The Most Notorious Serial Killer in Canadian History | The Pig Farmer Murders
35:40 Share

On may twenty first twenty twenty four, canada's most notorious serial killer drew his final breath twelve daily y's prior Robert Willy picked in IT was seventy four at the time, was attacked by a fellow inmate equates maximum security port cartier institution wiley was alone in a specialized unit or at risk inmates when fifty one year old Martin Spike shares snuck up and guard the back of his head with a broken room Mandal he teetered between life and death for the next several hours.

Emergency surgery brought him back from the brink, but he d have to remain on life support, and he was unlikely to recover will. He had a chance, and a chance was more than he deserved. He never gave any of the forty nine women he allegedly killed a chance.

Society didn't give them much of one either, between nineteen ninety five and two thousand, one wally abducted, raped and murdered r confirmed twenty six women from vancouver's downtown east side, known back then as the low track. While in jail, he claimed to have killed forty nine is only regret, was not making IT in even fifty. But how does one kill over two dozen people on their property without leaving a trace? The answer is quite simple and boils down to one word, pigs.

Willy picked in and his brother David owned and Operated a vast pig farm in court coquet lumb, british columbia, a remote region about seventeen miles east vancouver. Picture the most wild man you've ever met. Now cover that man and dirt, make him smell like a wet pig and give them a moral compass that only points towards his sexual desires.

That was willie and his brother David. In a nutshell, while Willy paid for his crimes with a lifetime jail sentence, David has gotten off, got free as one former vancouver police detective put IT. It's been an open secret for more than twenty years that these murders were not committed solely by the hands of Robert picked on.

The only trouble is proving that secret. David, as consistently denied any knowledge of his brother's crimes. Somehow he never noticed all the sex workers really brought to their farm.

And if he did in every question, why he never saw them leaving. Sadly, David bit ton wasn't the only one turning a blind eye to these women. Canada has a long, well documented problem regarding justice for indigenous women.

According to alleged government inquiry in twenty nineteen, they face disproportionate violence, mainly due to state actions and inactions rooted in colonels m and colonial ideologies. That same document would classify the thousands of murdered and missing canadian women over the past century as a genocide. Did wily picked in target these women because they were readily available? Or did he target them strategically, knowing police were unlikely to investigate their cases? Perhaps IT was a mix of both.

Part one, a mother's love willie picked in, was born in october nineteen forty nine to coquin pig farmers lands and luis n. He was the middle of three children, but only he and David grew up on the farm. Their parents send their older sister, Linda, to live with relatives and vancouver to them.

Pig farm was no place to raise a little girl, especially one run by Louis picton. By all accounts, will's mother ruled the farm with an iron fist. SHE put her boys to work at a Young age and forced them to put pig farming ahead of everything else, even personal hygiene cording to some sources.

When ever really wanted to escape his mother, he'd crawl into a recently gutted pig. Cark is to hide. He also had an irrational fear of showers, as his mother only allowed the boys to take booths.

Perhaps showers were seen as a waste of water. As for their father, little is known about lender to pick in source's claim he was an abusive man with him. Willy had a little international.

After long mornings on the farm, the west would send the boys to school in their same rank, clothing they smelled like manual, thus earning the nickname stinky piggy in class. Wily fell behind in school and spent several years in special education classes. He eventually drop out part way through high school to dedicate himself full time to the farm.

As you can imagine, he struggled in the dating world as no girls could put up with his hord smell. The smell also kept Willy from making friends. When he was twelve, his only friend was a small cafe he was raising on the side.

Sadly, that friendship didn't last very long. One day, Willy came home from school to find his friend gutted skin and hanging in the barn. It's unclear who killed the cafe, but most believe Louis did IT to prove a point.

Nothing was more important than the family and the farm. Another story of motherly love involves the news. And David IT was october sixth nineteen nineteen sixty seven, eight days after William's eighteen th birthday.

David was sixteen, and I just obtained his driver's license. That night, around seven forty pm, he took his father's truck from the farm and drove east down the minion avenue towards burns road in port equipment. Up ahead, one of the local boys, fourteen year old timmy barret, was walking down the street.

