Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Pig Farmer” - Robert "Willie" Pickton

Episode Date: June 3, 2019

This Canadian grew up on a pig farm in the 1970s, so slaughtering livestock became second nature. His pig meat was the most sought-after in the county... until the meat started arriving dark, blackened and stringy.  Sponsors! The Farmer’s Dog - Get 50% off your two week trial of fresh, healthy food at TheFarmers Dog.com/KILLERS. Plus, you get FREE shipping! Ring - Get a special offer on a Ring Starter Kit at Ring.com/SerialKillers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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On a crisp fall evening, by the light of a work lamp, the farmer sharpened his knife. In the barn before him, hoisted up by its ankles, hung his prey. Its blood had emptied onto the floor, pooling around the farmer's workboots. The man started his work. He moved with skill. He had butchered hundreds of pigs before this. The motions were nearly automatic at this point. He carefully removed the internal organs, leaving a clean slate.

His face stared blankly, emotionless as he worked. Once done, he set down his knife and wiped his brow with his dirty flannel sleeve. As he gazed upon his work, he couldn't help but feel a little accomplished. For his first human, it didn't look too bad. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Pardcast original. Every Monday, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we're going to take a deep dive into the life of Robert Willie Picton,

one of Canada's most infamous serial killers. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. At Parkast, we're grateful for you, our listeners. you allow us to do what we love. Let us know how we're doing. Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. And if you enjoy today's episode, the best way to help us is to leave a five-star review, wherever you're listening.

It really does help. We also now have merchandise. Head to Parcast.com slash merch for more information. Canadian police believe Robert Willie Picton operated from 1991 to 2002. However, he might have started as early as 1979 when vulnerable women first began mysteriously disappearing in Vancouver. By day, Willie was a pig farmer. By night, Willie trolled Vancouver's notoriously seedy downtown East Side District for his victims. Willie prayed on sex workers, many of whom struggled with substance abuse,

who he could easily lure back to his home with the promise of drugs. Once back on his farm, Willie would rape the women, then kill them, feeding their remains to his pigs. Willie was ultimately convicted of murdering six women, though he was charged with 26 total killings and would later confess to 49 murders, making him one of Canada's most prolific serial killers. This week we'll dive into Willie's childhood, learning about his strange family and life on their farm,

which may have contributed to his twisted career as a killer. Next week, we'll discover more about the murders Willie committed, including how he managed to evade police detection for years. Robert Willie Picton was born on October 24, 1949, to Leonard and Helen Louise picked in. Willie was the middle of three children. Linda was the eldest. His younger brother was named David.

Willie's entrance into this world was a difficult one. When he was born, his umbilical cord was wrapped firmly around his neck. Willie's family later wondered if this incident may have resulted in some sort of brain damage. At the time, however, Willie seemed to develop relatively normally. Willie and his family lived on a sprawling farm in Port Coquitlam, Canada, about an hour east of Vancouver. The property was a remote, wooded area, filled with streams and plenty of wildlife. In many ways, it was an idyllic place to grow up. In other ways, it was a hard life for a little boy.

Willie's earliest memory is of living in a converted chicken coop one winter when he was about three. He cried too much for his mother, Louise, to handle, so she kept him in the the coop for the better part of a year until he had learned to stop crying at night. The only running water in this early home came in the form of a spring running under the floorboards. Young Willie would lift up a loose floorboard and scoop up spring water to drink. The idea of a toddler living in a chicken coop would horrify most parents, but it's hardly the most disturbing of Willie's early memories. Piquton later told police he remembers receiving a severe beating at the age of three after accidentally crashing his father's truck.

Willie claims he was left alone in the driver's seat while his father tended to pigs in the back of the truck. He accidentally put the truck in gear and drove it into a wall. Most parents in that situation would blame themselves for leaving a toddler behind the wheel of a running vehicle. But the Pictons weren't your typical loving parents. Willie's father Leonard was distant and lazy, wanting little to do with the burden of raising children. Willie's mother, who was 16 years younger than Leonard, was a more involved parent, but a highly eccentric one. Helen Louise Picton, like her husband Leonard, did not care all that much for standard hygiene practices. Almost all of Louise's teeth had long rotted out.

