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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and... Episode 187. I am your Norwegian host, Tomas Roseland Weyberg Thord. 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.
No judge, no jury, no trial, no mercy. The judge's gavel already fallen, sentence already passed. But you, you sip your coffee, washing down your toast. She was a broken-down angel, a child lost with no place, a human being in disguise. She touched my life. She was somebody.
She was no whore. She was somebody special who just lost her way. She was somebody fighting for life, trying to survive. A lonely lost child who died in the night, all alone, scared, gasping for air. What I just read for you was a poem written by the daughter of one of Robert Pickton's victims.
The daughter's name is Sarah DeVries, and I think her poem succinctly describes this and so many other serial killer cases perfectly. Tonight we continue the saga of the pig farm serial killer, and last episode's detailing of the mundane lives of the Picton brothers give way to horror and death. Enjoy.
As always, I want to publicly thank my elite TSK Producers Club. Their names are...
James, Janine, Jennifer, John, Johnny, Jonathan, Caitlin, Kathy, Christina, Kylie, Lance, Lisa, Lisbeth, Magic Man, Madeline, Meow, Missy, Nick, Oakley, Operation Brownie Pockets, Robert O., Robert R., Russell, Sabina, Skortnia, Scott, Sputnik, The Radio.
Susanna, Trent, Val, and Vanessa, you are the backbone of the Serial Killer podcast, and without you, there would be no show. You have my deepest gratitude. Thank you.
I am forever grateful for my elite TSK Producers Club, and I want to show you that your patronage is not given in vain. All TSK episodes will be available 100% ad-free to my TSK Producers Club on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast. No generic ads, no ad reads, no jingles. I promise.
And of course, if you wish to donate $15 a month, that's only $7.50 per episode, you are more than welcome to join the ranks of the TSK Producers Club too. So don't miss out and join now. The last time anyone saw Nancy Clark, who worked under the street name of Nancy Greek, was on the 22nd of August, 1991, when she was spotted about midnight.
witnesses stated she was working as a prostitute on the corner of Broughton and Gordon Streets in downtown Victoria. She was 25 years old, had a tattoo of lilies and a butterfly on her left wrist. She was white, with brown hair, and lived with her two little girls, one just an eight-month-old baby and the other, Amber, eight years old. Clark disappeared on Amber's birthday.
something that was completely out of character for a woman who was devoted to her children. Nancy's mother, Catherine Dirksen, brought the children to live with her after her daughter disappeared. She told people that little Amber wouldn't let her out of her sight. The daughter kept telling her granny, and I quote, "'I don't want you to go missing like Mommy.'" End quote.
What the police did not know was that just about this time, Robert Pickton had made a rare trip to a Vancouver Island job site with some of the men who worked for his brother, Dave, on demolition projects. They took the ferry, and Robert, a.k.a. Willie, drove his own van, the one without windows.
At the same time as Nancy disappeared, many Aboriginal women and other poor women, often prostitutes, had gone missing in the greater Vancouver area. A task force had been assembled called Project Eclipse, and their findings pointed to at least one active serial killer, perhaps two or three.
Vancouver Police Department did not like their findings at all, and the task force was closed down, and little to nothing came of their findings. It was a fiasco. When asked today about why Vancouver Police was so critical of investigating serious crime like multiple serial killers, the answer was, and I quote,
laziness, lack of resources, the cost, the energy required, but most of all no road map. While the task force had pointed in the direction of perhaps several active serial killers, they had given no recommendations as to what exactly the police should do.
The Vancouver police did not have the first idea how to start and run an investigation into serial killings. Their bluster, bravado, and eye-rolling response to Project Eclipse, in reality disguised plain ignorance.
And so it was, that on the 6th of June, 1992, nine months after the Project Eclipse fiasco, 39-year-old Kathleen Whatley, wearing a yellow blouse and black miniskirt, simply vanished. Kathleen was an attractive and cheerful black woman who was only five feet two inches tall and very slender.
She was working as a prostitute around Main Street and Broadway in Vancouver when she disappeared. Four months later, on the 16th of October, Elsie Sebastian, a 40-year-old Aboriginal woman from the Pachidot First Nation on the west coast of Vancouver Island, also disappeared. She left four grown children, Anne-Marie, Donnelly, Neil and Willie.
They were devastated by the news of their mother's disappearance. Less information is known about the next woman to disappear, Teresa Louise Triff, who was 31 and vanished on the 15th of April 1993. With blonde curly hair and bright blue eyes, Teresa, who had grown up in Edmonton, was a tiny woman, like Kathleen.
Fifteen women vanished without trace from the downtown Eastside in Vancouver between 1979 and 1993. Other women, including several from the downtown Eastside, had been murdered during the same period, but their bodies had been found. Their families knew their fate, and in some cases the killer had been caught and convicted.
