True Crime Friday: Robert William Pickton, the Pig Farmer Serial Killer
Robert William Pickton was born October 24, 1949 in Canada. He is known as one of the most prolific serial killer the nation of Canada has ever known. Willy as he was known, added a special ingredient to his pork products. It was the bodies or body parts of women. He preyed upon sex workers as his preferred target. This case became one of the most embarrassing police investigation to hit Canada. The police as in most cases of the less dead people failed the women and protected a serial killer. Between 1995 and 2001 Willy Pickton is believed to have murdered at least forty nine women of which many of them were sex workers or drug addicted. He was convicted of six murders with no possibility of parole for 25 years. It was the longest sentence that could be given at the time by Canadian law. He died in prison on May 31, 2024. He was stabbed to death by another prisoner.
The Early Childhood of Robert “Willy” Pickton
It was not a harmonious childhood to say the least. Willy and his brother David were teased at school for smelling like feces from the farm. The parents did not teach the kids the importance of hygiene. The kids wore dirty and bloody clothes to school from working on the farm sun up to sun down. They were called stinky piggy’s by their classmates. His mother and father were abusive to the children. They sent the daughter away to live with relatives because they did not think farm life was a place for a young girl to live. Leonard Pickton and Louise Pickton were pig farmers in British Columbia. Although both parents were abusive to their children Willy had a great affection for his mother Louise. Willy was put in a special class after failing two grade levels. He did not have much love given to him so at the age of twelve he began to raise a calf which was his beloved pet. His father killed the calf and hung it up in a meat locker for Willy to find. Willy was distraught at finding out that his dad had killed his pet. It was at this time that Willy decided that life did not really mean anything.He dropped out of school in 1963 as a teenager. He began to work in the family business as a butcher. In 1978 and 1979, the parents died and the siblings inherited the pig farm. The inheritance made them all wealthy but Willy and his brother still lived in squalor. They sold some parts of the farm for over five million dollars. It was around this time that a farm worker named Bill Hiscox called the police to report a number of women disappearing from the farm never to be seen again.
Pickton had a 612 pound boar that roamed the farm. This was his pet boar. People who knew Pickton said that he was an odd duck. He abused drug which also contributed to this bizarre behavior. Pickton became even wealthier by selling parts of his farmland to developers. He hosted parties for the Hell’s Angels which mostly consisted of sex workers and drug addicted women. The majority of the missing women were Indigenous and it seemed that no one cared except the local newspapers who began reporting on the missing women and if there was a serial killer on the loose. Although, Willy Pickton had been reported to the police as a possible serial killer the police did not act upon the information because the people that reported the serial killer were people the police felt would not make good witnesses. So he just kept on killing.
Willy Pickton was charged with the attempted murder of Wendy Lynn Eistetter. He stabbed her four times during an altercation at the Pig farm. Wendy told the authorities that Pickton tried to handcuffed her and stabbed her repeatedly. She managed to get the weapon from him and stabbed him several times. He fell to the ground from the wounds and Wendy was able to get help from a couple driving by the scene. Wendy Eistetter recovered at the nearest emergency room.
The attempted murder charges against Pickton was dropped because Eistetter had a drug addiction and prosecutors believed her too unstable for her testimony to help secure a conviction. This decision would be a big embarrassment for the police. They had the chance to stop a serial killer but because of their biases against certain types of people, he was allowed to continue killing women. An employee of Pickton found several purses belonging to the missing women from the Downtown Eastside and reported Pickton to the police, the police conducted three searches of the farm and yet found no evidence to arrest Pickton. The police received another tip that Pickton had a freezer full of human flesh in his farmhouse but the police ignored that tip as well.
The Less Dead Theory Was Clear In This Instance
There was significant public outcry the way the police investigations were conducted. The police was blamed for years of inadequate and failed investigations for allowing Pickton to prey undetected for years on women in the sex trade on Vancouver's troubled Downtown Eastside. The critical police failing’s showed patterns of error that went unchecked and uncorrected over several years. Pickton mixed the bodies of these women in his meat products and sold them to an unsuspecting public for over twenty years. At that time, the Pickton Farm sold the majority of meat products to the markets for public consumption.The Victims of Robert “Willy” Pickton
- Sereena Abotsway, 29
- Mona Lee Wilson, 26
- Andrea Joesbury, 22
- Brenda Ann Wolfe, 32
- Georgina Faith Papin, 34
- Marnie Lee Anne Frey, 24
- Jacquelene Michelle McDonell, 22
- Dianne Rosemary Rock, 34
- Heather Kathleen Bottomley, 27
- Jennifer Lynn Furminger, 28
- Helen Mae Hallmark, 20
- Patricia Rose Johnson, 25
- Heather Gabrielle Chinnock, 30
- Tanya Holyk, 23,
- Sherry Leigh Irving, 24
- Inga Monique Hall, 46
- Tiffany Louise Drew, 27
- Sarah Jean de Vries, 29
- Cynthia "Cindy" Feliks, 43
- Angela Rebecca Jardine, 27
- Diana Melnick, 23
- Mission Jane Doe
- Debra Lynne Jones, 42
- Wendy Crawford, 43
- Kerry Lynn Koski, 38
- Andrea Fay Borhaven, 25
- Cara Louise Ellis, 25
- Mary Ann Clark, 25
- Stephanie Lane, 20
- Dawn Teresa Crey, 42
- Yvonne Marie Boen, 33
The Survivors of Robert “Willy” Pickton
- Wendy Eistetter
- CeeJai Julian
- And countless of unnamed survivors