother Dave to miss school in order to care for all the animals. And then at age 14, Robert eventually just wound up dropping out of school altogether. It

It's actually said that he dropped out of school less as a result of all the work he had to do on the farm, although his mother doubled down on that and like really put him to work after that. Yeah. But it's supposedly he dropped out after having a fight with the school principal because Robert had a nudie pin and the principal told him to get rid of it and he wouldn't. And he's like, well, fuck that. I'm out. And he dropped out. Over a nudie pin? Yeah. That's weird. Yeah.

But Louise was thrilled that Robert dropped out because it meant that he'd have more time and availability to master the art of butchering, a craft that Robert was actually reluctant to learn at first. Still, he wound up spending six years apprenticing under a local butcher and unfortunately acquired expert skills in bleeding, cutting, trimming, deboning, grinding, and mincing flesh.

A little foreshadowing there. A little too much. Then on October 17th, 1967, another pivotal event further shaped Robert's life when his brother Dave, then 16 years old, tragically hit a 14-year-old boy named Tim Barrett with a 1960 GMC one-ton truck. Wow. Tim just happened to be walking home from his best friend's house when Dave's truck struck him down. As

As dusk settled that evening, Tim's anxious parents went out to search for him since he hadn't come back from his friend's house. And to their absolute shock and horror, Mr. and Mrs. Barrett stumbled upon one of Tim's shoes discarded by the roadside. No.

No. Then, filled with bone-chilling terror and apprehension, they approached a bend in the road and discovered their beloved boy lying motionless in a ditch, a silent victim of a hit-and-run. Literally, worst nightmare. Worst. Like, so much the worst nightmare that it's the go-to thing for every parent to say. I know. I don't want to find you dead in a ditch. Yeah. Oh, my God, you're right. Yeah. Oof. No. No.

That's terrible. Upon Dave's return to the Picton farm after this tragic incident, because he just floored it and got out of there, Louise and Leonard immediately knew what happened. The truck bore a fresh dent on its front bumper with blood visible on the hood and fender. Acting with urgency, they arranged for a mechanic to repair the dent and repair the scratched areas while they cleaned the blood from the hood. Meanwhile...

While this was happening, while they're cleaning up the car, the mechanic and Leonard and Dave, Louise ventured back to the accident site. There, she moved 14-year-old Tim Barrett's body into a nearby ditch from the road, which is where he was struck down, unknowingly sealing his fate because tragically, Tim was still alive when Louise pushed him into that ditch. And when she pushed him, he went face down into a puddle.

So he drowned in like that one, another worst nightmare. Yes. Drowning in two inches of water. Right. Because despite suffering severe injuries, including a fractured and dislocated pelvis, deep bruises, and a fractured skull with subcranial hemorrhage, there was a chance and a pretty decent one at that of survival. Yeah. However, that hope was extinguished when he drowned in two feet of murky water after being submerged when Louise moved his body. The next day, the mechanic who was...

fixing the truck, notified the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or the RCMP, which I will refer to them hereafter. Or the Mounties. Or the Mounties, that works too, about what he saw the day before because he heard about a hit and run on the radio. Good for him. Dave Pickton was charged in juvenile court with failing to remain at the scene of an accident and was convicted on December 19th, 1967. He was placed on indefinite probation and had his license suspended until he turned 21.

As for Louise, well, the police never learned about her involvement in Tim's death and attempted cover-up or the fact that, honestly, she was the real reason he died.

This tragic incident profoundly influenced Robert's psychological and emotional outlook, and it shaped his views on morality, justice, and the worth of human life. Witnessing evasion of responsibility and a disregard for the value of others' lives by his own parents taught him very troubling lessons.

Yeah. That was hard. And you said increasingly, but we're leaving it in. I said what? Not.

Nothing. Just increasingly. Oh, God. But it's fine. I love it. Yeah, it's good. Very good. Perpetually reeking of pig shit, he seldom bathed, as we know, but like this continued into adulthood. Yeah. A situation that was compounded by the fact that the Picton home lacked a shower. Just like his parents. Yeah. Yeah. He's got no model for hygiene. True, true. Over time, it's reported that Robert actually developed a distinct aversion to showers, particularly the sensation of water on his face.

to the extent that he adamantly refused to wash altogether. This is a farm boy, no less. I know. To that end, pop quiz. All right. Which of the following statements is true about Robert? A, his toenails were one inch long. B, he had excellent oral hygiene. C, he used butter to slick back his hair. D, all of the above. Whoa. Whoa.

His toenails were an inch long. He had excellent oral hygiene. He used butter to slick back his hair or all of them. I'm going to go with, and for good reason, which I'll explain to you later if you want. Of course. He had excellent oral hygiene. So that makes the other ones not true. Correct. That is false. Oh, okay. Butter. No. No. I'm not even saying that's the worst of, you know, I'm not saying that's worse than butter.

But how the hell did he work? Yeah, I don't know. All of those things are true. Oh, all of them are true? Yes, D, all of the above. The question was, which of the following statements is true? Yeah, yeah, no, I know. I understood. But, wow, he had inch-long toenails? Mm-hmm. And, oddly enough, excellent oral hygiene. He was obsessed with his teeth and got them professionally cleaned every three months. Wow, guy's got better hygiene than I do. I know. That's great.

Crazy, right? The inch-long toenail thing is throwing me off because, I mean... How does that happen? I know how it happens, but how does he even walk with shoes on, let alone... You know what I mean? Yeah, perhaps not comfortably.

At 24 years old, Robert's life was markedly insular. He devoted all his time to his domineering mother. He never had a girlfriend, abstained from going out, and refrained from drinking, smoking, or socializing. His attempt at social interaction came through pen-palling, which led him to meet a woman named Connie in Michigan. He traveled to visit Connie, claimed that they got engaged, but then due to logistical challenges, they ended their engagement and they never saw each other or

or spoke to each other again. Very strange. Very strange. But then in 1978, life for Robert dramatically changed after his father died of cancer at the age of 91 on New Year's Day, followed by the death of his mother, also to cancer on April Fool's Day in 1979. So just one year apart, both of his parents were gone. And he's what, 30 at this time? Or 29 or something like that? He was born in 49, October something. 78. 78.

is the year I just mentioned. So you do the math. 29, that's what I thought. Okay. By the way, Port Coquitlam or whatever it's called is West Coast Canada. West side. West side. It's just a little bit, a little bit north of the U.S. Yeah, in between Victoria and Whistler. Whistler is good snowboarding. Mm-hmm.

Inheriting the farm worth nearly $1 million in today's value, alongside his siblings, Robert received $90,000 plus a one-third share of the farm. However, Robert's inheritance, and only Robert's inheritance, came with the stipulation. He would receive no further funds from the estate unless he remained on the farm until he turned 40.