But no one knew the fate of the missing women, and women did not stop vanishing. Lee Minor was the 16th woman since 1979 to disappear from downtown Eastside. The next year, on the 19th of August 1994, Angela Arsenault, just 17 years old, with thick black hair and a broad smile,
had been shopping with her boyfriend in downtown Vancouver. After dinner, she climbed on a bus to go home to Burnaby and was never seen again. In the following year, 1995, woke authorities up a bit.
Although she was not technically missing, Jane Doe, the victim whose skull was found in Mission Schlau in February 1995, is counted in this group because the flesh remaining on the skull indicated she had not been dead for long. Including her, there were five in one year. The others were Kathleen Gonzalez, who was 27 years old when she disappeared in March,
Catherine Knight, who was also 27 in April. Dorothy Spence, who was 33 on the 30th of July. And finally, Diana Melnick, 20, who was last seen on the 27th of December and was reported missing two days later. The women who went missing from Vancouver's downtown Eastside called their families all the time.
They called their children to wish them happy birthday. They called their mothers on Mother's Day and their sisters just to gossip. They phoned on Christmas and at New Year's if their families wouldn't let them come to visit. They kept in touch. Then the phone calls simply stopped. Ryan Reynolds here from Int Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down.
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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night.
For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
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Visit BetterHelp.com slash SerialKiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash SerialKiller. The women who vanished from the downtown Eastside area in 1995 were not the community's only victims that year. They were just the ones whose fate was not known.
People were finally talking about a serial killer hunting for victims in the downtown Eastside when, in August 1995, the battered body of 30-year-old Tracy Oliade was found in a wooded area near the Agassiz Mountains, about 50 kilometers east of Vancouver.
Tammy Pipe's body was found three weeks later, on the 6th of September, about nine kilometers from the site where Ulayide's body had been dumped. The third victim in this group, found by a hunter near Mission, was Victoria Yonker, 35.
Each was a prostitute from the downtown east side. Each was an addict, and all three had been living in the Vernon Rooms Hotel at the intersection of Hastings and Vernon. Imagine, if you will, dear listener, the end of March, or early in April in 1996.
A woman we'll call Shelley was in the middle of her shift as a cosmetics salesperson at Shopper's Drug Mart on 4th Avenue in Vancouver's Kitsilano neighborhood. She saw Francis Young, one of her favorite customers, browsing through an aisle of lipstick and nail polish.
"'Hey, Franny. Great to see you,' she said. "'How's it going?' "'It's good, Shelley,' Fran said. "'Really good. I finished my chef's training a little while ago, and I've got a job. I think I'm going to be able to get my act together, finally.' Both women laughed. "'That was the thing about Fran,' Shelley always thought. A good sense of humor mixed with realistic admission of her own failures.'
Shelly had pieced together Fran's tough, sad history. She'd been seeing her in the store for the past five years, and they'd gotten to know each other a bit. Sometimes it's easier to tell your story to a stranger than to a friend. Over the years, Shelly had learned that Fran, who was thirty-six, had been involved in drugs and prostitution for a while.
But now that she had finished her program at the Vancouver Vocational Institute, where she specialized in pastry and desserts, she had a decent job and a new life. Fran loved doing embroidery. She could paint and draw beautifully. She enjoyed her cats and dogs, and she got a kick out of life. Best of all, her family was behind her.
She had a big happy smile that disarmed everyone who met her. She was five feet four inches tall and 110 pounds, just over 50 kilos, with curly light brown hair and blue eyes. She liked to look nice and enjoyed trying different makeup products. She was always interested in Shelley's kids and how work was going.
Her biggest problem was a criminal boyfriend, someone who had for far too long kept her in drugs and petty crime to feed their drug habit. So Shelly prayed that Fran was rid of him. To her, Fran was a friend, not just a customer. And she loved her. Today, Fran had filled her shopping cart by the time Shelly spotted her.
"'Shelly,' Fran asked, "'I don't have enough cash on me for all this stuff. Would it be okay if I wrote a check?' The drugstore manager was less enthusiastic about a personal check. He okayed the check, but warned Shelley that it would be her responsibility if it bounced. Shelley said she was certain it would not bounce. Two days later, the manager called Shelley into his office.'
The check had bounced, and he held her responsible. When Shelley called Fran, she was mortified. Oh no, Shelley, I'm so sorry. Would it be okay to pay in cash? I expect to have some money immediately. Of course, Shelley said. That would be fine. Fran rushed in the next day, full of apologies, with a one-hundred-dollar bill in her hand.
Shelly was trying to brush off her embarrassment, but the manager made things worse. The store had a policy of not accepting $100 bills, he told Fran. Listen, it's okay, Fran said. I'll come back tomorrow with smaller bills. That was fine with everyone. And Fran left the store. Shelly never saw her again. Fran had disappeared for good. Her mother, Patricia, was frantic.
