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They were six women with little in common except a rapacious addiction to drugs. Their final years were spent on the chaotic streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, a notorious enclave of poverty, flagrant drug abuse and prostitution.

Each had parents and siblings and some bore children, whom they telephoned and visited on occasion. They sent Christmas and birthday cards to their friends and loved ones, until one day, the cards and calls stopped and the women simply vanished.

They left behind haunted parents, foster parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters and 10 children between them. Some parents are wracked by guilt, and wonder if they could have done something to halt their daughters' spirals.

Some of their children have grown into young adults without knowing their mothers. Kristina Bateman, 22, wishes her mother, Georgina Papin, was alive to meet her new boyfriend.

Robert William Pickton is accused of killing all six women and his long-awaited murder trial begins on Monday.

Nearly five years after Mr. Pickton's arrest, the faces of these six women are familiar to many Canadians. Their photographs have appeared in countless newspaper articles and television programs. Most of these photos are the grim, unflattering mug shots that were used for the police posters of Vancouver's missing women.

Their families barely recognize these photos. Some say they bear no resemblance to the girls and women they remember.

Over the years, they say, the case's notoriety has stripped the missing women of their individuality. Many of the missing are simply referred to as "the drug-addicted prostitutes," a term that offends many relatives. One grandfather of a victim ended a brief email exchange as soon as the phrase "drug addict" was written.

Elaine Allan, who once worked at a Vancouver drop-in centre for prostitutes, knew five of the six women. Ms. Allan said drug addiction, in its final stages, robs people of their personalities.

"The reality of it is that addicted women are lonely and they're vulnerable and they're isolated and they're afraid and they get beaten up a lot. Once you're here, there's no way out."

At least three of the women suffered unimaginable abuse as young children, and simply never recovered. All six women began using drugs as teenagers.

In interviews with dozens of family members, The Globe and Mail compiled portraits of Georgina Papin, Marnie Frey, Sereena Abotsway, Brenda Wolfe, Andrea Joesbury and Mona Wilson.

Real life for little Mona Wilson was more frightening than the worst imaginable childhood nightmare.

As Mona cowered under her bed, her mother would chase her out with a broom, then hand the little girl over to her boyfriend, who raped her.

Mona was eventually rescued after a neighbour discovered the little girl bleeding and sobbing in an apartment hallway.

Mona's mother and boyfriend were jailed for their crimes and at age 8, Mona was sent to the hobby farm of Norma and Ken Garley, who lived in the B.C. Fraser Valley community of Langley with their brood of six children, chickens, turkeys and peacocks.

For a time, Mona thrived, and she revelled in the simple childhood pleasures that her natural family denied her; playing with baby chickens on the farm, camping and fishing with her foster family and one memorable trip to Disneyland.

Her foster brother, Greg Garley, was four years older than Mona, and remembers the small, dark-haired girl with a tough exterior, who softened instantly when she was near animals.

"You'd have to search her, just about, at dinner time because she'd smuggle in baby chicks and stuff," Mr. Garley, 43, said in an interview. "She'd bring them into her bedroom at night.

"She'd be out there, laying in the mud with them, all day, anything to do with the animals. Anywhere Mom went, Mona went, tagging along in her rubber boots.

"She absolutely flourished."

Despite the love offered by her foster family, Mona carried the scars of her early childhood.

They revealed themselves in a dark temper, a defiant attitude, and, as she reached her teen years, long episodes of crying jags.

Puberty seemed to rekindle memories of her childhood attacks, Mr. Garley said. "She would shriek and shriek and shriek like someone was killing her. She associated the blood with the rapes. (My mother) would be in her room all night. She thought she was being hurt again."

Eventually, the social services ministry removed Mona from the Garley's, saying it was better for the teen to try a stint at independent living. They placed the 15-year-old in a home in East Vancouver with a single mother of a teenaged boy.

Mona did not thrive there and eventually, contact between the Garleys and the young woman grew sporadic. The family retired to British Columbia's Okanogan but they still heard from Mona on birthdays and holidays. She did not visit.