While the hair on her head was extremely thin and wispy, she began to be. began growing hair on her chin that eventually developed into something resembling a goatee. Louise is remembered by neighbors for her screeching, high-pitched voice, usually heard around the farm shouting for her boys to come in from the barns. In fact, Louise's obnoxious voice was sometimes the best way to tell Leonard apart from Louise. Both wore the same outfit of ratty old t-shirts and men's jeans, though Louise always wore a house dress over her jeans. Worst of all was the pungent smell of manure that seemed to be permanently attached to the family,

a smell that hit passes by in the back of the throat and seemed to stain their clothing. Wherever the pictons went, the foul stench always lingered behind them, much to the chagrin of the townspeople. While it's clear that the picton family did not make personal hygiene a priority, this smell was more than just body odor. As it turns out, Louise had a rattle. relaxed attitude when it came to the animals on the farm, meaning they were allowed to come and go through the house as they pleased. The house was constantly full of dogs, ducks, chickens, and

pigs. With the animals came mud and manure, both of which were dragged across the floors and rarely cleaned up. The children would get a bath about once a week, if that, but the smell never entirely went away. It didn't help that Willie despised shower. and had an irrational fear of getting water on his face. This lack of hygiene was so noticeable that local children would taunt Willie, calling him Piggy. Not only did he smell,

but Willie had a learning disability. By third grade, he was placed in special education, which only served to exacerbate the bullying he was already experiencing. The teasing from his classmates stuck with Willie. Teasing can have lasting detrimental effects to one's psyche. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show.

Thanks, Greg. Bullying has a profoundly lasting effect on children who experience it, sometimes even shaping our choices as adults. Research conducted by Dr. Michael G. Turner, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, concluded that those who are chronically bullied in their youth are more likely to be convicted of a crime as an adult. Willie was a very withdrawn and quiet boy, rarely speaking at all. However, when he did speak, he fumbled his words and spoke much too fast, the result of a speech impediment.

It didn't help that most of the kids at Willie's elementary school were the children of doctors and other upper-middle-class professionals. His classmates were all incredibly well-dressed, and well-spoken, the result of a privileged, wealthy upbringing. Willie and his older brother Dave stuck out like sore thumbs in their dirty hand-me-downs and shabby haircuts. Which harkens to a behavioral sciences study done by the FBI. 71% of murderers profiled in the study experienced some sort of sense of isolation in their

childhood. Isolation was a feeling Willie was no doubt familiar with, between the frequent bullying and the lonely life led on the large family farm. It's possible this social isolation led to Willie's bizarre and disgusting behavior as a child. Or perhaps it's his bizarre and disgusting behavior influenced by his dysfunctional parents that led to his social isolation. Willie's neighbors often told stories about how Willie allegedly used to crawl inside the warm, hollowed out carcasses of freshly gutted pigs,

when he wanted to hide from people. That's not the kind of habit that attracts friends. Neither Willie nor the Picton family ever confirmed this story, but it is a seemingly plausible one considering how odd the family was anyway in addition to Willie's strong bond with the animals on the farm. While Willie had few or no friends at school, he at least had the animals on the farm.

In 1961, when Willie was 12, he took $35 he had carefully, saved up and bought himself a calf at a livestock auction. Willie quickly bonded with the animal and would rush home after school to take care of it. This calf meant everything to Willie. Being as isolated as he was, both socially due to bullies and literally due to the large farmland his family lived on, Willie was likely yearning for companionship. This calf was a huge source of happiness and comfort to him. One day, Willie rushed home from school and went straight to feed his calf, as he did every day.

Except this time, the calf was gone. Willie frantically searched the property looking for his lost calf. Then he realized the door to its enclosure had been locked. There's no way it could have gotten out. Someone had to have let it out. Willie's father, seeing how distraught he was, suggested he checked the barn. Willie immediately ran over and threw open the large barn doors. The sight inside would scar him for life.

There, hanging upside down by its hind legs, was Willie's beloved calf. It had been butchered. The carcass was already hollowed out. Like the pig carcasses, some say Willie liked to hide in. Willie looked into the calf's black, lifeless eyes. He looked down and realized he was standing in a pool of his calf's blood. Willie refused to speak to anyone for four days after this incident. Leonard made matters even worse by suggesting that Willie might feel better if he ate some of the meat from his pet calf.

The boy raged. He felt like nobody in his family understood him. His calf had understood him, but now his calf was gone. Louise, attempting to coax Willie out of his anger, offered him $20 to buy a replacement calf. But to Willie, that calf was special. He had intended to keep it for the rest of its life. There was no replacing it. Every kid raised on a farm has to cope with the knowledge that most of the farm's animals are destined for the dinner plate. But when Willie's parents cruelly surprised him

with the body of his butchered pet, he learned a different lesson. Young Willie learned that empathy was a dangerous weak spot to expose. He learned that if he dared to become attached to anything or anyone, that this vulnerability would be used against him. He became even more socially isolated. While Willie did not have many friends growing up, he left quite the impression on one young girl.

