by Lori Shenher
I have no inside knowledge of the strategic plans—if any existed—made by investigators around these questions, but it appears that these matters were under-considered early in the investigation. I believe if these issues had been explored more carefully, the jury’s uncertainty about whether Pickton had acted alone and therefore could be found guilty of first degree murder—and the jury’s ultimate finding that he was guilty on six second degree murder charges might have been avoided. Can someone kill six people at six different times and say these killings were not premeditated acts? Can someone really kill six people on six different dates and say each occurred without planning or forethought? It is a difficult legal question, certainly, and one that investigators may not have known how to navigate early in the investigation.
In spring 2001, Dinah Taylor had been struck by a vehicle as she crossed a Downtown Eastside street and received very serious injuries. She had spent much of her convalescence at Pickton’s trailer, where her physical therapists would come to treat her. She was expecting a settlement from the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) any day, and we learned her plan was to fly to her parents’ reserve in Ontario. It was hoped that the undercover operator could reel her in before then. Unfortunately, she refused to confide in the operator or spend any time with him.
Taylor left Vancouver in late February 2002. Steve Pranzl and his partner, RCMP corporal Lee Bergerman, followed her, tracking her down to her parents’ home, where they interviewed her at length. They told her she was being considered as an accessory to the murders of these women, and it would be in her best interest to tell them what she had seen on the farm and testify against Pickton to spare herself. But Taylor remained steadfast, refusing to roll over on this man whom she considered her boyfriend. Her family urged her to do the right thing, both for herself and for the missing women and their families. She refused, saying Pickton was innocent. This line of investigation remained open, but other issues would arise.
All sorts of names from the past arose in the tip files I read—Lisa Yelds, Gina Houston, Scott Chubb, Ross Contois, Ron Menard—all part of the cast of rounders and hangers-on that formed the Picktons’ social circle. And few were cooperating in any way, perhaps knowing how little evidence we were likely to find on the farm and the even smaller likelihood we would be able to charge any of them with a crime. Whatever any of them knew, they weren’t saying. As I read through the tips, I kept asking myself: Where is Lynn Ellingsen?
In the meantime, Robert Pickton was not under arrest and carried on with his daily activities under the glare of international media attention. Each day, he would drive to work at a jobsite in Richmond and try to pretend his life hadn’t been turned upside down. A plan was made to introduce a female RCMP officer—a highly skilled member of the Forensic Interview Team—to Pickton and see if he might talk to her. Dana Lillies, a striking redheaded constable, was assigned to act as a uniform patrol officer. Her role would be to pretend to be assigned to the jobsite to keep an eye on Pickton and look for any problems that might arise from the media. In reality, Pickton was under additional surveillance, but Lillies’s assignment had the potential to make him believe she was the only member actually watching him. For several days, she sat in her marked patrol car wired for recording, and soon they began to talk.
I was never privy to the specifics of what they discussed, but it was clear he was quite taken with Lillies and believed she was wrongly characterized as a loose cannon. Mark Chernoff and Bruce Wahl were to plant the seed with Dave Pickton that Lillies was unreliable and not a particularly good police officer, and he, in turn, passed this to Robert, who felt that this characterization was undeserved. The plan worked beautifully. To Lillies, Pickton portrayed himself as a sensitive and simple man, a poor pig farmer caught up in the middle of this machine that he didn’t understand. He played on her sympathies and at one point actually cried in the car as they talked together, remorseful that things had gotten to this point—not quite a confession but another piece of the puzzle. Later, when Pickton was interviewed, Lillies’s presence would serve to highlight just how skilled and chameleonlike he was.
Over the next few days, I listened intently as Lynn Ellingsen’s name arose in the daily meetings. At one point, Don Adam said we needed to determine whether we were going to pursue her as a witness, and it was clear her credibility remained a question for the RCMP members. Mark and I exchanged looks. I’m sure my face said it all. I was shocked that anyone would continue to doubt the veracity of her information and her motivation for not coming forward with it. What was the matter with these people? Did they expect a witness like Ellingsen to come to them on a silver platter? Hello? Yes, I’ve just seen a murder—several, actually—and I’d like to speak to someone, please.
I approached Steve Pranzl, and we discussed her at length after the meeting. He had much more influence with the senior managers than I did and was highly respected for his experience and instinct. I implored him to push to ensure that her evidence was thoroughly explored and not ignored for a third time. He believed she had seen what she said she had, and he agreed she could no longer be ignored.
There was a buzz in the office the week of February 19 that led me to suspect Pickton’s arrest was imminent. We were told at the evening meeting on the 21st that the next day would be the day, and we were sworn to secrecy for obvious reasons, the most important being that the families were to be notified before the media. There was no danger that Pickton would flee, as he remained under surveillance. The morning of February 22, Don Adam laid out the plan. Pickton would be arrested at noon at the Richmond jobsite, and as soon as he was arrested, a team of investigators would contact the families by phone.
