That Lonely Section of Hell

by Lori Shenher

  Pickton sat there and pointed his finger at Adam, telling him to go home and think about it and come back to him in the morning when he was ready to make a deal after talking with Dinah. Adam again refused to deal. Pickton told Adam they wouldn’t find anything if they dug on the property, but Adam wasn’t buying it, and neither was I. There was something in Pickton’s tone and manner that suggested he was trying to appear nonchalant about the digging but didn’t want it to happen—perhaps because it would disrupt his family’s business, but I felt there was more. Adam told him the police had spoken to several people who had told them Pickton had often said if the police started digging, he’d be finished. Pickton said nothing.

  Adam ended the interview by telling Pickton they would talk again tomorrow, and Pickton repeated that Adam should think about it, think hard—and it was clear he was talking about his original proposal that he give information to Adam in exchange for the tearing down of the search of the property.

  Pickton was returned to his cell, and we all met for a debriefing of the interview. It was well past ten o’clock, yet the air was electric with excitement. Although there had been no outright confession, the mood among the team members said the day had been a success. There was much discussion about how to approach Pickton the following day and who would do that interview. Members of the team approached Lynn Ellingsen again that day and she finally began painfully retelling her story, but it was slow going, as she was extremely emotional and became distraught as she spoke about the difficult things she had seen in that barn.

  She would be interviewed further the following day, and then investigators hoped to have more information with which to go at Pickton. All in all, it seemed as though the pieces of the puzzle were finally falling into place. I said little in the meeting, I was a guest and preferred to listen and absorb the incredible events of the day. By the time I got in my car at one o’clock, I was mentally exhausted.

  When I arrived back at the Surrey detachment later that same morning, the interview team members were meeting and I joined them. Pickton had apparently bragged to his cellmate—another RCMP undercover officer—that he was the pig farmer, that he had killed forty-eight women, and that he was giving the interviewers’ heads a rap.

  The eventual consensus of the team was that Pickton was a psychopath and had enjoyed the feeling of control he felt when talking with Don Adam. To now deny Pickton his anticipated second meeting with Adam would be an insult to his huge ego. I quietly disagreed with this strategy. I didn’t think that insulting Pickton would serve any purpose other than to close a door. This wasn’t the time to get into a pissing contest with this man. I believed we should pander to his massive ego in strategic ways if that was what it would take to get to the bottom of this case. There was always the chance that he had used the night in his cell to strengthen his resolve to say nothing and the interview would be short, but I felt this weekend would be our only chance to talk with him like this. What did we have to lose?

  The decision was made to let Pickton cool his heels in the cell and stew, indignant that his friend Adam was not dying to talk with him again. The team discussed Lynn Ellingsen and how they had approached her for questioning on the weekend. Finally, people were beginning to believe she played a significant role in this case. I listened to the discussion, filled with both disgust and relief. I held my emotions in check as the team was told that when Ellingsen sat down with interviewers and began to tell the story of what she had seen in the barn that night in 1999, she became overwhelmed by emotion and vomited at the recollection. Finally.

  Plans were being made for an undercover operation involving her boyfriend, Ron Menard, as investigators had gathered some information that he had been the driving force behind Ellingsen’s extortion of Pickton. Supposedly, Menard would send Ellingsen to Pickton for money, and if she did not return with it, he would beat her and forcibly confine her for extended periods of time. Again, I hoped this was in aid of determining who else had taken part in the killing. The interview team would continue to interview Ellingsen and determine how to protect her and keep her on track for a trial down the road.

  This day signified an end point for me, an end to my investing so much hope and effort into forcing this investigation in the right direction. I was suddenly faced with my own limits. I knew that I could not continue to be close to this thing, that it was destroying me to have such strong feelings about the way the investigation should move forward and no power to make those things happen. I decided to finish out the week and then return to the VPD. The week was sadly anticlimactic. Pickton was not interviewed again. The forensic search team working on the farm was deliberately kept separate from the detectives, so I received no information about what evidence they were finding. I could only hope it was significant enough to warrant forgoing further interviews with Pickton.

  I took three weeks of sick leave in March to try to regroup after all that had happened and to reduce my stress levels and anxiety. Nightmares and soaking sweats terrorized me nightly, and I awoke stiff and sore, as though I’d had an intense workout. Diarrhea, indigestion, lack of appetite, and fatigue dogged me every day. I snapped at everyone, from my partner at home to friends, colleagues, supervisors, and total strangers. I’d always been someone who’d cry at sad movies, but now I found myself breaking down in tears at the most inappropriate and bizarre moments. I worried irrationally about my toddler son’s safety and well-being, terrified that even the most benign activity would cause him injury or death. I began to shout and swear at other drivers whenever I was behind the wheel. Everything irritated and annoyed me. Whereas I had always possessed a strong attention span and ability to concentrate, now I could barely sit still for any period of time. I began to clean my home and office obsessively.