Thinking back on her memories of young Willie, Lisa yelleds referred to him as a sweet boy. Lisa first met Willie in 1962. Lisa was just five years old. Willie was 13. Lisa was visiting a store in Port Coquitlam, where the Pictons sold their meat. Willie frequently helped out at the store with his mother. He was working that day when Lisa came in with her grandparents.

Lisa remembers Willie sneaking her a bag of hot dogs as a present. Just like Willie, Lisa experienced bullying as a child. So this gift stood out as a rare example of kindness from her peers. They wouldn't reconnect for more than three decades, but the moment stuck with Lisa for life. The next year in 1963, Willie's parents purchased 40 acres of land on the far eastern side of Port Coquitlam.

Willie's sister Linda decided not to come with the family. Linda was miserable. Between her family's poor hygiene, cruel behavior, and the overall mess that came with life on the farm, Linda could not wait to escape. And so, after the family relocated, she moved in with relatives in Vancouver at age 12. She focused on academics and cut off all ties with her parents and siblings.

She'd never felt close to them anyway, which didn't seem to bother Louise, who preferred her sons anyway. Besides, she needed them to work on the new 40-acre farm. After hearing the news of the acreage sale, the neighbors probably thought the picktins were suckers. Locals to the area knew that a good majority of the land was below the water table. and rather swampy. Therefore, it was nearly useless as farmland because crops didn't have a chance of growing there. But the pictons did not care for crops. They were interested in pigs. The family

intended to expand their meat business by raising more pigs and chickens, slaughtering them themselves, and storing the meat on the farm in huge freezers from which they could sell it to wholesalers or passers-by-alike. This cut out the cost of hiring a butcher and allowed for higher profit. margins by selling the meat directly from the farm. The family had roughly 700 pigs on the farm, and just like before, the Pictons allowed them free range of the property, including inside the family home. Louise put her boys to work, forcing them to take care of the pigs. They were required to feed the pigs three times a day, once very early in the morning,

once after school, and once late at night. Sometimes the workload was so intense that the boys missed school altogether. Clearly, Willie missed out on his childhood. He was not only isolated socially due to his learned lack of hygiene, a practice that was made acceptable by his parents. He spent most of his time on the farm, a huge expanse of land that kept him away from everyone else. Instead of frolicking and playing with friends, Willie's free time was spent doing hard physical labor.

Not only that, but his living in life. was extremely unhygienic. He was surrounded by slaughtered animals and spent his days covered in blood and excrement. In 1964, at age 14, Willie dropped out of school. Louise saw this as a bonus. Now he would be available full-time for work. The first job Louise wanted Willie to learn

as a high school dropout was slaughtering the pigs. But Willie initially refused. He didn't want to do it. Willie adored Louise in spite of her poor parenting. So when she refused to drop the issue, Willie unwillingly began shadowing a local butcher, Bob Corrick. This arrangement soon turned into an apprenticeship for Willie as a meat cutter. Now Willie wasn't just surrounded by dead animals.

He was the one butchering them. Research published in 2009 by Sociology and Criminology researchers Amy Fitzgerald, Linda Kaloff, and Thomas Dietz suggests that slaughterhouse employment increases total arrest rates, arrests for violent crimes, arrests for rape, and arrests for other sex offenses in comparison with other industries. The study examined crime in communities with and without slaughterhouses. Even after controlling for other factors, such as rates of poverty and unemployment, slaughterhouses vastly outstripped all other industries in their effect on

crime. In particular, communities with a slaughterhouse saw a significant increase in violent and sexual crimes. Willie wasn't working at a slaughterhouse, but his working conditions were similar to those experienced by slaughterhouse employees. All farmers who raise livestock for meat must eventually contend with slaughter, but it's unusual for a family farm to require quite so much year-round butchery, as Willie had to do. Many farmers send their animals away to a butcher, or hire a traveling butcher to come to their farm, rather than slaughtering animals themselves. The 2009 study on slaughterhouse workers theorizes that desensitization to animal slaughter creates a spillover effect, reducing psychological barriers to violence against humans.