Before the arrest, four investigators in teams of two would visit the families of Sereena Abotsway and Mona Wilson and make the grim notification that their daughters had been the victims of murder—the first two murders Robert Pickton would be charged with. Although these investigators had been in close contact with these two families over the past two weeks, explaining what evidence was being found and preparing them for what was to come, the task of notifying them would not be easy or gratifying in any way.
I asked to be assigned to the team that was to do the telephone notifications, and Don Adam allowed me to select those I wished to speak to because of my history with the families. I was afraid, questioning my ability to hold myself together while I made these calls. In the past, I had been able to make such calls with the armor of detachment, knowing this was not my life or my reality. But I had changed so drastically over the last four years. I now felt things deeply, and a profound well of sadness would rise inside me that I was unable to suppress.
The entire day had a surreal quality, and I continued to struggle with my emotions. In the middle of it all, Bill Hiscox paged me. I called him back and we spoke at length, each of us frustrated that our work years earlier hadn’t resulted in a search warrant. After we hung up, I mentioned to another investigator that Hiscox and I had talked but that he didn’t have any new information about Pickton. Somehow, this officer misunderstood me, because a couple of hours later I received an angry voice message on my pager from Hiscox, furious I had set my “bodyguards on him.” I later spoke to the officer who had misinterpreted my earlier words as my saying that Hiscox was harassing me, which was never the case. I felt terrible, but I was in the middle of my calls to families, so I forgot about it. Years later, during the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, Hiscox and I had the opportunity to clear the air, and I felt he bore no hard feelings.
I found myself bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. Commercials, frustration, anger, beautiful music, or visuals arts—it didn’t matter what it was; I felt I couldn’t hold myself together. On some level, I understood this had something to do with trauma, but I had no education about trauma reactions, so I suffered, not knowing what was happening to me. I felt making these calls was something I had to do, and I missed these people who had shared so muc
h with me over hours and hours on the phone during the months of Project Amelia.
Their questions were my questions; their confusion was my confusion. These people, these families—they were the ones I had consoled, counseled, and commiserated with those two years I worked to try to find their daughters, their sisters. These were the people I felt I had worked for, and I resented not being able to tell them the truth about the unwillingness to commit resources and manpower to finding their loved ones. We’re still plugging away. That had been my standard line to them, but there were only ever a small, ineffectual, half-time handful of us plugging away. To tell of this real progress now was bittersweet. An arrest meant death, probably unnecessary death, avoidable waste—and we would be accountable.
I finished my calls, not wanting any of these people to hear about the arrest on the news or through the grapevine. After I hung up, I sat in that small RCMP office for what felt like a long time, not wanting to come out. Each of the people I had spoken to sent me the same unspoken message: Was our loved one there? When—if ever—would we know? Each was filled with compassion for the two grieving families, but I also sensed a touch of envy, for now they knew and their long search was over. The mixture of overwhelming pain and welcome relief was what they all craved, preferring the knowing over not knowing.
I wanted answers for all of these families. I wanted so much to be able to give them that closure they needed so desperately to begin to move forward and rebuild their lives. I hated the word “closure,” because so many people misconstrued it as an ending to the pain. The best closure we could ever give these families was a start to some semblance of healing.
I asked Geramy to request that I be allowed to sit in on the interview of Pickton as an observer, suggesting that I might be of some help if he mentioned anything from the past about the victims with which the other investigators might not be familiar. The interview was planned for the following morning, and Don Adam agreed to allow me to observe.
A Letter to Sereena Abotsway
• • •
DEAR SEREENA,
You did all you could.
Yet, you still fell victim to this man, this predator, this place.
You did all you could. You used to run up to me on the street or at the WISH, pull out your well-thumbed copy of that week’s bad date sheet, and thrust it in my face saying, “See? I’m bein’ careful.” It became a bit of a routine for us, a far cry from the days I would pick you up for outstanding warrants and you’d cry and beg me to let you go, calling me “hard-ass.” You were right—I was a bit of a hard-ass back in those days, when, like you, I was trying to get by, to prove myself, to not be seen as a pushover on the street.
We go back a while—to around 1992. I always had a soft spot for you, and our first meeting was unusual. I was out driving around, driving the wagon that morning. I heard another police officer on the radio saying she was checking a female down at Alexander and Gore and figured I’d swing by and cover her. I didn’t bother telling radio I was going. I rounded the corner and there you were, up against the wall of a business, the police officer’s hands around your throat, your feet barely touching the ground. I got out of my car and asked to speak to her. She wasn’t impressed—Didn’t I know I was interrupting her? That she was in the middle of something? I looked at you and said, “You aren’t going anywhere, are you?” You gulped hard and shook your head. No. Where would you go?