And he was only about 30 at the time, right? Yeah, yeah. Which meant that he faced another decade stuck on the property in order to access his trust, which was also controlled by Dave and Linda, his siblings. Really? Yes. They were the executors, I guess? Yeah. So Robert was pissed, right? And it's a little unclear why Louise did this, though.

though it seems likely that she wanted to ensure the continuation of the farm. And with Linda pretty much gone and Dave a delinquent, Robert was the best candidate to carry the pig-shaped torch. Yeah. And so he did. Robert kept the operations of the farm going and honed his butchering skills to a remarkable level. In his slaughterhouse, Robert was capable of processing at least 24 animals a day. His method was ruthless yet efficient.

For smaller animals, he would slit their throats while larger ones were taken down with a nail gun to the head. I think the nail gun is better. Oh, God. If I'm going to go out, just put a hole in my head. Yeah. Blow a hole in my head like no country for old men with that weird thing that he does the holes in people's heads with.

You know what I'm talking about? No, I never saw it. Yeah, he's got this weird weapon that he got from a farm that's supposed to kill cows. It's like an air-pressured, high-velocity little thing that pops out and then pops back in.

And it just puts a hole in the head. That just made me think about, remember our photo shoot where you're holding an ax and I'm holding a nail gun? So apparently that's a pressurized nail gun that needs to be plugged in. So somebody wrote on one of our pictures like, looking real badass there's later with like a nail gun that's not plugged in or something like that. First of all, we knew that.

Second of all, in American Psycho, he does the same thing. That's kind of like the joke. Oh. That he's in his mind, obviously, if you've seen it, I don't think any of it happened, but he's, you know, standing there with the nail gun at her head and like he's not, like there's nothing, it's not plugged in. Right, right, right. But it's like part of his fantasy. Yeah. Got it.

So after immobilizing these poor, innocent animals that he would be taking out in order to butcher. Immobilizing? Killing. Well, what he would do is he would slit their throat or whatever in their head. Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit more than immobilizing. Yes, he would then hang the animal by its ankle on a meat hook, methodically draining its blood before skinning and dismembering it with a handsaw. So I bring up these horrific details that I can barely get out of my mouth.

to show the level of skill that he's developing and the fact that he was able to do this 24 times a day every day. And you got to just get numb to it at some point. Exactly. Yeah. And comfortable with it. Yeah. I mean, if out of necessity, I had to do it, like if I, you know, had no other way to make a living and a butcher was it, I think I'd be able to figure it out. But it's...

It's far from... Yeah, that's true. A butcher is a profession. But the way he did it and the way he used those skills to then do it to humans, it just makes me feel like from day one, it was just corrupt. Yeah. Which, by the way, there's plenty of butchers, I think pretty much all of them, who don't kill people. 100%. That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah.

So the remnants of this process, the excess bones, skin, and meat that wasn't salable, were disposed of in 40-foot deep pits that Robert had dug around the property. And he would also drive some of the body parts to an industrial site used by butchers and restaurants for discarding surplus animal parts and entrails. And I want you to remember this. I want you to remember this. I would love to forget it. You can't. You got to remember it.

Because basically, this entire process from the butchering and dismembering to the disposal of the remnants bore a chilling resemblance to the way he would later handle his human victims.

Meanwhile, Dave Pickton was deeply involved in establishing his demolition business while also running a chop shop connected to the local Hell's Angels chapter. Yeah. He became known for throwing extravagant biker parties on the Pickton property and attracted a diverse crowd that included bikers, locals, outlaws, and women in abundance. It's like Riggins Riggs. Don't know what that is. It's the, uh...

shop in the Friday Night Lights. Oh, Riggins. Tim and Billy Riggins run that. They do some chop shop stuff. Yeah. Well, that's what's going on here with Dave and Robert. Except it's real.

During one of these parties, Dave led some women to Robert's bedroom in the basement where only a stained mattress on the floor existed and almost nothing else except for one truly bizarre and disturbing item. Pop quiz. Yes. What did the women discover in Robert's bedroom? Okay. A, a fetal pig stuffed inside a condom. Wait, a what? A fetal pig stuffed inside of a condom.

Okay. B, a decapitated taxidermy horse head hanging on his wall. C, a meat hook on the ceiling with a sex doll attached to it. Meat hook. Nope. Your girl came up with it. A fetal pig? Nope. Your girl came up with it. You are disgusting. I know. I know. I can only laugh about it. I can't apologize for it because I have too much fun. A fetal pig stuffed into a condom. Mm-hmm.

Didn't happen. Nope. Came from the mind of Slater. Yep. Very scary. It's not a pretty place. No, and a meat hook. But he did have, what was this, what was the thing? A decapitated taxidermy horse head. You're saying it like it's not normal. Like I'm picturing like a regular head like they would do with a deer in a lodge or something. Right. Right? Right. No, it's not normal. Why is it not normal? Because it belonged to his cult, Goldie. Goldie.

who he loved, and this horse hurt his leg. So rather than either helping the horse out, or I do understand that sometimes horses are put down is my understanding. Send him to the glue factory. He decapitated his pet. He stuffed the head, used a handsaw, and mounted it on his wall. Oh, it wasn't like a good job? I don't know if it was a good job, but it was his friend. It was his pet. Well, listen to me. I'm just playing the other side here for a quick second. If

If it's a decapitated horse head with rough cuts and blood dripping down the wood, that's very different from like a clean mounted horse head, even though it's his friend. I'm saying from the girl's perspective. Okay. Well, I saw pictures. It wasn't dripping blood. There weren't guts coming out. You know, I don't think he's like a taxidermy specialist. I'm sure it wasn't like a work of art. It didn't seem to be, but it's a horse. True. That is a horse. I can't.

This is the point of the horsehead story. When Dave showed the horsehead and the rest of Robert's eerily empty room to these women, Robert spat in the face of one of the women and ominously said, if she ever comes into this room again, I will kill her.

His volatile temperament surfaced again the next night when he abruptly threw a glass of milk at a different woman during dinner. Wait, so David brought these girls down to Robert's room? David. Whatever. You're so formal. Firefighter Dave brought these, that's all I can think about, by the way. I know. Firefighter Dave. Dave. Brought these girls down to Robert's room. Robert was in there or no? No, but he saw that he, it's his property, so he saw that his room was being mocked and looked at. Oh.

Oh, gotcha. And instead of being like, hey, Dave, I'm not really comfortable with you taking the ladies down to my pad and making fun of it. He turned and said, I will kill you to the woman. Well, he doesn't strike me as a healthy boundary setter. No, a little bit like the least of his issues.