One slaughterhouse worker interviewed for the study said, quote, I've had ideas of hanging my foreman upside down on the line and sticking him, end quote. In other words, this one. worker fantasized about butchering his boss in the same way he butchered animals. Not everyone responds in the same way to the same psychological pressures. For instance, Willie's sister Linda was able to move away and pursue an education, and Willie's brother, Dave, initially seemed to cope well with his family's unusual parenting style. He stayed in school longer than Willie and even had a few girlfriends. Dave seemed to be transforming into a well-rounded

young adult, but unbeknownst to the rest of the Pictons, Dave was already on a dark road that would soon lead him to become the family's first killer. In a moment, Dave makes a fatal mistake. Now, back to the story. In 1967, Willie Picton was 18. He had been working full time on his family's pig farm for four years, ever since he dropped out of high school. Meanwhile, his younger brother Dave was a rebellious 16-year-old, enjoying the freedom that came with his brand-new driver's license.

Dave loved the freedom of driving. He loved how it allowed him to get away from the dirty, smelly pig farm for long stretches of time. He especially loved being free to attend parties, whenever and wherever he pleased. One night, on October 16, 1967, Dave took the family truck out for a joy ride. After having some fun, Dave turned around and headed home along Dominion Avenue. He drove fast, enjoying the crisp fall air. Walking along Dominion Avenue that night was Timothy Barrett, an eighth grader whose family had just moved to the area about a year prior.

Timothy had just left his friend's house and was walking back home. By 7.30, he had nearly reached his house. Hours later, Timothy's father, Philip Barrett, was still awake, waiting up for a son who would never make it home. At around 11 o'clock, Philip phoned Timothy's friend to see if Timothy was still there. The friend said that Timothy had left hours ago. After a night of calling the police with no leads, Philip frantically searched for his son the next morning.

The first thing he discovered was one of Timothy's shoes on the side of the road. As he glanced over into the swampy slew off the road nearby, He found the body of his son, crumpled in the mud. At some point during 16-year-old Dave Pickton's joyride that night, he came across Timothy Barrett walking along the road. By the time Dave saw him, it was too late. Dave's truck hit Timothy from behind, causing him to fly through the air and land on the side of the road a few feet away.

Dave got out of his truck and looked to see what he had hit. When he saw Timothy's lifeless body, he got back into his truck and fled the scene. Panicked, Dave went home and confessed to his parents. Louise and Leonard told Dave not to worry. They knew what to do. They ordered Dave to scrub all evidence from the truck, including the blood and dents on the hood.

As Dave got to work, Louise went to the scene of the crime and found Timothy still lying on the road. calmly, she rolled him off the side of the road and into the nearby muddy slid. Meanwhile, the damage to the truck was more than Dave could repair alone. He went to a local mechanic around 8.30 at night and insisted that the truck needed to be fixed immediately. Dave's insistence and his nervous behavior raised a red flag, and the mechanic refused. The next morning, as the mechanic listened to the radio, he heard that a local boy had been killed in a hit and run the night before.

He immediately thought of Dave and his truck, with the suspicious. dense in its front end. The mechanic phoned the police, who soon showed up at the Picton farm with a search warrant. Investigators searched the family truck, finding damage to the hood and scratches in the paint. Police took samples of the paint and were able to match it to samples found on the body of Timothy Barrett. Meanwhile, back at the coroner's office, the autopsy revealed that the blow from the truck had not killed Timothy.

He'd drown in two feet of muddard. water in the slew. If Dave and Louise had called the ambulance, Timothy Barrett might well have survived. But Louise Picton was, as always, worried only about her pig farm. She couldn't let a vehicular homicide trial affect her son's availability to serve as free farm labor. On December 19, 1967, a little over two months after the incident, Dave was charged in juvenile court with failing to remain at the scene of an accident. There was no mention of vehicular manslaughter, and it's unclear why no charges were ever brought. The murder of Timothy Barrett never came to light in court. It's unclear exactly why Louise was never charged with a crime, but it's possible that

prosecutors didn't think they had enough evidence to secure a conviction. However, the story would spark neighborhood gossip for decades to come. Louise's role in Timothy Barrett, death revealed a sinister side to an already widely disliked woman. It was clear that she was protective of her family, willing to cover up a crime in order to save her son, but at the same time, she showed an utter disregard for human life. By dumping the body into a slew, Louise treated Timothy more like a wounded pig than a human being. It was an extreme example of the same kind of callous cruelty that picked in parents displayed toward their own son years earlier, when they surprised him with the slaughtered body

of his pet calf. If Willie was desensitized to violence by his work slaughtering animals, the same could be true of his parents, who did that job themselves before their sons were old enough to take over. According to Michael LeBwall, writing for the Yale Global Health Review, it's possible that slaughtering animals over and over may induce a psychological disorder known as perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress, or Pitts. Individuals suffering from Pitts experienced symptoms similar to those seen with post-traumatic stress disorder,

such as anxiety, depression, and dissociation from reality. But Pitts patients developed these symptoms after perpetrating trauma, not receiving it. Willie looked up to his mother and loved her intensely. He would later describe himself and Louise as two peas in a pod, especially because Leonard was so distant with his children, Louise became her son's role model. Unfortunately, she wasn't exactly modeling healthy behavior for her kids. Louise's role in attempting to cover up the crime, along with the rather relaxed sentencing that Dave received in court, taught her son's a horribly immoral lesson.