The officer quickly explained how you had failed to appear in court on a prostitution charge and she was arresting you on the warrant and you had resisted. “This little bitch,” she said. You—all of five foot three or four and a hundred pounds—resisting this officer nearly six feet tall and easily outweighing you by sixty or seventy pounds. I listened, knowing this was entirely possible and that the prospect of going to jail and being without drugs is enough to make any addict fight, but her explanation was too hurried, too forced, and you didn’t look like much of a threat to her. I told her that since I was there with the wagon, I would drive you to jail and she could go. She quickly got back into her car—not bothering to stay to cover me against you, the oh-so-dangerous warrant arrest.
I searched you and asked you if I needed to handcuff you. “No, I’m not much trouble.” I guided you into the back of the wagon. Once at the jail, I opened the door to the wagon and we talked for several minutes. You thanked me for treating you decently, and I told you it was no problem. I offered you a business card, in case you ever heard of something on the street I might want to know, but you declined. “I don’t want anyone to see it in there.” Right, of course. You looked at the card for several moments. “Constable Lori.” You said it five or six times as though to commit it to memory. You handed it back to me. “Thanks, Constable Lori.” We went inside.
That was before our hard-ass days—days when I’d catch you in a fight or trying to kick in a window of some business that didn’t treat you well—typical of someone who suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, as you did—and have to haul you off to jail. You’d implore me, “Don’t be such a hard-ass. Can’t you just let me go?” I took my job seriously and couldn’t deal with the lack of gray, the lack of discretion in matters like that. You committed a crime; you had to go to jail. If only life could be that simple.
I went on to do other things and didn’t see you for several years. I heard about your bad date—when some john picked you up, beat you beyond recognition, and left you for dead beneath one of the downtown viaducts. Much of your face had been shattered, but you survived weeks in the hospital. Your face was changed, now etched with more prominent cheekbones and faint scarring. Our paths crossed again because of your new face.
Angela Jardine’s disappearance affected you deeply. I still don’t know if you were ever actually close, but it really doesn’t matter, does it? Angela was a fixture on the Downtown Eastside, and it was her disappearance in November 1998 that convinced me something terrible was happening to the women of this poor community. You and Angela hung out in the same area just east of the police station at 312 Main Street. She used to stand on Cordova, often lifting her shirt or dress to show potential customers what she was selling. When she was gone, people—many of them police officers—would see you on the street and call me, relieved, convinced you were Angela and that she was not missing, that she was all right. The first time, I ran out of my office and searched the area, finding you and—seeing your cheekbones and reconstructed face—knowing that it was you they saw and not Angela. Knowing Angela was long gone. Still, we would repeat this scene several times in the coming months, wouldn’t we? After a few times, I stopped running and walked out to see you.
“Hey, Constable Lori.” We caught up: you told me again how your face came to be this way and how little you recalled about the assault. You were so lucky to live, and you assured me you were more careful now, only seeing regulars, always checking the bad date sheets. But I knew those promises were only as good as your dope supply on any given day, and if she was desperate enough, a girl would get into any vehicle with anyone—despite warnings, press releases, or bad vibes. I hated that it was always up to the women to protect themselves. Who told the men to stop attacking them? I stressed how important it was for you to let people know where you were, and you explained how you called your foster family almost every day, how you had been with them since you were four. The only family you had ever known, other than your street sisters.
You began telling everyone Angela was your sister, you sought out her family to share the pain of seeing so many of the girls on the street vanishing. You became an adopted daughter of sorts. You stood up at First United Church and gave a moving tribute to Angela—your sister—and pleaded that justice be done so that these women wouldn’t have died in vain. You knew they hadn’t just taken off to cool their heels somewhere for a while. You knew.
We talked about that from time to time. Where were they? You would rack your brain, trying to conjure up some tip, some tidbit that might help me. You shook
your head at the photo of Robert Pickton I showed you on the street in 1999, and your newest companion—a pet rat—poked his head out from underneath your jacket. “Nope, never seen him.” Was that true? Had you really never been out to that filthy, overgrown plot of land from which few women returned? Were you protecting that place, that mecca of addiction and depravity, saving it for yourself and others so that the cops would never know and never shut it down? “The cops always fuck up my deal. You guys are no fun.”
Among your stuff at the farm, they found a worn copy of the bad date sheet, dated the same week you picked up your last welfare check and prescription asthma inhalers. Being careful. Taking precautions, because you never know.
The last time I saw you, it was the summer of 2000 at the WISH. You hollered to me, “Hey, sister,” and we laughed, comfortable with the familiarity of knowing someone through years of bizarre coincidence and shared experience. I marveled at your longevity on the Downtown Eastside, realizing you were one of the few women from my early days who weren’t dead.
We talked for a while, then you bounced off down the street. “Catch you later, Constable Lori.”
20
Interrogating Robert Pickton
• • •
“I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.”