17: EPISODE 17 // Robert Willie Pickton: Part One

In this episode, Amanda and Kristen will be discussing serial killer Robert Willie Pickton. Robert Pickton, a pig farmer, is Canada’s most prolific and gruesome serial killer, with an assumed victim count of 49. From Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, he would prey for Indigenous victims in Vancouver’s Downtown EastSide, a poverty stricken neighborhood where society’s most vulnerable lived.

Using their drug addictions to manipulate their decision making, Robert would promise the sex workers an endless supply of money and drugs if they went back to his farm with him. From there, the unthinkable would happen. After having sex with these women, Robert would handcuff them and begin to strangle them to death with a belt. Then he would drag their lifeless bodies to his slaughterhouse, where he hoisted them up on a hook and did unspeakable things. He had many disposal methods: grinding up the flesh and mixing it in with ground pork and proceeding to sell or donate the meat to others to eat, feed the bodies directly to his pigs or put the bodies through his wood chipper, then he would bring the leftover remains down to a rendering plant where they would be melted down to a gelatin form.

Robert’s murderous rampage lasted decades as sex worker after sex worker vanished off the streets of the Downtown Eastside, with Vancouver Police adamantly denying the possibility of a serial killer. Join us for part one as we tear apart the first half of this case. Keep your eyes peeled for part two, where we interview Nathan Wells, the RCMP officer who arrested Robert at the Pickton Farm.

If you are in need of support, the PACE website www.pace-society.org has a media toolkit for sex workers, journalists and allies, as well as a resource list which includes safety and mental health resources for sex workers as well as legal and other sources regarding sex work.

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