It was possible to take a human life and get away with it. By the early 1970s, Willie was the farm's prime. primary hog and cattle butcher, sometimes butchering up to two dozen animals a day. For Willie, killing and butchering a living being was normalized daily behavior. This is not to suggest that all farmers and butchers are desensitized to violence against humans, of course. Most farmers are law-abiding people who voluntarily chose a career focused around producing food for others. In fact, not very long ago, most people were farmers. In 1900, less than 50 years before Willie was born, 63% of Canadians lived on farms.

But there were key differences between the pictons' lifestyle and the lives of earlier farmers. The pictons raised pigs almost exclusively. Before the era of industrialized agriculture, family farms typically raised a variety of livestock species, as well as growing crops. There was also an important shift in the psychology of animal agriculture during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Historian James McWilliams, writing for the Atlantic, says that before 1850, most farmers thought of their livestock as sentient creatures. Farmers concern themselves with the comfort and happiness of their animals and sought to make slaughter as painless as possible. But over the next century, from 1850 to 1950,

industrial agriculture took shape, and agricultural manuals began warning farmers. against affection for livestock, with some texts going so far as to describe pigs as machines. This was the same lesson the Pictons taught their son when they killed his pet calf, without so much as an attempt to prepare him mentally for that outcome. Willie was shown that if he dared to empathize with an animal, this vulnerability would be used to torture him. Later, Willie learned another hard lesson about bonding with animals, that they wouldn't always return his affection. At some point in his adolescence,

Willie was mauled by an Angus bull. By the time he told the story, Willie didn't remember how old he was when it happened, but he recalled fearing that he might lose a limb in the attack. On another occasion, Willie was forced to break up two boars viciously fighting over a sow in heat. With well-fed adult pigs,

often weighing up to 770 pounds, This must have been a terrifying task for a young man. His leg was lacerated by the boar's tusks. After receiving stitches in his leg, the young Willie went right back to work on his family's farm, slaughtering pigs like the ones that had mauled him. This work consumed his days and left him exhausted at night. Willie had no time and apparently no desire

for a social life with people his own age. While Willie spent even more time on the first, farm. Dave spent time working on construction sites and even got himself a girlfriend. Sandy Phelowr was a 17-year-old who soon moved to the family farm when she became pregnant. In 1974, Sandy gave birth to a girl, Tammy, followed by a boy, Douglas John, a year and a half later. Sandy became a farmhand working 12-hour days helping with the animals and various chores. For a few years, life proceeded as normal on the farm. which was becoming a full house.

In addition to the four Pictons, Sandy, and her and Dave's two children, there were two elderly hired hands who lived on the property. As for Willie, he largely kept to himself. His life almost entirely revolved around his work on the farm. He rarely left, but when he did, he went far, sometimes taking road trips all the way south

to the United States to do temporary work. Willie did not have any traditional vices. he never drank or smoked and never had any girlfriends. Instead, Willie kept many female pen pals, some of whom he met during his trips to the States. There was even a brief moment where Willie thought he might marry one of his closest pen pals, Connie Anderson. In an unusual departure from his isolated life,

Willie agreed to spend five weeks with the tall, heavyset blonde in Pontiac, Michigan. At the end of the visit, he proposed. Connie accepted the proposal, but refused to relocate to Canada. Willie decided he couldn't leave the farm, and so that was that. Their relationship fizzled. By 1978, life on the farm took a rather devastating turn. First, Leonard became gravely ill with cancer and passed away on January 1, 1978, at the age of 91. He had long been senile, and his health declined rapidly during his last years.

That same year, Dave's relationship with Sandy was falling apart. It turns out that he had another girlfriend. Sandy was sick of it. She finally took the kids and left. The next year, in 1979, things didn't let up one bit. Louise was diagnosed with cancer. Willie helped to take care of his mother as she quickly lost her strength, feeding, bathing, and dressing her.