So understandably, these women, as well as other women who worked on the farm or who hung out and like went to these parties, they started to grow increasingly frightened of Robert and began to avoid him as much as possible because we're seeing an escalation here. Yeah. Which meant that...

that Robert would now have to pay for female attention. So he began to frequent the streets of Vancouver's downtown Eastside, the poorest zip code in urban Canada and an area known as Skid Row for its population of sex workers, drug addicts, and homeless individuals. Yeah.

And this area was, quote unquote, seedy by design because in the 1970s, local politicians deliberately concentrated individuals deemed unsavory into this one specific area, including thousands of psychiatric patients who were deinstitutionalized and couldn't afford anywhere else to live. Yeah, they've been doing that forever. I know.

The Tenderloin in San Francisco? Yes. Additionally, the downtown Eastside became home to a significant number of indigenous women who comprised about 10 to 14% of the sex worker population and about 40% of murder victims in that area. Oh my God. And these women, as well as other innocent populations, were being preyed upon and killed by multiple serial killers over the same period of time that

This blew my mind. Yeah. I got to tell you about it. For example, okay, so I'm saying multiple serial killers were hunting the same territory over the same period of time. Oh, my God. For example, serial killer Clifford Olson, Vancouver's first serial killer. Olson was arrested in 1981 and convicted of murdering 11 children and young adults between the ages of 9 and 18 years old in British Columbia. Wow.

In a controversial deal with authorities, by the way, side note, Olson provided details of his crimes in exchange for cash payments to his wife and his son. And this agreement, known as the Cash for Bodies deal, caused widespread outrage across Canada. Then there was Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer. Ridgway was an American serial killer convicted of committing 48 separate murders.

And while he mostly targeted his victims in the Seattle and Tacoma areas of Washington State in the U.S., many sources indicate that unbeknownst to either of them, he and Robert shared a common hunting ground at certain points up in Vancouver. And they were pretty close in numbers, right? Yeah. He was 48, Gary, and Robert was 49. Wow. Washington State, by the way, it's only 200 kilometers.

kilometers south of Vancouver. And when Gary Ridgway was finally caught and arrested on November 30th, 2001, law enforcement discovered a map of the lower mainland of Canada in his truck.

Then there was Gilbert Jordan, a.k.a. the Boozing Barber, who was a former barber linked to the deaths of between 8 and 10 First Nations women in downtown Eastside between 1965 and 1988. First Nations are indigenous women? Yes, exactly. He was the first Canadian known to use alcohol as a murder weapon. Gilbert Jordan would find women in bars, buy them drinks...

pay them for sex, and encourage them to drink with him. Then when they passed out, he would pour lethal amounts of liquor down their throats and watch them die of alcohol poisoning. Oh my God, dude. And just to give you an idea of how callous law enforcement was about the deaths of these poor indigenous women...

When they would discover another body believed to have been victimized by Gilbert Jordan, they'd say jokingly, looks like we got another Jordan-esque here. Yeah, I mean, no...

Nobody, I mean, I'm making an opinion here. I'm not stating a fact, but nobody's more or less disappeared than indigenous people. You are spot on. It's the rawest deal that's ever been dealt. They are considered the most disappeared out of the less disappeared.

So the less disappeared are people who society deems unworthy of, we don't care. You're less disappeared. You're invisible. Like the intro I was saying in my intro of the less disappeared indigenous women are the most disappeared. They're the lowest ranking. I know, I know, but there's like, I'm trying to give you the phrase that I've come across. Well, I said it better. I said they're the most least, the least, no, I don't know what I said. Yeah.

It's sad. And there's, you know, obviously legitimate problems in that society that just are not, they're insurmountable for them. You know what I mean? They were thrown into these little reservations. I'm talking about like the real Native Americans that are not going to go along with the American bullshit. Like they live on the reservation, they die on the reservation. That's their life. Alcohol for that population is, and this is why I think, I don't know, my sister read a book

so many years ago. And I remember her telling me that there was like certain genealogies that handled alcohol better physically Jewish and Italian people have had alcohol for like, they think 7,000 years longest out of all the groups.

So the least alcoholic people. Wow, look how I am. German, Irish, the European, like they've had it for much less time. I don't remember the exact amount, maybe 2003, whatever. And then Russians, the second least, maybe like a thousand years. And then the Native Americans have had alcohol in their world, like known it's existed for like 400 years.

So they have not even begun to develop the enzymes that are necessary to properly oxidize the alcohol. I may have just made all of that up. Little disclaimer, none of that could be true. None of it could, none of anything could be true. I don't know. But I remember when she told me about that, I was like, that is really interesting.

All right, so bringing it back to Robert, right? Because we just talked about three other serial killers around that time, but we're going to take it back now to Robert Pickton. When he began trolling the downtown Eastside under the guise of soliciting sex workers, a disturbing pattern emerged. Sex workers, most of whom were indigenous women, had begun to disappear at an extremely alarming rate, more than ever before.

But no bodies were turning up and law enforcement turned a blind eye to this now epidemic of disappearing women. And they did this for three main reasons. First, law enforcement was preoccupied with apprehending or pursuing the three other aforementioned serial killers and couldn't or wouldn't allocate additional attention to the crimes attributed to Porkchop Rob. To what? Porkchop Rob. Was that a nickname of his? Yeah. Yeah.

That's an interesting nickname. Second, there was a reluctance similar to what we observed during the Lucha Libre episode in Mexico, where authorities hesitated to label the situation as the work of a serial killer due to the costly, time-consuming nature of such investigations and the fear it elicits among the public.

The least disappeared?

The least disappeared or the least dead because that's what they were. They were dying. They were being killed. And that's a lot just between Robert Pickton and, uh, and what's his face. That's 48 plus 49, 97 murders over the course of what? 10 years. Yeah. That's like one a month. Oh my God.

Non-stop. Non-stop. By the way. So they were considered the least dead. But the families of Wendy Louise Allen, Rebecca Guno, Yvonne Marlene Abigosos, Laura Ma, Linda Louise Grant, Cheryl Donahue, Elaine Allenback, Teresa Ann Williams, Elaine Dumba, and Ingrid Sowett, all of whom disappeared, would vehemently disagree with Sergeant Law, who is the sergeant who made that statement. His last name was Law? Yeah, ironic. Yeah.

They would disagree, right, with his callous disregard for the safety and a deserving high-priority investigation that was needed. Agreed. According to a police reporter named Kim Penderton with the Vancouver Sun, a publication that, by the way, did some truly outstanding investigative reporting at the time,

When Kim approached a homicide detective to ask whether the department was going to do anything about the spike in sex worker murders or disappearances, because they didn't have bodies at this point, he replied, and this is a quote, I'd rather solve one Aaron Kaplan over a dozen prostitutes. And Aaron was a two-year-old little boy who'd been abducted from his bed from a wealthy area in Vancouver and sadly murdered. And this detective said he'd... Abducted from his bed? Yeah. Ugh.

