The sole survivor of Robert Pickton's orgy of killing has made a new life for herself and her family far from the gritty drug-infested back lanes of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
The 43-year old woman, whose identity is protected by a judge's order, holds a steady job and is once again together with her children. She did not want to speak about her experience and escape from the Pickton farm or her recovery from drug addiction.
But she did suggest that the full story of Robert Pickton's horrific career may yet include another chapter.
“No one will know the truth until I tell the exact truth,” she said.
The Globe and Mail found her earlier this week, working hard over a hot grill at a restaurant in the Vancouver area. Dressed in the corporate cap and T-shirt of the restaurant, she looked weathered but healthy with her streaked dark hair pulled back under her cap.
She realizes she has become a bit of a folk hero in some circles for her escape from the Pickton farm, a touchstone for those who advocate a public inquiry into the investigation of Vancouver's missing women. But she feels her anonymity is more important.
“I'm trying to forget about it,” she said this week in a short interview. “Just when I start forgetting about it, it comes back in the news. How do you think I feel?”
And she is concerned about the impact of publicity and whether she would lose her job. “I've got three kids to support,” she said.
In B.C. Supreme Court on Friday, Mr. Justice James William said he would rule next week on a media application to lift the ban on disclosing the woman's identity. However, he indicated sympathy for her desire to have her name kept from “the front page of newspapers ... and the 6 o'clock news.”
“She's got kids,” Judge Williams said, adding that he didn't want her five-year old subjected to schoolyard taunting.
In arguing for the ban to be maintained, her lawyer, Eric Gottardi, said his client's life has changed “materially” from her rough past. “Her private journey is compelling, and she deserves any protection this court can give her.” Media lawyer Rob Anderson said the woman's name is “in the thick” of events that have sparked public concern over authorities' handling of the Pickton case. “A [permanent] order is not justified in law and should not be granted.”
Mr. Pickton, who is now serving a life sentence for second-degree murder of six women, is believed to have murdered 33 and possibly as many as 49 women from the Downtown Eastside who worked as prostitutes and were addicted to drugs.
He picked her up in the Downtown Eastside on the evening of March 22, 1997. She agreed to come out to his Port Coquitlam farm, about 35 kilometres away.
The evening turned violent after they had sex, when he approached her from behind while she was looking up a number in the phone book. She fought back, picking up a kitchen knife. Both of them were badly injured in the fight. She escaped after he appeared to lose consciousness.
Police subsequently charged Mr. Pickton with attempted murder but Crown counsel decided not to proceed with a trial. Looking back at the decision 13 years ago to stay the charge, a spokesman for the Crown counsel office, Neil MacKenzie, said the prosecutor at the time was not confident that she could present the victim as an effective witness.
In her earlier years, the woman was consumed by her addiction. She testified about it at a preliminary hearing in 2003, and again at a 2006 voir dire hearing, a court process to decide whether the jury should hear her story.
According to the testimony, she fell into addiction while she was with a commercial fisherman from North Vancouver. She worked as a cook for five years on his boat, the Ocean Achiever, she told the court. They had two children before they separated. He did not respond this week to phone messages.
Her introduction to narcotics came in 1984 at the age of 17, the court was told. By her early 30s, she was spending as much as $200 a day on drugs, supporting her habit by theft, prostitution, work on a fishing boat and peddling drugs on the street. At its worst, her addiction led to injecting drugs as often as 10 times a day.
Court records show a lengthy criminal past with more than 20 convictions. According to a police officer's report in 1999, she showed no remorse for what she did, saying she would continue to commit crimes to support her drug habit.
But her lengthy criminal record ends abruptly in 2005, when she had her third child.
With a report from Rod Mickleburgh