It's unclear how would happen, but David allegedly veered off the road in, struck timmy. He didn't die on in bad good if he didn't get help read away. As the story goes, David panic and drove home.

He told Louis what happened, and he insisted on going to the accident side. When they arrived, Louis found the mango teenage boy barely clinging to life. But instead of calling and ambuLance are taking him to the hospital, luis kicked him over the road and into a water.

Redick, unable to move, timmy landed face down and drown. Luis went home while David took the truck to a local mechanic. So had worked on the picture families cars before the mechanic allegedly fixed the date and a broke in turn signal but refused to report the area where David hit timmy.

Meanwhile, tim's parents were worried sick when he didn't come home. His father, phillip, called all his neighbors asking if they'd seen his boy around one I am. He went to the local police station to report his son missing.

They searched until the morning, at which point phillip spotted one of timmy shoes along the road. IT wasn't long before they found the body. Although he suffered a fractured skull and a dislocated belva, his injuries weren't enough to kill him.

He drowned to death after Louis allegedly kicked him into the ditch. David did end up in juvenile court after the mechanic came forward and told police about fixing the picked and family car, but because he was a minor, those records are sealed and it's unclear what kind of punishment David faced. As for Louis, he was never charged with any crimes related to timmy barret's death.

The truth was more like a rumor among neighbors. Willy confirmed the story later in life, but there is no hard proof that had ever happened. David could have just as easily struck to me, causing him to fall into the ditch and drown.

Part two, millionaire lennard and Louis picked passed away between one thousand seventy eight and one thousand and seventy nine upon their deaths. The farm and all the picton family assets passed to Willy, David and lynda, who were in their midst late thirties at the time. Instead of nurturing and passing their families legacy onto the next generation, the picked in siblings sold most of the land for five point one six million canadian dollars rally.

And David only maintained a small plot to keep farming as a stable income. The land went toward urban development. If you look at google maps today, you'll see dozens of middle class homes surrounding the pig farm.

It's unclear if their owners knew they are living a few hundred feet away from a mass grave. They may not have looked like IT, but William David quickly became the wealthiest men in port coquet land. They bought a salvage company and spend most of their cash throwing wild drug field parties at the pig farm.

One of their barns turned into an ad hot nigh club called biggest palace, where local elites would mix with health Angels and low track prostitutes. In one thousand hundred and ninety six, William David launched pig's palace gold times society, the federally registered charity, was supposed to raise funds through events such as dancers and shows. But IT was just a cover for their wild parties.

At times, upwards of seventeen hundred people would show up for a pig's baLance event. Neighbors complained about the noise, rampant drug use and strung out prostitutes roaming through their loans. Most, if not all, of those prostitutes came from vancouver's downtown eastside, also known as low track.

Low track has been called the skid role of canada as one writer puts IT no other slum or get to in the country matches the squalor of this ten block urban waitee band. The sidewalks are cracked and stained and covered with tense and sleeping bags. There's a run down hotel or a pond shop on every corner.

Garbage needles and used condoms cover most of the ally ways. At its peak, low tracks, junky population ranged from five thousand to ten thousand people. Crack and heroin were their drugs of choice, with most of IT coming from biker gangs and asian cartels, most of the female addicts, and likely some of the men, supported their drug habit through prostitution.

A writer from the seattle times described the woman as haunted scheduled creatures living off the Jenny crack diet. The words safe and sex were never used together. According to reports, low track boosted the highest HIV rate in all of north amErica in the nineties. When Willy picton was on the pro. The truly sick and twisted can have the low tracks infamous kittie straw, where they can pray on prostitutes as Young as eleven years old.

In fact, one thousand nine hundred ninety five survey of low tracks street girls revealed that seventy three percent and the sex trade children, the same percentage, were unwed mothers with an average of three kids, each of them, ninety percent had lost their babies to the state, and fewer than half knew whether children ended up. Many of low tracks prostitutes were born and raised outside of vancouver. They came to the city seeking adventure, what persued into a world of drugs, to gravity and early death.

Sadly, most of these women are of indigenous descent. A survey taken between one thousand and ninety nine and two thousand, one revealed that violent acts against these women were common place. They were robbed, beaten, kidnapped and raped.