But this was the attitude of law enforcement about sex workers and indigenous women at that. Yeah, I mean, it's callous at best. I mean, they should all be held accountable. The response, or more accurately, the woefully inadequate lack thereof from the Vancouver Police Department to the reports of missing women from the downtown Eastside were egregiously deplorable.

Their apparent indifference towards the safety and well-being of marginalized individuals laid bare the systemic failures and deep-seated biases entrenched within the law enforcement agency. Driven by prejudices related to socioeconomic status, gender, background, occupation, these biases culminated in a profoundly insufficient allocation of attention and resources towards investigating this distressing surge into disappearances.

And the tragic consequence of this negligence was a devastatingly high body count that accumulated over more than a decade of ongoing disappearances and murders. Listen, I mean, if in my town, right, one person was murdered a month for three months, I'd be like, what the fuck is going on? Well, that happened here.

And they just were like, nah, we don't care. Families and community members were engulfed in the torment of not knowing what was going on. Compounded by the pain of loss, they were going to the authorities, but the authorities just fell short of conducting thorough investigations and addressing the crisis. And that's just another 94 months of that. Yes, exactly. You know, averages. Right.

The ineffectiveness of law enforcement in responding to this situation not only exposed institutional inadequacies, but also cast a spotlight on broader societal challenges concerning the treatment of marginalized communities and victims of violence. Now, it does have to be said that not all of the law enforcement officials overlooked the growing concerns, obviously, right? That would be like a snap judgment, right? And as the investigation sort of stopped, went,

people were bringing it to their attention, there were notable individuals who stood out. Among them was Constable Dave Dixon of the Vancouver Police Department who diligently sought answers for families of the missing. These family members would go to the police precinct. They were largely ignored, except for a couple of really key players. Kind of like Robert was for that little girl in his school. Yes, kind of. Yeah.

So Constable Dave Dixon inquired with the Ministry of Social Services to check if any of the missing women had collected their social assistance checks and contacted local shelters to see if they had heard or seen them anywhere. Smart. Discovering that social services had closed the files of the missing women for not collecting their checks, Dixon recognized this as a significant lead.

Because he understood that these women would not willingly abandon their checks, indicating a deeper issue worth escalating within the command chain. In the early 1990s, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police established a team of profilers known as Project Eclipse, which was forward-thinking at the time. This initiative of having profilers was somewhat cutting-edge. Are these people... They're not on horses, right?

I believe they are. They are. I know a lot of them are, but I can't imagine that they're doing actual police work on horses. I remember this from college. I believe it's the most ineffective form of policing. And then second to that are policemen on bikes or police women on bikes.

There's nothing less intimidating than a police officer on a bicycle. Agreed. Yeah. It's like their helmet. I totally agree. It's very difficult to, a friend of mine was, uh, you know, city bikes in Manhattan, obviously for those of you who don't know, city bikes are, you know, bikes that are owned by city bank that can be rented for short periods of time to go short distances and

Cause traffic is horrific. So people will use them as like a commuting tool. And there was this guy that I worked with who was basically bullied one day by a bunch of kids on a city bike.

So they're like, you know, they're making fun of him. They're throwing rocks at him. It's like a bad situation. Yeah. But it's like they're like 12-year-old kids. But he's a 47-year-old man, 6'2", with a helmet and a backpack on, trying to pedal away from these kids. Come lick this white dog shit, Dale. Basically.

And he had to like, you know, you know that awkward first push on a bike when you have to get going? Yeah. Like he had to do that, but angrily. Oh, man. So fucking funny. Not very scary looking. No, it's not.

So the police at this point, they're doing the bare minimum. So they set up this project eclipse that I mentioned, which was like a team of profilers. Uh-huh. On horseback? No. Oh, no. No. Okay. It was within the RCMP, but it wasn't like profilers on horses. Well, that's what I asked you. I said, are they all on horses? Oh, I didn't know you meant the profilers. I thought you meant the RCMP. Like this is a unit. This is a department within the RCMP, the profilers. That get cars? Yeah.

I mean, they're not doing it on horses. That's what I'm saying. I think we're saying the same thing. Yeah. Are these like, you know, all of a sudden out of nowhere just pops up this Amish police force that can't use cars? It doesn't make any sense.

So silly. This effort struggled to gain traction primarily because the Vancouver Police Department was unprepared to effectively utilize the insights provided by the profilers. And they were on horses. And they were communicating by fucking pigeon. Yeah, we're trying to work on it, but it takes like three months to get a letter back to these people. Maybe you don't do that.

This disconnect stemmed from the fact that profiling was a relatively new-ish aspect of policing, and many departments, including the VPD, were not yet equipped with the knowledge or strategies to integrate these novel techniques into their investigative processes. Yeah, I can see that. Well, yes and no. It's kind of bullshit, considering profiling was established in 1972, and...

They had a player on their team who we're going to hear about in 20 seconds, a man named Dr. Kim Rosmo, who knew how to use the profiling information, who knew that the VPD was up against

a serial killer who knew that real people were disappearing at a statistically significant rate, but who was ostracized by other members of the police force and constantly shut down. I know there's got to be someone out there listening to this thinking the same thing I am. They're riding horses. They're not probably the best at integrating new tactics.

into their police work? Evidently not. Yeah. They're a little stuck. I want to get a little temperature check on Robert at this stage. Okay. Okay. It's now 1992 in the case and Robert moved out of the main farmhouse on the Picton property since he and his brother Dave were no longer getting along. And he turned 40. Yeah. Okay. In spite of having real money by this point, because by the way, the Picton farm was later valued at $3 million. Okay.

Robert spent a few months sleeping on a mattress on top of the meat freezers. Then he moved into a Dodge Fargo DeSoto motorhome that he parked behind the slaughterhouse in near total isolation. Then Robert started paying for regular blowjobs from sex workers in the downtown Eastside and would bring these women back to his secluded motorhome.

And unsurprisingly, Indigenous women and sex workers continued disappearing. Kathleen Whatley, Elsie Sebastian, who was a mother of four, Teresa Louise Triff, Lee Minor, along with 13 other women, simply vanished without a trace by 1993. From 1993 to 1994, Catherine Gonzalez, Catherine Knight, Dorothy Spence, and Diana Melnick all went missing as well.

But the law and order, police and politicians, including the mayor, Philip Owen, continued to largely do nothing. Or not enough. They indicated that the numbers of disappearances were normal for that area. But this was not normal. And these were not just numbers. These were people. Mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, human beings.

beings. Yeah, they're definitely not doing what they need to be doing. They weren't just nameless, subhuman, quote unquote, prostitutes. They were survival sex workers and they were loved. Lee Minor, for example, was 35 years old and had a twin sister, like I do, other siblings, a mother and a two-year-old daughter who feverishly looked for her when she went missing, like boots on the ground looking for her.

when the police showed a lack of interest in her disappearance. Catherine Knight, while addicted to drugs, would still call her sister regularly to tell her that she loved her, a call that stopped coming in and would never be received again.