Louise Picton died April 1, 1979. at the age of 67. Willie was grief-stricken. Dave, on the other hand, felt no sorrow whatsoever. Despite the loyalty his mother showed to him after the accident involving Timothy Barrett, Dave was ready to make a fresh start. By the early 1980s, with Louise no longer around,

Dave started to make some huge changes to his image, as well as life on the farm. Among the first, moving in with his new girlfriend, Vicky Evans. Dave also began to fraternize with the bikers in town who had a thriving social scene. Dave became infatuated with the notorious biker gang The Hells Angels. The Hells Angels frequently dealt in criminal activity around town and through wild parties. He dreamed of joining their circle. Willie stood by and let Dave make all the business decisions, keeping mostly to himself.

He continued to do the work he had done when his parents were alive, including attending livestock auctions and maintaining clients. Willie dedicated much of his time to work, including slaughtering animals. Rather than shoot the animal with a captive bolt gun to kill it, as is typical in industrial slaughterhouses, Willie preferred to slit its throat. Then he would hoist the animal by inserting a large hook into its ankle

and raising it high off the ground. This method of slaughter removes blood from the animal's body quickly, making it easier to later butcher it into cuts of meat. The entire operation was very graphic and incredibly hands-on. Willie had become extremely familiar with death, and at some point, death became a welcome friend. In a moment, we'll learn about Willie's earliest possible kills. Now back to the story.

By 1980, Willie Picton worked long hours almost every day of the week on his family farm, slaughtering and butchering animals. Willie was also responsible for packaging the meat for sale. Like Louise had when she was alive, he stored the meat in large freezers on the property until it was sold. While the farm was Willie's biggest interest, he also developed a growing interest in cars and mechanics. Taking apart cars wasn't all that different from taking apart a pig, he realized. Willie had a knack for both. Soon, Willie's hobby became a side job. The Picton brothers began running a chop shop out of the family farm, along with some bikers Dave had become close with.

The property was vast and perfect for hiding stolen cars or parts. Willie would later claim they bought their vehicles legally, mostly from auctions. But it's clear from later investigations that the Pictons were helping their biker friends cover up a huge number of auto thefts by chopping the cars up and selling them for parts. In 1981, Willie hired a few teenage boys to help out on the farm while he oversaw the chop shop, and Dave tended to his own side business in demolition. The boys considered Willie to be a strange guy who seemed to constantly be on edge. One of the boys was offered some frozen ham from one of Willie's freezers after a particularly long shift. The boy felt he deserved the bonus after spending many hours doing hard physical farm labor.

He accepted. even though one of the Picton's other young farmhands advised him not to. When Willie handed the boy a large piece of frozen meat, it looked wrong. It was dark and a strange texture, more stringy than any pork. It definitely wasn't the fatty, marbled ham the Picton's pigs produced. While the boy did not know what the mystery meat was, it definitely wasn't anything that was being raised on the Picton farm. He never looked at the Picton brothers quite the same.

the same way, and he never accepted food from them again. There's no way to be sure what was in the frozen package. However, we do know a little bit about the appearance and texture of human meat, thanks to early 20th century explorers like William Seabrook, who wrote about meeting cannibals during his travels. Though he later recanted this story, he did claim to have cooked human flesh he acquired from a hospital. Seabrook writes, regarding a meal of human flesh, quote, The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible.

The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell, as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable. There's no clear evidence that Willie Picton was already killing in 1981. when he offered his farm ham that strange-looking ham. But in comparison to the tender, whitish meat that typically comes from pigs, dark and stringy would be an apt description of human flesh. At this time, the Picton brothers were still mourning both their parents, as well as managing the family farm.

Willie and Dave dealt quite differently with these stresses. Willie turned inward, becoming more and more socially isolated, while Dave got increasingly involved with the Hell's Angels biker gang. People began gossiping about the strange happenings on the Picton family farm, from bikers who would roar up to the pig farm at all hours of the night, to the cars that arrived under suspicious circumstances and left the brothers chop shop in pieces. In 1981, after the son of a politician was arrested for stealing cars, police found out that local teens were being hired by the Pictons

to commit the crimes. When police came to investigate the farm, they recovered some of the stolen vehicles. They also observed the strange behavior of the two brothers. Willie, they noted, was almost devoid of any emotion. He hardly even blinked and was incredibly submissive. One possible explanation for his behavior is the psychological coping mechanism known as doubling.