The Garleys had no inkling their foster daughter was a drug addict or prostitute until after she died. The news aged his parents and Mr. Garley said the whole family went into therapy.

"We feel so naïve now," Mr. Garley said. "It's was all 'would haves' and 'could haves.' We could have tried to get her off the street. We should have gone and got her."

Sereena Abotsway was born with alcohol-related birth defects. She spent her earliest years in the care of foster parents. As an adult, she lived in the desolate Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, fighting to escape her drug addiction.

And then she disappeared.

Ms. Abotsway was 29 years old when she was last seen in August, 2001. Those who knew her cherish the memories of Ms. Abotsway's warm personality, her quirky mind and her mischievous behaviour. But they also recall another side - her enduring, child-like gestures as she struggled to cope with the world as an adult with mental disabilities. "Every day was difficult with Sereena," her long time foster mom Anna Draayers said in a recent interview. "You could not tell what was going to happen with Sereena."

Tales of Ms. Abotsway's life reflect many of the characteristics common among those with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a lifelong condition caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

Ms. Abotsway was bright, Ms. Draayers said. She could talk a mile a minute. She was reading well by the time she was in Grade 1 and became quite knowledgeable. She had a good ear for language, often speaking to her foster mom in Dutch, Ms Draayers' native language.

But Ms. Abotsway was also difficult to control. She could be impulsive and hyperactive. She had a horrible memory. She often had no recollection of what she had done moments after doing it. "She did whatever came into her head," Ms. Draayers said, recalling when Sereena threw paint around her classroom. She was asked later why. The child said it never happened.

Sereena was born on Aug. 20, 1971. Her parents' involvement in her life was limited. As she was growing up, her father, a long time resident of the Downtown Eastside, died of a drug overdose. Her mother remarried but later committed suicide.

Ms. Abotsway was four when she arrived at the Draayers home with her two younger siblings. All three stayed with the Draayers until they became adults.

Ms. Abotsway found school too challenging and dropped out. The Draayers tried home-schooling but that also did not work out well. Searching for solutions, Ms. Abotsway was moved into a group home when she was 18. That proved to be much worse. The group was too free, Ms. Draayer said. "That was not what Sereena needed. She needed something very structured and a caring place."

Ms. Abotsway was introduced to drugs at the group home. She was there for only a few months. When she turned 19, she was legally on her own, without supervision.

Her descent into the world of drugs led to prostitution and violence. During an incident in the mid-1990s, she was badly beaten, leaving her with a severe head injury. Those who knew her from that period had the impression that she tried to change her life after that incident.

Religion was a mainstay in her life. She went to church with the Draayers every Sunday. While living in the Downtown Eastside, she was a familiar figure at both the First United Church Mission and The Street Church, an evangelical Christian church.

Ms. Abotsway was baptized at least twice - as a Roman Catholic while living with the Draayers and later, as an evangelical Christian. When her Roman Catholic foster parents asked her why she was baptized a second time, Ms. Abotsway said she had forgotten that she had been baptized previously.

Randy Barnetson, a pastor at The Street Church, saw Ms. Abotsway in the years before she disappeared. She was trying to change her life, he said.

The church baptized her in 1998 in the ocean adjacent to a neighbourhood park. "Baptism is an outward sign that you have already changed," Pastor Barnetson said. "She had cleaned up, she was baptized, she was a member of the Church," he said. "She was volunteering and helping out others."

Kristina Bateman doesn't remember the first three years of her life when she lived with her mother, Georgina Papin, on the Enoch Cree Nation reserve in northern Alberta.

The only life Ms. Bateman knows is the American version, of growing up in the comfortable, two-storey, suburban Las Vegas home of her doting paternal grandparents, Ruth and Baldwin Bateman.

She doesn't remember the frantic telephone calls Ms. Papin's aunt, Pauline Papin, made to the Batemans in 1987, warning the couple that Canadian authorities were threatening to seize Kristina. Georgina was using drugs and neglecting her baby. Shortly after the call, Ms. Papin flew to Las Vegas with her daughter and handed the girl to her grandparents.