Then a general distrust of local police would prevent them from reporting these crimes. IT was a vicious cycle that Willy picked and slid right into. He became familiar with low track whenever he drove his converted bus to a local rendering plant to dispose of animal waste and parts on his way home.

He drive the ten blocks strip and offer women money and drugs to come back with him. Police say William's killing spring began in ninety ninety five, so there's reason to believe IT started much sooner. Missing and murdered low track women take back to one thousand nine hundred and seventy eight.

And while Willy is responsible for a significant portion, dozens more cases remain unsolved. Part three, the missing low tracks. Sex workers aren't the easiest people to study.

They are an elusive group by nature. They may use fake names and false addresses. And as you can imagine, most aren't willing to talk to the police. Many of them were run away, so when they went missing, IT wasn't unreasonable to assume theyd simply ran away again. It's hard to say if they vanished by choice or due to fell play.

The issue of missing women got so bad in the late nineteen seventies that the vancouver police department launched a dedicated task force aimed at compiling names and closing cold cases. Dozens of names were added to the list throughout the thousand nine hundred eighties as drugs became more prevalent on the vancouver streets. The first of these names was Rebecca O, A twenty three year old.

He was last seen alive three days before anyone reported missing. Next was forty three year old Sherry rail, who hadn't been seen in three years. In march of one thousand nine hundred eighty six, thirty three year old elan hour box told her friends SHE was moving to seattle.

SHE never arrived and was reported missing in mid April to risa, and Williams was among the first native canadian women to be reported missing. SHE was last seen in july one thousand and eighty eight, but wasn't reported missing until march one thousand nine hundred eighty nine. In many of these early cases, the gaps made IT hard, if not impossible, for police to transact last movements.

By the mid nineties, dozens of vancouver women had already gone missing, never to be heard from or seen again. Some were lucky enough to escape low track to build Better lives elsewhere. Most were not, and almost all we're forgotten by the year two thousand.

The official search began in september of one thousand and ninety eight, when native groups demanded the royal canadian mounted police to do something about vancouver's missing and murdered women. By the time police made their first arrest in two thousand one, the list had balloon to fifty four names. It's unclear who this arrested party was that we assume police couldn't link him to all the missing women between one thousand nine hundred and eighty three and the new millennium.

They didn't know if several men or women were acting alone or if they had a serial killer on their hands. Police refused to admit the latter at the time, nor did they pay the theory any regard when pressed on the issue, inspector gary greer told reporters, we're in no way saying there is a serial murdered out there. After receiving a punitive emotion, the only detective who believed that the serial killer angle was worth expLoring resigned from the R, C mp to play devils s advocate.

The R C mp didn't believe a soul suspect could be committing all of these kidnappings and murders. IT was more likely that dozens of men were abusing their power over these women. They knew the girls wouldn't go to the police no matter how badly they beat, raped and robb them.

Low track was a vicious cycle of mistrust and misinformation Willy picked and thrived under the circumstances. He was the mass murderer the police refused to acknowledge he was the buggy's, the shadow, the big farmer killer and the Operated with impunity until one thousand and ninety eight when a drug addicted gambler er spilled the beans on piggy baLance. Part four, one step ahead.

In late one thousand nine ninety eight, thirty seven year old bill, his cox, came to the R C M P task force with crucial information on his employers Willy and David. Victim bill was a widowers who d fAllen hard on drugs, alcohol and gambling. His sister pulled in from the gutters and got him a job at P.

N, B, salvage. And si a small city southeast of vancouver, William David owned pnb salvage. Whenever bill needed to pick up his paycheck, he drive to the pig farm, which he described as a creepy looking place.

For starters, the picture n brothers didn't have guard dogs. Instead, they had a six hundred pounds board that patrolled the grounds and chased away would be intruders. Unfortunately, bill wasn't telling the police anything they didn't already know. Both picked and brothers had been on their radar for some time. They just weren't suspects.

In the case of vancouver's murdered and missing women, they should have been now in one thousand nine and ninety two, David picton was convicted of sexual assault and given thirty days 是 along with a one thousand dollar fine for the multimillionaire。 IT was a slap on the rist. According to the victim, David attacked her in his trailer on the pig farm.