According to LeBwall, some people whose jobs require the mechanical repetition, of morally dubious and psychologically stressful actions cope by separating themselves into a good and a bad self. The bad self goes to work each day, necessarily leaving any sense of empathy at the door. After work, the good self reappears. Of course, Willie might have just been putting

on a show of obedience and harmlessness for the police. And after losing both of his parents so close together, he might still have been emotionally subdued because of grief. But perhaps he was indeed manifesting a good self to talk to the police, separating it in his mind from the bad self who committed crimes. The police continued for a time to investigate the boys and their chop shop, but ultimately abandoned the case. With the police constantly coming to the property and the two brothers frequently arguing with each other, Dave's longtime girlfriend of 11 years, Vicky, found life on the

farm intolerable. She left. Dave quickly replaced Vicky by taking up with another woman named Kathy Wayenberg. Without Vicky around to discourage his partying, Dave got even wilder and focused even more on his friendships with the Hells Angels. Just like when he was a teenager with his first driver's license, Dave never missed a chance to attend or host a party. Meanwhile, Willie was exploring some disturbing passions of his own. He made the drive into his own. to Vancouver regularly, with a particularly infamous neighborhood as his destination. In the early 1980s, at the same time the Picton boys were running their chop shop,

throwing biker parties, and dodging the long arm of the law, strange things were happening in Vancouver's notoriously seedy downtown east side district. Women were going missing. Most were never to return. The downtown east side district had all the makings of a crime-riddled urban area, dark alleys at every block, discarded needles littering the ground, and shadowy figures who slink by at night. Running rampant within the downtown Eastside District were some aspects of society that many consider upsetting and often get swept under the rug, poverty, drug abuse, disease, and sex work. Which is why when sex workers started disappearing from the downtown east side district, law enforcement largely ignored the issue.

At the time, law enforcement considered these cases to be throwaways, appropriately named because that was how society at large viewed sex workers. It was as if these women were considered nothing more than trash on the street, and their disappearance was almost convenient for police officers. Whenever a sex worker disappeared, the police no longer had to worry about going to the effort of finding and prosecuting them for prostitution. Vancouver Mayor Gordon Campbell told reporters that while the murders of these sex workers were unfortunate, their deaths were ultimately for the best because citizens wanted them off the streets.

It's unthinkable today that a politician could describe any murder as justifiable or within the public's best interest without causing a career-ending scandal. But at the time, sex workers were widely viewed as criminals. Another factor in the lack of empathy for Vancouver sex workers was that many of the impoverished women turning to sex work were members of Canada's First Nations community. Indigenous Canadians suffer from poverty and addiction at far higher rates than other Canadians.

Conditions continue to present challenges for First Nations people today, like they did in the early 1980s, when women began disappearing from Vancouver's downtown east side. Indigenous Canadians still face the harshest poverty and worst housing conditions of any ethnic group in Canada. These economic disadvantages contribute to what's now known to be a horrific five-decade and counting trend of violence against indigenous Canadian women. The Canadian Broadcasting Company, CBC, maintains a list that currently details 192 murders of First Nations women and 116 disappearances. the vast majority of which are unresolved. Indigenous Canadians often referred to in Canada as Aboriginal people

are more than twice as likely as other Canadians to be the victims of violent crime. According to a 2014 study, Aboriginal females had a rate of violent victimization that was close to triple that of non-Aboriginal females. Audrey Huntley, a journalist on Vancouver's downtown east side, has accused police, media, and politicians of willful indifference towards indigenous murder victims.

She says women who disappeared in the area have been described as drug-addicted prostitutes, even when there was no evidence of either. Not all of the women who disappeared or were killed in the string of downtown Eastside crimes were indigenous, and not all were sex workers, but it seems like the mere presence of indigenous women and sex workers in the area

was enough to diminish. empathy for all missing and murdered women. Wendy Louise Allen, a 34-year-old woman, is thought to be one of the first in a long chain of disappearances in the downtown East Side District. Wendy disappeared on March 30, 1979. She was found decades later, alive and living under a different name in Ontario. Wendy has never explained what caused her to flee her family, friends, and old life so suddenly. suddenly. Upon being located, Wendy expressed to investigators that she still does not want to see her family and did not want her new name published.

Before she was found, Wendy's family believed she might have been among Picton's victims. It's possible she had a run-in with Picton that frightened her out of Vancouver. But if so, she hasn't said anything about it to police. But even if she never met Picton, Wendy's story is part of the Picton case in that her disappearance was the... earliest sign of Vancouver's missing women crisis. Following Wendy was Rebecca Guno, a 23-year-old woman who disappeared on June 22, 1983. She was never found. Next to disappear were Yvonne Marlene Abagososos, who disappeared after telling family she