Now I'm going to tell you about Dr. Kim Rosmo, who I mentioned as being one of the profilers, who was like the only one with a head on his shoulders at the time, but completely ostracized. Yeah. So he was a geographic profiler working with the VPD and the first working policeman in Canada to obtain a doctorate in criminology. Kim Rosmo.

actually proposed the theory that a serial killer might be responsible for the ongoing deaths and disappearances that they were seeing in Vancouver's downtown Eastside.

That was the first mention of a potential serial killer? Well, it was one that was backed up. So a geoprofiler is a specialist who uses the locations of a series of crimes to make inferences about the offender's residence or operational base. Yeah. So this belief that there was a serial killer was based on Dr. Rosmo's analysis of the patterns and locations of the disappearances. Dr. Rosmo's theory was that predators prefer to work in a territory where they're most comfortable,

at least when they're starting out. So police should be on the lookout for sex offenders, rapists, and violent men who frequented the downtown Eastside. He developed a 3D image of the area to narrow the police's target area down by 95% in terms of where the perpetrator was likely to have lived.

But Dr. Rosmo's suggestions and findings were initially not well received or acted upon by the VPT's senior management, known as the Old Boys Club, due to jealousy over his accomplishments and lots of infighting in the department. In spite of the fact that this guy was world-renowned and literally traveled the globe assisting with thousands of investigations, he was still teased and bullied and ostracized by his own department.

In the Vancouver Police Department, his work was constantly dismissed and he was constantly bullied. That's got to be so frustrating. I got a pop quiz. Okay. You ready? I am. You going to do this? I am. Pop quiz then. Aside from being marginalized and ignored, how else did the VPD bully Dr. Rosmo? A, they moved his office to the basement, cut his budget, and stole his office supplies. B,

B, they spread rumors about him being a pedophile and leaked fake stories to the press. C, they planted an eighth of an ounce of coke in his glove compartment, pulled him over, and arrested him on felony C charges. Oh my God. So either they moved his office, they spread rumors about him being a pedophile and leaked it to the press, or they planted drugs on him and pulled him over, which is fucking crazy. Fuck, which one is it? Which is the worst?

No, no, no. You come up with the worst ones. Which one is not the worst one? I like when you think out loud because if I know your thinking when I'm devising these pop quizzes, I can flip it on its head. Let's see. I'm just going to take an absolutely wild shot in the dark. Nothing new. They...

Spread rumors about him being a pedophile. Nope. Is not what I was going to say is not my answer. Okay. I cut you off. What I was going to say my answer is, is C, they planted coke on him. No. Fuck. Can I tell you something?

My first instinct was A, and I overthought the shit out of it. Don't do that. I overthought it. You always shoot from the hip anyway. You always just say whatever's on your mind. Do that here. Not during the pop quizzes. That's my point. You should start doing that. Yeah, true. Very good. Very good point. So yeah, they moved his office to the basement. They literally like cast him out. They cut his budget. The only fucking guy doing anything to find these women was

And they stole his office supplies. They stole his stapler? Where's my stapler? I'm going to burn this building down. Seriously, though, if the old boys club had paid any amount of attention to Dr. Rosmo, who spent five years sounding the alarm to a serial killer who, of course, wound up being Robert Pickton, the tragic outcome might have been drastically different.

Dr. Rosmo persistently urged the VPD to focus on the initial locations of the women's disappearances and to broaden their scope to investigate individuals frequenting those areas. There's this tweet that said, like, you know, this was back in, like, 2016, right?

that Bernie Sanders is like the crazy scientist in the movies with, you know, with crazy hair and his papers are flying everywhere. So no one listens to him, but he does know what he's talking about. Yeah. So they're just like completely disregarding this guy. And he's the only one who knows what's happening and could probably have saved. I don't know. At least. Yeah. Let's, let's put like a real number on it. At least 30. Yeah. Which is so many. One. I,

I know. One life would make it worth it. But the VPD just didn't do this. They just did not listen to their greatest asset, their greatest mind, their greatest resource. And by 1996, four more women disappeared. And a woman named Tracy Bouillon almost became the fifth.

But thankfully, she managed to escape, which wound up shedding light on Robert Pickton's motive as the serial killer, aside from the fact that he was a fucking psychopath. Yes.

So this is what happened. Following a transaction of sex for money, the situation took a menacing turn as Robert brandished a knife on Tracy, who was a sex worker, and sliced off two buttons from her shirt. As Tracy fled, she heard Robert express a perverse satisfaction in quote-unquote helping working girls overcome their drug habits, ominously stating that he only offered them one chance.

His chilling declaration that those who relapsed into drug use didn't deserve to live and were better off dead reveals a stark and twisted rationalization for his actions. So should Robert Pickton's rationale indeed be to purge society of what he considered undesirable people, drug addicts, sex workers, and potentially also indigenous people, his profile aligns with that of a mission-oriented serial killer.

Wow. Wow.

underpinning the actions of a killer masquerading his heinous crimes under the guise of a twisted form of vigilante justice. I can't believe you write all of these every week. It's fucking crazy. When you just get taken by it. It's funny. It's nice. It really is. Like, you just sit there and write 25-page papers every week. The challenging part is to make it 25 pages and not 2,500 pages.

Because I can keep going because this stuff is fascinating to me, but I need to, I hope, present it in a compelling and interesting and like somewhat fast-paced way. Yeah. Which is challenging. You're like a bottomless fountain of true crime information. A babbling brook. A babbling brook. That's a little disparaging though. Is it?

If I told you you were babbling during a case, how would you... Oh, well, no, but just in the context of you saying fountain and... Yeah, you'd be like, I'm babbling? Yes, Brooke. To reinforce his perceived role as some kind of benefactor...

or at least to maintain the facade of being on the right side of history rather than Canada's most prolific serial killer. Literally the opposite. Robert Pickton adopted behaviors akin to like a savior complex. He went to great lengths to assist women who worked for him or lived on the farm and would often buy them food and help them with their bills in an attempt to project an image of benevolence and support.

or perhaps as a way to mask or compensate for his more sinister actions. But this juxtaposition of roles as both benefactor and predator underscores the intricate and paradoxical facets of his character.

Robert Pickton also exhibited that classic cooling off period between his killings, which we know from past cases, right, Tank? It's a common trait among serial killers. So initially, there are longer gaps between his crimes because the thrill of each kill remained potent for a longer period of time.

But then as time progressed, these intervals shortened, which is also typical and usually how serial killers get caught. Because when the diminishing psychological high from each murder begins to wear off, the need for that same level of gratification will drive them to increase the frequency of their killings and get sloppy.