  I had no idea what was going on with me, but I would come to learn it was a post-traumatic stress injury. When I finally sought out therapy for the intrusive thoughts and violent dreams that had plagued me for these past years, I wasn’t prepared for the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I thought it was something for wimps, sucks, and malingerers, and I quickly dismissed the doctor’s finding, though I felt that she was an excellent therapist and that she had helped me. I wanted to understand my anger and feelings of helplessness and find some ways to let myself off the hook for the futility of our investigation. I hoped I would recover quickly.

  My time working at Project Evenhanded proved to be a double-edged sword. It fulfilled my need to see the Pickton file finally taken seriously with adequate resources dedicated to investigating his crimes, but it drove home over and over again how much more should have been done far earlier. Like Geramy, I questioned daily whether I had done all I could to portray this case to the RCMP as the priority it was. Intellectually, I knew I had. Emotionally, doubts remained.

  For the second time in this investigation, it was time for me to go—and I experienced all of the same guilt I had the first time. I struggled, believing if I stayed, perhaps in some small way I could help the other investigators. But all I felt compelled to do was collect material for this book, and I knew I couldn’t misrepresent myself in that way, especially to those few people working on the file—Geramy Field, Steve Pranzl, Linda Malcolm, Mark Chernoff, Alex Clarke—whom I considered friends. It was time to go, and this time it was clearer to me that I had to do this for my sanity and for my family. My level of anxiety and agitation was higher than ever, the cumulative effects of which I wouldn’t fully understand for years.

  PART

  TWO

  21

  Soldiering On

  • • •

  “Tell ’em to God. Don’ go burdenin’ other people with your sins. That ain’t decent.”

  JOHN STEINBECK, THE GRAPES OF WRATH

  I BOOKED OFF on stress leave in May 2002 and returned to my job in Financial Crime in September. I didn’t seek any treatment during that time and naïvely hoped that all I needed was a break. I began to consider a career away fr
om policing, but I lacked the energy and clear thinking to explore that in any way. I was pregnant with our second child and continued to work on my book about the Pickton investigation. I hoped to take my maternity leave and then resign from the VPD when it was over. I became convinced that the truth of the Ellingsen tip would never come out in evidence, and my need to be a truth teller bordered on the obsessive.

  All of the physical and psychological symptoms I was experiencing led me to seek counseling in the fall of 2002. I had never felt so down and hopeless and suffered from so many physical ailments. I had never before had trouble sleeping or falling asleep. As a previously active, upbeat, positive person engaged with the world, I no longer recognized myself. I avoided people, preferring isolation to social activity. The VPD maintained a list of psychologists who had passed a security screening, presumably in case we confided in them about difficult cases we had worked on. I’d seen a psychologist a few years earlier, after a difficult breakup, so I made an appointment with her.

  After a couple of sessions, it was clear to me that talk therapy was not going to fix whatever was wrong with me. My psychologist informed me that this was all she did and that she had no other trauma treatments to offer. I asked her if she practiced any of the newer trauma treatments I had learned of in my own research, and she said no. I thanked her and told her I had no hard feelings, but I’d be seeking a therapist better versed in the latest trauma treatments. She wished me well. No one else on the very short VPD psychologist list had such training, so I found my own therapist.

  Margo Weston, my new psychologist, diagnosed me with PTSD after several sessions. This was 2002, and I had never heard of PTSD, much less imagined I would ever suffer from such a thing. I received Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) treatment to try to improve my sleep and reduce my night sweats and nightmares.

  I worked with Margo for a few months and then decided I was “better” and stopped going, despite my continuing symptoms and her skill and kindness as a therapist. Looking back, I see now we had barely scratched the surface of the work I needed to do. Margo politely suggested I might not be done with treatment, but I tried to move on, convincing myself that my PTSD was gone and I was fine. This would be the first of several times I’d walk away from treatment when it became too difficult, another hallmark of PTSD I had yet to understand.

  Little in policing had lived up to my expectations, but I had enjoyed many aspects of investigative work well enough until then. The salary, benefits, and job security all beckoned me to stay so that I could support my family and maintain the comfort of my lifestyle. I had chosen policing in large part because it afforded me the time off and subject matter to enable me to pursue my writing as a hobby, yet I felt duty-bound to not share a large portion of what I’d seen and done. All my life, I’d assumed I would pursue fiction as a writer, but the truth was far more compelling.

  Ultimately, circumstances took the decision about publishing this story out of my hands. The first Pickton trial publication ban came into effect January 15, 2003. In late 2002, I had secured an agreement with McClelland and Stewart to tell my story. We naïvely hoped the ban would be lifted by the time we published, but it became clear over time that this was only the beginning. I started my maternity leave and continued writing. In May of 2003, Doug LePard contacted me to let me know I was receiving a Chief Constable’s Commendation for my work on the missing women file.

  Later that month, he invited me to attend the ceremony at the Roundhouse Community Centre. My feelings were mixed. On the one hand, it felt good to have people at my workplace recognize all I had tried to do with very few resources. On the other hand, my grief remained raw and jagged, and I didn’t trust myself to talk about the case or anything surrounding it in public without breaking down. I told Doug I didn’t see myself coming back to work for the VPD after my leave. He said he understood but hoped I would attend.