planned to move to Calgary and Sherry Rail, both in January of 1984. Neither was ever located. although police did later test human remains found at Willie Pickton's farm against a DNA sample from Yvonne's sister, Valerie. There were no matches. But Valerie still wonders if her sister was among Picton's victims. It's unclear if Willie Picton was involved in these disappearances. Because of his unusual methods of body disposal, we'll probably never know exactly how many women Picton killed or who they were. What we do know is, long before his first recorded murder, there were multiple stories about strange, so-called pork coming from the Picton Pig Farm, and there are disturbing rumors about Willie's visits to the

downtown East Side. According to a woman quoted anonymously in the book, On the Farm, Robert William Picton and the tragic story of Vancouver's missing women, police ignored rumors about Picton beating, kidnapping, and even murdering sex workers in the early 1980s. According to the same woman, Picton allegedly attacked a young teen runaway who was living on the streets in Vancouver around 1984. The girl had left home to escape sexual abuse by her own father. While homeless in Vancouver, she ran into Picton, who beat her and attempted to pull her into his vehicle. She barely escaped. When the teen girl reported this crime to Vancouver police, the anonymous friend says, they didn't investigate Picton.

instead giving the victim a choice between being returned home to her abusive family or being sent to a juvenile detention center. She agreed to go home. Decades later, when she retrieved her childhood records from the Department of Children and Family Services, the former teen runaway was shocked to discover the attempted kidnapper named in her long ago police report,

Robert Pickton. By that time, he was a household name in Canada. Like many of the stories told about Willie Picton's early years, it's hard to say if these claims are true. Because of Picton's later infamy, people seeking the spotlight could certainly have invented stories about close encounters with him, but this anecdote certainly does fit with Picton's later pattern of praying on the vulnerable. Meanwhile, back home on the Picton farm, Dave was getting more and more involved with the Hells Angels, who loved to throw huge raging parties. Willie was always a guest at these parties, and even hosted big parties himself.

Despite his overall identity as a socially isolated loner, Willie liked to cut loose. His parties often turned into wild sex orgies. According to psychology researcher Dr. Nicola Davies, Willie's social activities were not as out of character or surprising as they seem. She writes, The parties and orgies were a way to release the chaotic thoughts, feelings, and emotions that were inside a man wearing a quiet mask.

Word spread in town that if you wanted a party, the Picton Pig Farm was the place to be. The Hells Angels kept drugs and liquor flowing freely. In an otherwise sleepy rural area, these wild occasions became an important part of the social calendar for people who like to partake in group sex and illicit substances. In 1986, a woman named Karen Kaufman was invited by her sister, to attend such an occasion.

Karen met Dave Picton and hit it off with him right away. They began a close friendship that found her visiting the Picton farm often. Karen took notice of Willie's strange behavior, but she more or less shrugged it off. She recognized him to be a loner who was always off doing his own thing, usually in his own room in the basement. She saw Willie as an unfortunate piece of baggage that came with dating Dave and avoided him entirely.

That was just fine by Willie. Willie much preferred to be ignored by Dave's many girlfriends because he hated when people went into his room. Having his privacy invaded sent him into a rage. One night, Dave, for some unknown reason, took Karen and Kathy down to the basement to see Willie's room. While they were inside, Willie came home and saw them. He became enraged and spit in Kathy's face,

threatening to kill her if it happened again. The encounter changed Kathy and Karen's view of Willie forever. No longer was he just the reclusive weirdo in Dave's basement. The more the women hung around the farm, the more they became afraid of Willie. One night at dinner, he became upset and threw an entire glass of milk at Karen's face. Willie wasn't the only one the women feared. The Picton brothers had a German shepherd guard dog that was incredibly violent. Willie would feed it raw meat from the farm and allowed

the dog to be horribly aggressive. Karen recalled that at one pig roast dinner, the brothers held, Willie didn't use the normal pig meat from the farm, claiming the pigs had been sick. She remembered seeing the raw meat Willie gave his dog instead, and noticed it looked really strange. It was dark and stringy. After that, Karen and Kathy would no longer eat meat from the Picton farm. Next week, we'll discuss Robert Willie Pickton's role in the murders of 49 women. It would seem as though Karen and Kathy were well justified in their belief that something at Picton Farm was terribly, terribly wrong. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers.

We'll be back Monday with a new episode. You can find more episodes of serial killers as well as all of parcast's other shows on Spotify or your favorite podcast. Cast Directory. Several of you have asked how to help the show. And if you enjoy the show, the best way to help is to leave a five-star review. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by David Turk, with production

assistance by Ron Shapiro and Paul Liebeskind. Additional production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie Admeier. Serial Killers is written by Kaylee Huffman and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. You want to hear something spooky. Some monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very snake light lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me, your guide, Derek Hayes. Somehow I lost eight whole hours.

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