"At least she's got a chance that I never had," Ms. Papin said to Mr. Batemen before returning to Alberta.

Mr. Bateman died two years ago and Kristina still lives at home with her grandmother.

Now a young woman, Ms. Bateman has her mother's large eyes and wide smile. She works as a receptionist.

Her thoughts often drift northward to Canada, to the land of her birth and the home of her deceased mother.

She has vivid memories of a trip she took at age 12 to visit her mother in Mission, B.C.

Ms. Papin was pregnant with twins, off drugs and engaged to a man she met in a treatment centre. Ms. Papin introduced her daughter to her First Nations heritage, took her to a PowWow and organized a ceremony to give her a native name — Snowbird.

The reunion was joyful, but Ms. Bateman recalls that her mother was reflective and emotional.

"I remember she woke up and she wanted to talk to me, tell me things that she thought. She told me how she had been through a lot and that she was happy that I was with my grandparents," Ms. Bateman said.

The next day, Ms. Bateman saw her mother weeping on the front deck.

"She started crying and she gave me a hug," Ms. Bateman said. "It was weird and I don't know if it was because she knew I wouldn't see her. But she was probably happy that I was there."

Ms. Bateman said she thinks about her mother all the time.

"The last time I saw her was when I was 12 and the last time I talked to her, I was 14. I've changed a lot you know. I wish my boyfriend could have met her.

"I would have visited her more as I got older. I would have visited her more and I would try to fly her out."

Ms. Papin was born to George and Alice Papin, who had nine children, all of whom were farmed out to foster homes. Only Georgina and her younger brother Ricky were able to stay together in care. Ms. Papin's father was an alcoholic and her mother was a drug addict.

By the time she was 10, Ms. Papin was smoking marijuana. By age 18, she had lived in 32 homes and institutions.

Drug addiction dogged Ms. Papin but it did not define her.

In fact, Ms. Papin was a hugely popular woman wherever she lived. In prison, she charmed wardens and fellow inmates. In Mission, B.C., where she kept an apartment, she organized baby showers for her friends.

At the now-closed Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women, former warden Nancy Wrenshall said Ms. Papin was a natural leader who had a talent for motivating others.

"She was very bright," Ms. Wrenshall said. "That's what so sad (about drug use). It's such a loss. She was engaging. She was likeable. She left an impression on people."

But Kristina noticed sadness in her voice in one of her mother's final phone calls. "She said goodbye like she would never see me again. I believe she knew."

It is a parent's worst fear. Your teenaged daughter meets new friends and starts experimenting with mushrooms and marijuana. She hangs out at the mall with a new crowd that parties with cocaine and heroin. By the time you figure out what is going on, she is pregnant and addicted.

That's what happened to Marnie Frey, according to her father Rick and stepmother Lynn Frey.

Marnie grew up in the sleepy fishing village of Campbell River on Vancouver Island. Her parents separated when she was toddler and her father obtained custody. Lynn Frey became part of the family about four years later.

In a recent interview, Ms. Frey recalled a free-loving child who wanted to grow up to be a nurse. She cared about animals and wanted to be helpful when around elderly people or people with disabilities. She was the type of kid who would give up her seat on the bus to an older person, Ms. Frey said.

Ms. Frey believes Marnie started using cocaine when she was 16 or 17. Drug dealers with fancy cars and cash in their wallets wandered about in the mall looking for girls. "They were nice looking boys, young men, her age or a bit older. They talked to her. She had coffee with them. They would eat at the mall. Then they'd say, 'Come over to our place. We're going to have a party tonight,'" Ms. Frey said.

Ms. Frey found out that Marnie was doing coke when her stepdaughter tried to get some drugs without paying for them. Marnie told her friends that her mom would pay for them. "Of course, I did not have a clue what she was doing," Ms. Frey said. Her drug dealer began to push her around a little bit when the payment was not made. "She phoned me and said, 'mom you have to give me $20,'" Ms. Frey recalled.