  Around the same time as the ceremony, Jane Armstrong of the Globe and Mail wrote a story about my agent, Michael Levine—whom she referred to as “Mister Conflict of Interest” in the world of literary and media representation. Her story mentioned that Michael also represented Stevie Cameron, author of the Pickton true crime book On the Farm. This effectively announced my book to the country and, more importantly, to the victims’ families, and many were hurt and angry that I would publish a book about their loved ones. They assumed the worst about the content and my intentions, which some of the families felt certain were monetary.

  I attended the awards ceremony and received my Chief Constable’s Commendation from Doug LePard. In some ways, I felt better afterward. So few of our colleagues knew the story of what my team and I had tried to do, and it was gratifying to have Doug tell a small part of that story to the crowd of coworkers, family, and friends. It could never make up for the lack of support for the investigation, but it was something, and I did appreciate it. I spoke to a few people, shook some hands, and turned to leave.

  A large camera lens obstructed my vision of anything else, and I heard a female voice asking me about my book. How did I feel knowing the victims’ families felt betrayed? I felt totally unprepared and handled myself abysmally, mumbling something about needing to get home to my newborn son. I sounded more like a La Leche League spokesperson than a police officer. I heard a question thrown at me, asking me whether there was going to be a book. I paused.

  “No, there is no book.”

  And I meant it. My decision came out of months of anxiety and concern about whether publishing would be the right thing to do, assuming publication bans would even allow it. There would be no book published as long as I didn’t have the blessing of the families or the green light of the courts. I drove straight home and emailed Michael to see whether I could get out of the contract. I spoke to Anne Drennan of the VPD media office and told her I had indeed written a book but had decided not to publish it. I apologized for not making her—and the VPD, by extension—aware of it, but this was my own doing, and I would take responsibility. She was gracious and sympathetic. Fortunately, so were Michael Levine and Douglas Gibson, my publisher, who let me out of the contract with no legal ramifications and wished me the best. I think they were happy to see the last of me; I was nervous, insistent, and panicked—not an ideal client or author to deal with in that state.

  Several publication bans relating to evidence, witnesses, and undercover operations were issued from 2005 until Pickton lost his final appeal in 2010. There was no way I was risking Pickton’s probable conviction by publishing anything, and I hoped the story would come out in its entirety during the trial. Working on the book forced me back into that investigation and a world that stirred up the old trauma over and over again. I had no idea how toxic that was for me until I stopped working on it. There would be no book, but now its existence was known.

  22

  Salvaging a Career

  • • •

  “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other.”

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, MACBETH

  I ATTEMPTED TO compete for sergeant in 2005, after several members of the VPD executive and Chief Constable Jamie Graham implored me to consider it in spite of my uncertainty. I decided to go for it but unceremoniously flamed out after a heated argument with the sergeant in charge of the assessment center when I disagreed with my poor mark and told him I felt the entire promotional process was “a crock of shit.” I’d had even less sleep than usual all week because I was executing a number of search warrants on a complex financial crime case, and I told myself I never should have sat for the assessment center that day.

  In truth, lack of sleep was the least of my problems; agitation, anxiety, explosive anger, and a short attention span dogged me and everything I tried to do. I sent angry emails and deliberately ignored and circumvented the chain of command, pissing off my supervisors and managers, many of whom were trying to keep me on track and out of trouble.


  Word got around that I wouldn’t be carrying on in the competition. No one suggested to me that I change my mind. No one asked me if I might need some help, and I certainly wasn’t asking for any. I blamed everything on the VPD and the people running the place. They created me. Now they can deal with the result. Everyone else moved forward. I remained stuck.

  My PTSD continued to manifest itself in my explosive interpersonal communication at work and at home and in my poor physical and mental health. I avoided drinking because it terrified me: whenever I did, a wave of relief so comforting and enticing washed over me that I feared I might never stop. If I had two glasses of wine one night, I’d have three the next, four the next, until I realized I had to stop or it would kill me.

  After that, whenever anyone asked me whether I wanted to be promoted, I said “I’d rather stick needles in my eyes,” and I meant it. It felt better to me to be on the outside, isolated from everything in the VPD that had let me—and the missing women—down. Everything about the VPD stank to me. I wanted no part of it, but I was too damaged to go anywhere else.

  I threw myself into my position in the Threat Assessment Unit, working long hours, evenings, and weekends in addition to my normal shift. It felt easier to be away from home than watch myself snap at my partner and my poor kids, who got so excited when I did get home and only wanted to play with me. It seemed impossible to shift gears from work to family life. If only I could unwind, just for a few minutes, I’d tell myself. But I never unwound. At work, my targets were anyone who crossed me and angered me, my rallying cry always That guy is so stupid or That girl is such an idiot. Incompetence of any kind sent me over the edge and reminded me of the kind of incompetence I had encountered on the Pickton file. My own mistakes angered me, too. For years, I walked around agitated and volatile.