SHE only escape when someone walked by and interacted David momentarily shortly after starting piggies pound is good time society. The picked in siblings were back in court for violating the city's zoning ordinances without getting too deep in the weeds. They were in trouble for throwing wild parties on the property, which was only zoned for farming use.

In other words, you can just throw a two thousand person party in your barn and call a charity. The parties ended after new years eve, one thousand and ninety eight, when siblings were slapped with an injunction banning all future parties at piggie baLance. The good time society finally lost its charity status in two thousand when the picked and brothers could not prove they had done anything charitable.

The most serious running came three years prior, when Willy picked in was charged with attempted murder. IT was march twenty second nineteen nineteen ninety seven, when an ice staff was a drug addicted, low track sex worker who'd gone with Willy to the pig farm. By all accounts, he is the only person who survived an encounter with Willy at the biggie baLance.

The following is her version of events. IT began on the corner of princess and cordova in the heart of downtown eastside. Willy picked and pulled up in his red pick up and asked windy, who was thirty at the time, how much for oral sex? SHE quoted him at forty dollars.

Willy wanted more. He paid a one hundred dollars to accompanying to his farm and promise to have her back on the corner. I want, I am desperate. When he went, according to Wendy, his trailer was a pig die, a budgery knife was in plane view on the kitchen table. He remembers IT vividly as IT seemed out of place.

They entered the back bedroom, but there was no bed, just a sleeping bag on the floor and a long role of plastic that resembled a rolled up rug. Willy pulled one hundred dollars from his pocket and exchanged IT with Wendy for a condom. They had sex for all of five minutes before getting dressed when he went to the bathroom and injected a speedily, all the mix of heroes en and cocaine.

SHE, however, missed the vain and didn't get high. Then he asked to use released phone, but he refused. He said, the last girl he LED borrow the phone made several expensive long distance calls. Instead, he driver to a gas station where he could use a payphone next SHE asked to see a telephone book in case the one on the payphone was missing.

As he leaned over to read IT, SHE could feel picked in, standing closed behind her when SHE spent around, picked and grab the rist and slap the hand cup on IT Wendy went into fight or flight SHE remembred the butcher's knife on the table and kept stepping backward until he was close enough to reach IT. SHE picked IT up and slashed IT Willy sitting is grow IT wasn't enough to kill him, though, instead IT only angered him further. The attacker with a long stick while he picked up everything he could to throw at him.

SHE ran for a window but couldn't escape. That's when really grabbed the butchers nigh and plunging IT into her stomach. SHE blacked out.

And the next thing he knew, they were standing by willie truck, and he was holding the knife once more. Somehow he slipped away and began running down the road. SHE tried a neighbor's house, but nobody answer.

Then SHE saw approaching headlights and flagged down the driver. The driver, bryan stride. Leski later told police that when he was covered in blood and at a large kitchen type knife in her hand and what appeared to be a hand cup on her left wrist, k.

SHE claimed sh'd been stabbed and was begging for help when they arrived at royal columbian and hospital via ambuLance. Around two A M. Doctors treated her for two severe stab loons to the abdon.

SHE had several slashes on her hands and arms and a single stab wound on the right side, which had punched along. When he arrived. He had lost three leaders of blood and had no pose. It's a miracle they were able to save her life. About an hour later, kicked and arrived at the same hospital.

Having also lost three leaders of blood, doctors treated him for a large cut on the left side of his neck and the top of his left ARM while in the trauma room, and orderly found a key and picked and pants pocket. He took IT to where Wendy was staying, tried on the handcuff s attached to the left wrist. They fell right off.

Willy was arrested and charged with attempted murder. However, the charges fell through because Wendy was considered unreliable and incompetent due to her drug habit. Willy claim ed he was just a random hitchhiker who attacked him and that he was only defending himself for bill, his cox.

The stabbing incident confirmed everything he feared to be true about. Willy picked in IT, explained why people kept finding women's clothes, ideas and paperwork scattered around the farm. Unfortunately, bill hadn't seen any of IT for himself.

IT was on here, say, meaning police couldn't obtain a search warrant. Meanwhile, the killings ramped up between two thousand and two thousand. One twelve more women vanished off the streets.

