Robert Pickton

Robert Pickton
Pickton in 1996
Born
Robert William Pickton

(1949-10-24)October 24, 1949
Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada
DiedMay 31, 2024(2024-05-31) (aged 74)
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Conviction(s)Second-degree murder (×6)
Criminal penaltyLife imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 25 years
Details
Victims6 convicted
27 charged
49 confessed
Span of crimes
1978–2001
CountryCanada
Date apprehended
February 22, 2002

Robert William Pickton (October 24, 1949 – May 31, 2024), also known as the Pig Farmer Killer or the Butcher, was a Canadian serial killer and pig farmer. After dropping out of school, he left a butcher's apprenticeship to begin working full-time at his family's pig farm, and inherited it in the early 1990s.

Between 1995 and 2001, Pickton is believed to have murdered at least 26 women, many of them sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Pickton would confess to 49 murders to an undercover RCMP officer disguised as a cellmate, going on to say he wanted to make it an even 50, but thought he was caught because he got "sloppy".[1][2][3] In 2007, he was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years—the longest possible sentence for second-degree murder under Canadian law at the time.[4][5]

In 2010, the Crown attorney officially stayed the remaining 20 murder charges, allowing previously unrevealed information to be made available to the public, including that Pickton previously had a 1997 attempted murder charge dropped.[6] Crown prosecutors reasoned that staying the additional charges made the most sense, since Pickton was already serving the maximum sentence allowable.[6]

The discovery of Pickton's crimes sparked widespread outrage and forced the Canadian government to acknowledge the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women,[7] with the British Columbia provincial government forming the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry to examine the role of the police in the matter.[8] Pickton died in 2024 after being attacked in prison by another inmate.[9][10]

  1. ^ Butts, Edward (October 8, 2020). "Robert Pickton Case". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Archived from the original on January 10, 2024. Retrieved May 30, 2024. While Pickton was being held in jail in Surrey, British Columbia, he shared a cell with an undercover RCMP officer he believed to be another detainee.
  2. ^ "Crown says Pickton confessed to killing 49". CTVNews. January 22, 2007. Archived from the original on June 7, 2023. Retrieved May 30, 2024.
  3. ^ "Pickton butchered 6 women, Crown tells jury". CBC. January 22, 2007. Archived from the original on September 17, 2013. Retrieved January 22, 2007.
  4. ^ "Indictment document". Archived from the original on October 7, 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  5. ^ "AU Serial-killing pig farmer gets life". "ABC. December 12, 2007. Archived from the original on February 23, 2011. Retrieved February 10, 2011.
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Chad Skelton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cui, Leigh-Anne (August 13, 2021). "View of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in the Case of Canadian Serial Killer Robert Pickton". Voices of Forensic Science. 1 (2): 29–37. Archived from the original on December 24, 2023. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  8. ^ Inquiry, British Columbia. Missing Women Commission of (2012). Forsaken. Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. ISBN 978-0-9917299-7-5.
  9. ^ Judd, Amy (May 31, 2024). "Serial killer Robert Pickton dead following beating in Quebec prison". Global News. Archived from the original on May 31, 2024. Retrieved May 31, 2024.
  10. ^ Brockman, Charles (May 31, 2024). "B.C. serial killer Robert Pickton dead after prison attack". CityNews Vancouver. Archived from the original on May 31, 2024. Retrieved May 31, 2024.