So serial killers really are just the most dangerous addicts on the planet. I knew you were going to take it there because I've heard you talk about addiction before. Very similar to how I just described this. Yeah. So yeah, maybe an answer to your question. It's the most horrific, inexcusable, lethal form of addiction. Yeah. For other people. Right.

In the 1990s, in addition to slaughtering animals on the farm, which he was still doing, and helping Dave to buy and sell car parts, Robert and Dave also started some side hustles. From the back of their slaughterhouse, the brothers ran and operated cockfights and pig roasts for Vancouver's Filipino community. They charged a steep admission fee and sold cartons of cigarettes and alcohol, which...

They did pretty well doing. Yeah. These gatherings are what launched what would later become a more official enterprise known as Piggy's Palace, which was a party barn that they set up down the road. A party barn. Yo, let's talk about Piggy Palace for a second. Let's talk about Bordy Barn. Dairy Barn? No, Bordy Barn. Do you know what that is? No. You don't know what the Bordy Barn is? No, but I know what Dairy Barn is. Bordy Barn is...

On Long Island. I mean, it's going to be a Long Island people thing only, but I mean, it was the most famous bar ever. Really? Ever on Long Island. I never went there. I used to go to Neptune's, as you know. Yes, I know. But I was never a Bordy Barn person. Bordy Barn was like a disgusting, you could throw beer on people type of a situation. Fun, quote unquote, you know, young, whatever. It was so infamous. But shout out to those of you who do.

Well, I do know about Piggy Palace. Piggy Palace sounds a little bit more ominous. After purchasing a narrow strip of land in 1995, Robert and Dave built out a space that could hold more than 150 people, which, by the way, they ended up

having thousands of people attending. And they fashioned it to look like a dance hall with a long bar and a full restaurant-style kitchen. They installed beer signs, fluorescent lighting, a sound system, and disco ball. And they would make anywhere between $10,000 and $43,000 Canadian dollars per night. Wow. Per night. Hell's Angels would party there, as would off-duty cops and high-ranking city officials. Wow.

So Robert had even more money to burn at this point because he's doing pretty well with his butchering. Yeah. They're storing meat in their big industrial freezers. And now they're hosting these parties and cockfights and pig roasts. And I mean, the guy is actually rolling. I mean, he's busy. He is. He's very busy. And with, you know, having even more money to burn at this point, he decided to burn that cash in the

in the downtown Eastside area. He even decided to clean himself up a bit and he purchased a hairpiece to cover the top of his bald head, even though the rest of his stringy hair stretched down his back. Ugh.

He washed himself, though, and he bought a new pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a clean pair of shoes. He was like feeling himself at this point. That year, which was 1997, wound up being Robert Pickton's most active killing year of all. 1997? Yes. Okay. And incredibly, he came within an inch of getting caught that year following an event that unfolded on March 22nd. Because on that day...

47-year-old, he's now 47, that's how long he's been at this, Robert decided to flex his new look by picking up a woman, a warrior, named Sandra Gail Ringwald, street name Stitch, who was a 32-year-old mother of two and a sex worker.

After picking Sandra up from the downtown East side, Robert took her to his trailer 17 miles away. He still lives in a trailer. He's like a millionaire. Yeah. Did he wind up, so he cleaned up his act, he showered, he got new clothes and whatever. Did he wind up getting a semen demon tattoo or? I mean, it would be fitting. Yeah. You know why I'm saying that, right? Yes, I do. What was that guy's name? Steven Liddle. Steven Liddle. Liddle, Liddle, not Liddle, like soup. Pretty close though.

Steven Plato from, I now pronounce you husband and daughter. You may kill the bride. You may kill the bride. That, by the way, for our listeners who, you know, came on a little bit later, that is where the semen demon thing came from. Yes. The origin. It was actually a pop quiz. It was. And it wasn't even what happened. It was.

So Robert took Sandra to his trailer, which was 17 miles away from where he picked her up. There, he paid Sandra for what she described as regular sex, which occurred on his sleeping bag and lasted about five minutes. Ha ha ha.

Following this, Sandra used the bathroom to consume a speedball, which is a mix of heroin and cocaine, which she injected up to five times daily or as much as she could afford. Afterwards, she asked Robert for a phone book to call her boyfriend so he could come pick her up. What? While she searched the phone book, Robert acted as if he was going to caress her left hand and came up behind her, right, as she's flipping through the phone book.

but then, shockingly, handcuffed her wrist instead. What followed was a fierce battle of survival. Sandra, seizing a knife from the kitchen table, fought back, cutting through Robert even as the blade sliced her own hand. The struggle intensified as Robert managed to get the knife away from her, turn it on Sandra in a brutal attack,

and really, really get her good. Despite her grievous wounds, including stabbings that left her unconscious outdoors as Robert continued his assault, Sandra's will to survive never waned. What did he handcuff her to, himself? He never got that far because she reached for a knife on the table. Oh. In a critical moment of weakness from Robert due to blood loss, Sandra made her escape and staggered onto the street, which reminds me of the toy box killer.

Because there, a couple driving by saw a woman nearly naked with handcuffs dangling from one wrist and her intestines spilling out of her sliced abdomen. Oh my God. They immediately called 911, a call that saved her life.

Sandra was rushed to the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster in the early hours of March 23, 1997, where she underwent surgery for her life-threatening injuries and miraculously survived. Shortly after, Robert Pickton, who was also stabbed, arrived at the same hospital. What an idiot.

Found in Robert's pocket was the key to the handcuffs that were removed from Sandra's wrist before her surgery. What a fucking idiot. I mean, this is really, I mean, the fact that he was able to go on for so long is insane. But I can understand now when you painted the picture of like the cooling off period, lessening and lessening and lessening, how they get caught because it's like you, if you're a drug addict,

Eventually, if you're like that woman doing speedball five times a day, you're going to get a bad batch. You're going to inject it improperly once or you're going to miscalculate it when you make it or you reconstitute it. You can't do these things over and over and over again so fast without... I imagine when you start doing drugs like heroin, right? There's a huge anticipation phase. There's a huge ritual phase where you pay attention to every single detail because it matters so much.

Whereas by the end, you're like, I don't fucking, whatever. I just need my fix. So the fact that he had left the key in his pocket was...

He was also in pretty bad shape because she stabbed him. Well, I'm glad he had the key in his pocket because it sounds like, you know... Well, yes. Here's what happened. Oh, no. Police interrogated both stab victims, Sandra and Robert, but were given two very different accounts of what happened. Robert was indeed charged with one count of attempted murder.

As such, he hired an extremely expensive criminal law attorney in Vancouver, as well as a private investigator, to follow Sandra around and to dig up as much dirt as possible on her. By the time the scheduled trial came around on January 28th, 1998, Sandra was too terrified to testify, and she wound up not showing up. Furthermore, the prosecution felt that since she was just a drug addict, she wouldn't have been capable of providing any valuable testimony.