The only glimmer of hope, if you could call IT, that is the speed at which these women were reported missing. For example, forty three year old debris in Jones was last scene on december twenty first two thousand, and reported missing on Christmas day. The record holder was twenty four year old heather boomy, who was reported missing the same day.

SHE ve vanished. Still nothing brought to the police. Closer to Willy picked in. Then everything changed. In two thousand. Two, when a former picked in family truck driver ratted on William David regarding illegal guns, they kept on the property.

Part five, the body farm, the drug drivers s eyewitness account of illegal guns on the pic and pig form was enough for the R, C, M, P to obtain a search warned on february fifth, two thousand, two officers raided the property, finding way more than a few illegal firearms. Personal items belonging to dozens of missing women turned up, including perses, ID jewelry and body parts. William David were arrested on weapons charges, but police continued the search.

On february twenty second, will. He was hit with his first murder charge after police found personal items belonging to Serena abbots way and mono Wilson. Three more charges came in early April for the murder of the clean mcDonald, dian rock and heather bottom ly.

Each week brought another three or four murder charges against willie picked in DNA evidence helped police identify the few bones and body parts that remained by late may two thousand five. Well, he was staring at twenty seven first degree murder charges. IT was during these searches that police learned how picked and disposed of his victims IT either take the bodies to a nearby meat rendering plant or grind them up and feed them to his pigs.

In two thousand four, the british colombian health authority said picked in may have mixed human flesh with pigmeat that he later sold to the public. In a later statement, the department said the risk to human health for those who consumed the products is extremely remote based on the fact most poor products are typically well cooked, which is known to effectively destroy most infectious agents. As for how he killed these victims, Willy would either hand cuffin stabbed to death or inject them with anti freeze.

The latter would explain the syringing es of blue liquid police found lying around the pig farm while police raided his home. Wiley was locked up in seri, british columbia. He shared to sell with an undercover R, C, M, P officer, oh, as a fellow detainee.

During their chance, Willy confessed to killing forty nine women, is only regret, was not making IT, and even fifty. Ultimately, the picture pig farm RAID became the largest crime scene in canadian history. Investigators collected two hundred thousand DNA samples and seized six hundred thousand exhibits.

Forensic experts also used heavy machines to move three hundred thirty eight thousand cubic yards of soil in all the RAID, and investigation cost the canadian government seventy million dollars. Part six trial of the century the pig farmer's trial began on january thirty of two thousand six, nearly four years after the initial RAID on William David's property. Wiley faced twenty seven counts of first degree murder to which he pleaded not guilty.

The prosecution, meanwhile, believed they had enough evidence to send Willy to prison for the rest of his life. In fact, they may have had too much evidence. IT took another year to pass what would be shown to the jury and what wouldn't some of that evidence included an asthma inhaler or belonging to Serena abbott's way? Then there was mono Wilson's DNA found inside his trailer home.

According to a fox news report, police found human body parts and freezers used to store unsold meat. They also discovered remains in a woodchipper. This is where the victim's bodies were turned into pig feed.

The toronto star reported that Willy would entice these women until his property with food, drugs and wild sex parties. Police feared that the food Willy was serving was the grounds up remains of past victims. According to police, they found a loaded twenty two calibre revolver with a dildo strapped over the barrel.

Wally claims he used IT as a makeshift silencer, which would be highly unlikely to work, if not impossible. The most compelling evidence included the thirty unique DNA samples found around pictur's farm. Of them, twenty seven matched women on the missing person's list.

The other three were never identified. Well, his excuse was that these women were prostitutes. Of course, their DNA wound up all over his farm.

Thankfully, that excuse only worked for one of the twenty seven cases. IT was thrown out, leaving wall with twenty six first degree murder charges. Six, we're compelling and twenty required more investigation.

So the judge split the charges into two groups to ensure a timely trial. Wally would stand trial for the first six, and the other two would be delayed until August twenty ten. During Willy's initial trial, the jury watched multiple video tapes in which the farmer implicated himself in his crimes.