On the 9th of April, 1996, three days after Fran was last seen going out for a walk in the evening, Pat Young reported her daughter missing to the Vancouver police. There was nothing they could do, they told her. But after a great deal of nagging on Pat's part, they did eventually produce a missing woman poster to be put up all around town. Tanya Marlowe Holick was the next woman to vanish.
Born to an Aboriginal family on the 8th of December 1975, Tanya had lived for a year with her sister Kathy and her husband Gary Hall in Klemtu, a tiny fishing and hunting village of 450 people who could get out only on a ferry. They were at least 160 kilometers from a provincial road.
Tanya's mother, Dorothy Purcell, who was always called Dixie, had moved to Vancouver years earlier. Tanya left Klemtu when she was 16 to return to her mother. Tanya was also a lovely girl of 5 feet 6 inches tall. She was slim, at 115 pounds, just over 50 kilograms, with long black curly hair and deep brown eyes.
Three years after she moved to Vancouver, Tanya, who was using drugs heavily and working as a prostitute, she met her boyfriend Gary, who got her pregnant. Not long after the baby was born, her relationship with Gary went sour and she moved away, taking her baby with her. She was happy to move someplace where she could make a fresh start and get treatment for her addictions.
When Tanya did not return home on the 1st of November, her mother felt certain that something terrible had happened. She tried to file a missing person report with the Vancouver Police Department, but they were not interested. The last woman from the downtown Eastside to disappear in 1996 was Olivia Williams, whose family lived in Burns Lake.
She was just 22 years old, hopelessly addicted and working as a prostitute. Like Tanya Holick, she lived at the Vernon Rooms. The last time anyone saw her was the 6th of December. She had chubby cheeks and a sweet child's face with long brown hair and brown eyes. Olivia Williams is one of the least known of the missing women of the downtown Eastside.
Four women disappeared in 1996, and one woman almost shared their fate. Her name is Tracy Buyan, and her tale sheds light on what really was going on. Tracy had lived at the Astoria Hotel for a while and used to see him there all the time.
He was a famous john in the neighborhood, she said. Miss Truck was a familiar sight, cruising up and down the side streets. Tracy's regular spot in those days was the southeast corner of Oppenheimer Park. She was always easy to spot because of her height. She was at least five feet ten inches tall. That's well over one hundred and seventy centimetres.
as well as her deep red hair, usually piled in tumbled curls on top of her head, and her endearing passion for stylish clothes. She always wore high boots, bright jackets and scarves, tight pants or a skirt, and carefully applied makeup. She lived with her husband, an addict like her, in a small room a block away, where he would wait for her to bring home food, money, and dope.
All she longed for was to kick her habit, get clean, and go home to Victoria to see her five kids. If she could stay clean, she promised herself, she might, just might, get them back. Tracy had a steady list of regulars, but Robert Pickton was not one of them. So she was surprised when he swung by one night in his truck and pulled over.
At first, she did not suspect anything odd. Robert wanted a blowjob, so she told him it would cost him forty dollars. When she climbed into his truck, she recoiled and almost fell out again. The stench inside was palpable. It was a stench of decay, rot, and animals. She needed the money. So she went inside and buckled up. Robert drove to his trailer home, and when they got inside—
"'Tresi noticed that it was not only his truck that was horrible. "'The stench in the truck was also in the trailer. "'The floor was covered in garbage and dirt. "'At first Robert wanted them to go to the back of the trailer, "'but there was so much debris in the way that Tresi convinced him "'she could suck him off in the kitchen area by the door. "'After he had finished, she spit out his sperm on a dirty towel he gave her.'
Then she noticed a shift in his demeanor. He suddenly started talking about how he could not find his wallet. Looking angrily at her, he pulled out a knife and lashed at her while demanding to know where it was. Tracy managed to back out of the trailer and stayed calm. After a short while, Robert came out as well, no longer wielding a knife, but holding her purse and wallet. On the way back to town, Robert started talking to Tracy.
He chatted about how he liked helping working girls and liked helping them get to kick their drug habit. But he gave them only one chance, he told her. Then he said, and I quote, If they go back to dope, well then, they don't deserve to live. They're useless. They're better off dead. End quote.
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And so ends part two in the Robert Pickton saga.
We'll continue this series in the next episode. So as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. What follows is a message to my dear Norwegian listeners in Norwegian. Serimordepodden har lansert i det du hører dette sin sjette episode. Sagaen om Jeffrey Dahmer er ferdig, og en fersk ny følgetong er lansert. Denne gangen ingen ringer en BTK, som nå har kommet til sin andre episode.
Finally, I wish to thank you, dear listener, for listening. If you like this podcast, you can support it by donating on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast, by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, facebook.com slash the SK podcast, or by posting on the subreddit the SK podcast. Thank you. Good night.
Good luck.