So the judge dropped all the charges against Robert Pickton. He sucks. Also, let me just say at this point, they don't know that he's Robert Pickton. He's just a guy. He's just a guy who nearly killed a woman. Which I'm saying is absolutely terrible. However, they don't know that he's been doing this for years and years and years. No, they don't.

But he faced zero repercussions for this incident. Which is also insane. And it only served to reinforce his belief that Sandra, as well as all drug-addicted sex workers, were invisible and therefore worthless. And hurting them won't result in any consequence. So it's open season.

You know what I just realized? We're doing a two-parter, so we're not anywhere even near the end. Because at this point, I'm like, when did we get to like the thing? Listen. But it's not, we're in the two-parter. There's many ways to tell a story. There is. Right? I can just be like, guess what? He was born in Vancouver. He had shitty parents. He really smelled pig shit most of his life. He was a butcher. He was a farmer. He was a pervert. He was a killer. He killed 49 people. The end. Yeah.

Well, that's not why people are here. I mean, can I live? Yeah. Can I live? Five more women disappeared in 1995 and four more in 1996. Panic on the streets was palpable by 1997, which I mentioned earlier was his most active year. Yeah. 14 women disappeared that year alone.

And because of what happened to Sandra and the fact that her attack was, of course, publicly linked to Robert Pickton, people were starting to feel weary about the rat-faced, stringy-haired, pig-shit-smelling farmer and butcher constantly buying rounds of drinks for people and supplying free dope. Yeah. Because he was doing all of that. In retrospect, we should have known. Right. But... Hindsight's 20-20, you know? It is. It is.

Maria Lalibert, Stephanie Lane, Sharon Ward, Helen Hallmark, Jacqueline Murdoch, Janet Henry, Cara Ellis, and Kelly Lane vanished. Poof. Without a trace. That's eight women in eight months. Yeah. A rate that was hitherto, nice, unheard of in the city's history. That's my line. I know. Yeah. Good job. Imitation is the biggest whatever. Yeah.

repeating sentences that are like, I don't know, fucking... You should feel flattered. That's the point. Yeah, with the thing with the lady. Meanwhile, in a statement provided by a spokesperson for the VPD, Vancouver Police Department, that spokesperson stated, and I quote...

There is no indication of a serial killer preying on women. No, no indication. Zero. Zero. No signs whatsoever. Of course, there were signs. Yeah. And more and more women continued to disappear, including a woman named Sarah DeVries who wound up becoming the de facto face of missing women in downtown Eastside.

Sarah was a mother of two small children, a sex worker addicted to drugs and HIV positive. But what we should remember about Sarah was that she was a smart, articulate, and thoughtful woman with a difficult past who fell on very, very hard times when she disappeared. In spite of her precarious situation in life, Sarah wrote beautiful poetry in a journal she kept that her sister Maggie wound up sharing in a book she published titled Missing Sarah.

And in her journal, Sarah wrote about an incident in which a man picked her up in downtown Eastside, offered her $40 for a blowjob, and then beat the shit out of her within an inch of her life. Inside his truck, which by the way was missing door handles on the inside. Yeah. Nightmare. Nightmare. Following that terrifying near-death incident, Sarah wrote the following poignant poem.

Woman's body found beaten beyond recognition. You sip your coffee, taking a drag of your smoke, turning the page, taking a bite of your toast. Just another day, just another death, just one more thing you so easily forget. You and your soft sheltered life just go on and on for nobody special from your world is gone. Just another day, just another death, just another Hastings Street whore sentenced to death.

Wow. Yeah. That's... I like bald when I read that. I mean, I know we've talked about this before, but there is something... When my friend Mike died of a drug overdose, which we've talked about, and we've even talked about what I'm about to say...

When you read the newspaper or you hear of death or somebody, you know, gets killed in a car accident or overdose or whatever, it's just, it does kind of like, you can't feel all the feelings in the world all the time. It's just not possible. You wouldn't function. You wouldn't function. Exactly. But when he died, there was like a very long period of time where I would like sit there and read, you know, obituaries or articles about people that died. Like I, like I knew them. Yeah. It just hit me very, very differently. So yeah.

Yeah, that's really, it's a very powerful poem. Very, very moving. Yeah, and true, unfortunately, sadly. Her disappearance was actually featured in the media thanks to her unrelenting and loving family members who refused to allow her disappearance to get swept under the rug.

A well-known fashion photographer at the time named Lincoln Clarks had also begun to photograph the sex workers of downtown Eastside every Sunday while also bringing them food and juice and cigarettes because he wanted society to look at these women, to notice them, to see them as the human beings they were, and to realize that they were being preyed upon and picked off one by one.

Do you know of the YouTube channel Soft White Underbelly? No. You would absolutely love it. Yeah. Never watch a video because of who you are as a person, but he has been interviewing people like that, like the, you know, forgotten for years. And some of the interviews are like really good.

really gut-wrenching to watch. He goes down to Skid Row in Los Angeles or the Bowery in New York or wherever, anywhere. He famously covered a family that lives in the Appalachian Mountains that is so far inbred that some of them don't even speak. One of the sons or brothers or whatever it is, barks as a form of his communication. Oh my God.

I forgot the name of it, but it's Soft White Underbelly. Yeah, I'll check it out. Well, this is... Dave and I started when we got into Pit Bull Rescue. We started by taking pictures initially of the pit bulls on death row in New York City shelters because we felt like they were disappeared. We started out just by taking pictures and blasting like social media at the time, which was like very innovative on Facebook because...

because just similar to like this photographer, totally different by the way, I don't mean to compare, you know, dogs and humans. I know some people would find that offensive. I'm just trying to say that like, I truly believe in giving a face and a voice to those who are otherwise faceless and voiceless. And we did that in our own way with the animals. And second though, I don't think you should look at soft white underbelly. We're going to lose you. Do it. Okay. I'm not going to then. Thank you. So by this point, the media's,

on it now. Family members are on it. Artists, like this photographer, are on it. So reluctantly, the Vancouver Police Department finally acknowledged their concern about the situation. But

Albeit, they only documented 16 disappearances out of the actual 48 by this point. That's so fucking crazy. And... They were like, yeah, there might be a problem. And they still refused to label the perpetrator as a serial killer because the bodies were disappeared. There weren't actual bodies. A

A task force called Project Amelia was established, and on July 3rd, 1998, a significant story titled Police Target Big Increase in Missing Women Cases made headlines. Still, though, by September, six more women vanished. Following intense media scrutiny, a man named Bill Hiscox, who was an employee of Dave Pickton's demolition company, who obviously knew Robert Pickton,

came forward to the police, and he reported seeing women's clothing and purses strewn about Robert's property. Oh. And also mentioned the fact that Robert would frequent the downtown Eastside area to pick up sex workers. However, the police dismissed this man's information, deemed it insufficient to pursue the lead, and briefly surveilled Robert for two weeks following that, but that was it.