In one his body, Scott advises him on a good way to kill heroin addicts, injecting them with windshield washing fluid in another pick, and talks about handcuff ing prostitutes, struggling them, leading them and then gutting them before feeding them to his pigs. The final piece, feeding them to pigs, dominated headlines in canada and greater north america. But is IT practical, are pigs and effective wave covering up a murder? The answer is yes to next time bigs will eat just about anything you put in front of them.

That includes people. And there are several well documented cases from around the world to prove IT. In two thousand twelve, sixty nine year old organ farmer Terry garner went to feed his pigs and never returned.

When is concerned family weren't looking for him, all they found. Where is dancers and pieces of his body. They believed Terry suffered some kind of medical emergency.

He lost consciousness, fell in to the big band and was overwhelmed by his seven hundred bound hogs. In twenty nineteen, a russian woman suffered an epileptic attack while feeding her pigs. SHE collapsed in the pen, and the hungry hoves began eating her face, ears and shoulders.

Twenty four hours later, her husb found her mall to death in the pig pen. In twenty and fifteen, a remaining I N farmer bled to death after being attacked by his pigs. His family claims he suffered a heart attack and fell into the pen.

In twenty fourteen, a two year old chinese boy was killed and partially eaten by pigs after crawling into a pig pen during a game of hide seek, according to the daily mail. And aggressive mom, pig attack him while trying to protect her piglets. Organized crime syndicate have been using pigs for centuries.

In two thousand and thirteen, a mob boss was eaten alive when members of arrival family fed him to the hawks. In real degenerated, drug traffickers are known to raise hogs for the sole purpose of body disposal, the only things pigs cannot digest, our teeth, large bone fragments and hair. They'll also throw up foreign objects like dancers, face makers and hearing aides.

Otherwise, it'll take a pick about two days to consume. And human body, I don't go throwing your dead bodies to the hogs just yet. The method doesn't really work anymore in the twenty first century.

That's because pigs can't destroy DNA. Police are also wise to the technique. If you own a pig farm and are suspected of murder, you best believe we'll check the pen back in canada.

The public was in for the shock of a lifetime when Willy pipin was found not guilty of first degree murder. Instead, the jury found him guilty on six counts of second degree murder. Why does that matter? Well, in canada, the maximum penalty for second degree murder is life with the possibility of parole after twenty five years.

Willy was sentenced in december two thousand seven, meaning he'd be eligible for parole in twenty thirty two. After his sentence, canada decided to discontinue the two remaining murder charges. If they couldn't get first degree on the compelling six, they never get IT on the week or twenty.

Some of the victim's families appreciated the decision. They were already in enough pain and didn't want to relieve everything they've been going through for decades. Others, however, believe IT was a miscarriage of justice that canada simply didn't feel like spending the money to try.

Willy picked in on his remaining charges. Part seven, lasting legacy Willy picked and may have been in jail, but that doesn't mean life and low track got any Better. In twenty ten, british columbia jumped head first into the R.

C. Mp handling of the pipin case. In their final report, they stated that battened failures by police air with prejudice against sex trade workers and indigenous women LED to a tragedy of epic proportions in the victim aftermath.

Then google police enacted several policy changes regarding their missing person's unit. For star, the unit would become an official branch of the department. Investigations must begin without delay, and family members will receive regular updates regarding their case.

The case file is also kept open until the person is located dead or alive. As for David pick, and he maintains that he had no idea where he was lowering prostitutes back to the farm, killing them and feeding them to his pigs. In a twenty twenty four interview, he described his life as a never ending nightmare.

The divorced father of two grown children now lives in a family home about a mile from the old farm. As for that farm, the barn and slaughterhouse have been torn down. Will he's old? Trailer is also gone.

If you look on google maps, you'll see an empty plot covered entire tracks from where machines used convey belts to shift the soil for human remains. It's a graveyard surrounded by life on all sides. Families live in modern middle class homes.

There is a wedding planner, a home deep bow and an add home photography studio. They all live within one square mile of the worst crime scene and canadian history. Some can even stand on their porches and gaze over the empty graveyard.

On may nineteen, twenty twenty four, Willy was attacked in prison. He, blood profuse late, fell into a coma and died about two weeks later. On may thirty first, the big farmer saga was over, but his legacy is ever lasting. He likely go down as the worst serial killer in canadian history, assuming somebody doesn't surpass his record.