Then Marnie got pregnant. She had a baby girl in July, 1992, a month before she turned 19. The Freys discovered at that time how drugs had taken over Marnie's life. She loved her baby but it became more important to get high than look after the child. Ms. Frey recalled a phone call from an RCMP officer saying that the baby's life was in danger. Marnie and her boyfriend were fighting. The baby was laying in a playpen full of glass. "We went down and got her and never took her back," she said. The baby was two years old.

Marnie moved to Vancouver shortly afterwards and her daughter stayed with her parents. She would return to Campbell River to see the girl but always return to her life of drug addiction and prostitution in the Downtown Eastside.

Andrea Joesbury was the young beauty of the Downtown Eastside. She had long, strawberry-blond hair, and, at 22, still had the fresh face and youthful disposition of a teenager. Barely five feet tall, she teetered around the neighbourhood in platform shoes.

People would often pronounce her name wrong, former drop-in centre worker Ms. Allan recalled. Ms. Joesbury always corrected them. "It's Ahn-drea," Ms. Joesbury would firmly reply.

"She was a lovely, lovely young woman. She was sweet. She was kind-hearted. She was someone who I used to wonder how she could survive living on the mean streets of the Downtown Eastside.

"I was just heartbroken when I heard she had gone missing," Ms. Allan said. "It was awful — so unfair."

Ms. Joesbury grew up in Victoria with her mother and younger sister Heather, according to a report by Canadian Press. As a child, she witnessed alcoholism, physical abuses and mental illness.

But her sister Heather also recalled good times. As kids, Ms. Joesbury and her sister would dance to Madonna songs and Heather would emulate her older sister's moves.

Ms. Joesbury's dream was to be a wife and mother.

She left Vancouver Island as a teenager when an older boyfriend persuaded her to move to Vancouver.

Heather Joesbury said her sister needed a father figure, but the boyfriend was drug dealer and she wound up addicted and working the Downtown Eastside streets as a prostitute.

Ms. Joesbury has her dead sister's name tattooed on her left ankle. "We loved to dance, me and her."

Brenda Wolfe was a heavy-set, street-smart woman, who would often be seen in her black-leather jacket, blue jeans and sneakers. She was a waitress and bouncer who liked to use her fists. Regulars in the Downtown Eastside knew her as a street-smart woman who rarely hesitated to step into a confrontation to defend a friend.

But Downtown Eastside residents could not recall much more about her life. Unlike other missing women, Ms. Wolfe remains a mystery to many who have tried to profile her.

Ms. Wolfe was born in Pincher Creek, Alberta on Oct. 20, 1968 and grew up in Calgary. According to an Internet posting, she was pregnant and in a drug rehabilitation program at the age of 17. "I knew Brenda Wolfe when we were in recovery together back in 1985," a woman called Charlotte wrote in February, 2005. "I will always remember her smile and the beautiful son that she had while in recovery,' Charlotte wrote.

Ms. Wolfe was last seen in February, 1999, at the age of 30. She was officially recorded as missing in April, 2000. Her family and friends have remained tight-lipped since her disappearance, preferring to grieve in private.

Maggy Gisle, who lived in the Downtown Eastside from 1983 to 1998, said she often saw Ms. Wolfe in the neighbourhood. Ms. Gisle described Ms. Wolfe as tough. "She was not vulnerable, in a physical sense, at all. She seemed gruff, she would yell and bark at you. And she would stand up for people when things got rough."

Ms. Gisle recalled seeing Ms. Wolfe swinging her fists in the midst of three men. "And she was getting the better part of them."

Former drop-in centre worker Ms. Allan recalled when Ms. Wolfe would come to a drop-in centre for sex-trade workers. "She was very nice, quiet, polite."

Ms. Allan was not surprised that Ms. Wolfe was not reported missing until 14 months after she disappeared.

"She had a boyfriend. She had people who cared about her. She had people who knew when she was not there," Ms. Allan said.

But people who reported missing women in the late 1990s got nowhere, she added. "We all felt a sense of powerlessness, that we were not taken seriously."