And so Robert Pickton continued to abduct and murder women. And now I'm going to tell you exactly how he did it. So please listen with caution. This is your official trigger warning.

Robert would entice sex workers into his car, most of whom we know were indigenous women, by offering them money and drugs. He'd bring the women one by one back to his trailer where he would put them on his bed. Then he'd have sex with the woman from behind so that she wouldn't be able to see what he was gearing up to do after the sex was finished.

And that was to pull the woman's hands behind her back and handcuff them before strangling her with a belt or what looked like piano wire with two handles on either end. Oh my God. As the woman would slowly suffocate, he'd stroke her hair, tell her that everything was okay and that she was a good girl.

From there, Robert would take the body of the now deceased woman into the barn. He'd proceed to hang her from a meat hook where he'd slice open her body, gut her, and watch as her corpse bled out. Then he would scalp his victim to prevent her hair from getting caught in the saw that he would use to dismember her body. In a final act of depravity, Robert would then feed her remains to his family.

pigs oh yeah some sources also indicate that he would grind up his victim's flesh into mincemeat mix it with pork and sell the meat to unsuspecting people to eat oh my god including police officers law enforcement has dismissed that claim and said that never happened but he probably did yeah

Because those bins and buckets wouldn't be searched. Yeah.

Yeah. But I mean, yeah, I mean, he obviously got away with it. I'm picturing like a bottom half of an arm in with cow parts. So he kept, and this we're going to learn more about in part two, he kept some of the body parts that he could not easily disguise or hide. Yeah.

A woman who had been staying at the Picton farm and working odd jobs for both Robert and Dave, her name was Lynn Ellingson, recalls seeing a body hanging from the barn with red painted toenails, a clump of black hair on a table, a chain, and butcher knives. And that body is believed to have belonged to a woman named Georgina Papin.

Robert told Lynn that if she ever told anyone about what she saw in that barn, it would be her body hanging from the ceiling next. He also told her that what she saw was okay, as she, meaning the victim, was just like a pig anyways. And on that despicable note, we are going to conclude part one of the Robert Pickton podcast.

two-parter. And I want to give everyone a heads up that part two, we're going to dive into the psychology of Robert Pickton, how he got caught, details about what became the largest serial killer investigation in Canadian history, and some other absolutely mind-blowing aspects to this case, to this perpetrator, and to the innocent victims. All right. Well,

I'm looking forward to that. We didn't do any of that stuff. The investigation, the psychology, the, you know. Yeah. Well, we talked about what didn't happen, which was the investigation and his ramp up period. This is this, this case definitely at least needs to be a two parter. At least. Sure. Part one is the foundation. I still hope it was interesting, but it was more of a foundation. Oh yeah. And part two, we're going to really, really get into it. It was interesting to me. Cool. Thank you.

All right, so before we stop or before we get to the end of the case, I want to do my little thanks did bits. All right, hit it. Are you ready? Oh, yeah. Okay. So I was watching Fargo the other day. It's kind of a lot of what I've been saying anyway, but I want to like concise it, maybe give like a memorable way to stick to it.

Watching Fargo, there's murders going on in whatever, in the fucking, in Minnesota. And the guy looks at the newspaper, he sees that there's a murder, he closes it, he goes, not the Minnesota I grew up in. Oh, is that like a kids these days type of sentiment? Yeah. And my first thought was, maybe you weren't reading the newspaper because you were eight. What?

Shut the fuck up. It's the same. It's always been the same. To quote the great Tang Sinatra, people have been people forever. Since they've been people. Right. Literally since they've been people. And then I was like, well, you know, circumstantially, yes, there's a big difference. I look at kids today that are alive and I'm like, they have it different. Not better, not worse. They're not better nor worse than we were or than our parents were, their parents.

If you don't think that my dad would have been absolutely fucking glued to an iPad for eight hours a day when he was a kid, you're wrong. There's no way. He was glued to a TV. And before that, they were glued to radios. And before that, they were glued to whatever. And there's a pessimist archive, which I've talked about on here, a Twitter account that just goes through like every time that the media thought civilization was crumbling because now they have writing utensils and it's going to kill talking and, you know, books are going to

abolish creativity. People are dishonest about their past. They romance it. They leave out the worst parts, which is good. You should do that.

To an extent. Not if it's going to make you hate your present. So people who are like, you know, when I was a kid, I know people our age who say this. By the way, I'm 43 years old. I know people my age. I'm not as old. So close. But I know people our age who will be like, fuck, it's these days. When I was a kid, I was out every day fucking 12 hours. No, bro, you weren't. I was playing Nintendo with you, you fucking idiot. Stop. Please stop.

That's a lie. And it's dishonest. And like my younger son, I like that he does this. And I like that we have the ability to remember the best parts of our childhood, but not at the expense of the current child, children, whatever. A bunch of families over here, right? For a thing that we're doing. And my brother-in-law comes over to me. He goes, you guys walk to the end of the block every day before school? And I was like, who said that? He goes, you're a younger son. I go, we did that like twice.

over the past two years. And he's like, Oh, he said you guys did it every day. Oh, that's how he's remembering it. No, I know. And my, like at first I was like, you know, I didn't want to tell him that it wasn't, but my first, my reaction was like, good for him that he thinks that's what we do. That is not what we do. Yeah. It's just sweet. We just don't. But in his mind, he's going to have a good memory of me walking him to the end of the street every day, looking for bugs or whatever else he makes up. Oh,

along the way. And my point is to be honest about your past and be kind to your present. And don't compare the two because it's not an honest comparison. It never is. It never will be. Mm-hmm.

I like that. Yeah. Thank you. So just ease up on yourself right now and the kids that are alive right now because, yeah, it's not the Minnesota you grew up in because you didn't give a shit about anything because you were a kid. You didn't have anything to care about. You didn't need to know about taxes or politics or laws or anything like that. It was none of your concern. So, of course, it was a little bit dreamy and ethereal. Right. Right.

So maybe the other point is that you can bring that back into your life today. Just don't pay such close attention to everything that happens because you have no control over it and it has no bearing on your life at all whatsoever. Well, comparison in general is so toxic. Comparison is the thief of joy. There it is. Who said that? I forget. Well, we can leave off on that because that's strong. All right. Well, if you made it this far, which I'm assuming you did because this case is riveting.

Hold on tight. Maybe subscribe to the podcast, at least temporarily, so that when the second part comes up, you're notified right away. And look for part two. Yeah. Thank you for listening. All right. We'll see you guys next episode. Bye.