Lead Pickton investigator may’ve broken silence, but all-but-omits key fact
In a special letter to today’s Vancouver Sun entitled “Top Robert Pickton cop in his own words,” retired RCMP inspector Don Adam attempts to respond to the mountain of criticisms over the RCMP-Vancouver Police Missing Women Task Force’s handling of the investigation into this convicted serial killer.
As head of the so-called ‘Pickton investigation,’ Adam indicates he is well aware how it has been “described in the media… [as] either merely botched, or … possibly the worst investigation in Canadian history.”
And yet, despite Adam’s efforts to “answer to and be responsible for the actions of our Task Force,” there is, as far as I can tell, a near-total omission in his piece regarding what is arguably a key commonality among Pickton’s victims: their Aboriginality.
A series of word searches within Adam’s text revealed but one direct reference to Aboriginal people:
“He also told her he liked native women.”
To put the quote in context: “[Pickton A man] also told [a sex trade worker] he liked native women.”
That’s it. That’s the extent of any discussion by Adam of how the victims’ shared identity (and their related socio-economic status) could have played a role in all that’s happened.
I do not have the exact figures before me as to the exact proportion of Aboriginal women among Pickton’s known victims, but one source reports his “first six victims were Aboriginal.”
At the risk of second-guessing Mr. Adam and his team or completely misunderstanding the nature of police work, based on what he wrote to the Sun, I do feel cause to wonder what it might say that such a common characteristic tying together the profiles of many of Pickton’s victims — i.e., their Aboriginality — failed to register all that highly on his team’s radar back then or, apparently, even now in retrospect.
I would like to hear from people about what they think, especially whether I am being fair or misplaced in my observations here. It’s admittedly an immediate gut reaction, but, as I say, I couldn’t help be struck by the near-absence of this aspect.
UPDATE: As a reader (“SandyFrance”) rightly points out in the comments below, the man who said he “liked native women” was not Robert Pickton. Despite this egregious error on my part, the fact remains that many of Pickton’s victims were Aboriginal (First Nations, Metis and/or Inuit). Nowhere in Adam’s letter is this fact mentioned. While it does not necessarily take anything away from my original point, I nonetheless regret the error.
[ Image via Missing and Murdered Women ]
He still left out that the larger percentage of these women were Native, First Nations. He’s part of the original lie, he covered up the truth and told the story that was Produced for misleading the public on the real issues that effect Natives. They perpetrate the Lie that Justifieds their actions.
Rick, your column above quotes Don Adam’s open letter as saying:
“[Pickton] also told [a sex trade worker] he liked native women.”
But in fact Don Adam’s letter says exactly the opposite. Here is the passage:
“On Nov 14 we got what looked like it might be a very good lead. Vancouver Sex Assault Squad were working an investigation where a sex trade worker had met a male in the Downtown Eastside. She had got into his van willingly. He then began to drive out of Vancouver masturbating as he drove. He advised her that he was going to cut her up and bury her, that he had a site selected in the mountains. He claimed to be the person who had killed the missing women and he had a saw in the back of the van for her. He also told her he liked native women. The victim was able to escape as he drove through Burnaby.
“Vancouver police had been working the case aggressively and we came in to assist with surveillance on the target. The male was then arrested and his vehicle and residence searched. Of interest were restraints in the vehicle and a trap door in the bottom of the van which opened to the ground. This male was eventually cleared as a suspect in our offences and obviously was not Pickton.”
Rick, your column above quotes Don Adam’s open letter as saying:
“[Pickton] also told [a sex trade worker] he liked native women.”
But in fact Don Adam’s letter says exactly the opposite. Here is the passage:
“On Nov 14 we got what looked like it might be a very good lead. Vancouver Sex Assault Squad were working an investigation where a sex trade worker had met a male in the Downtown Eastside. She had got into his van willingly. He then began to drive out of Vancouver masturbating as he drove. He advised her that he was going to cut her up and bury her, that he had a site selected in the mountains. He claimed to be the person who had killed the missing women and he had a saw in the back of the van for her. He also told her he liked native women. The victim was able to escape as he drove through Burnaby.
“Vancouver police had been working the case aggressively and we came in to assist with surveillance on the target. The male was then arrested and his vehicle and residence searched. Of interest were restraints in the vehicle and a trap door in the bottom of the van which opened to the ground. This male was eventually cleared as a suspect in our offences and obviously was not Pickton.”
SandyFrance,
See my ‘UPDATE’ above. Thank you for catching my misread of the letter.
Rick, thanks as always for your integrity.
I have been Googling for about an hour over this evening. I have not found any site that details the proportion of Pickton’s victims who were Aboriginal women. However, I did find a horrifying site, http://www.missingnativewomen.ca/, that tells the story of some of the Aboriginal women murdered by non-Aboriginal men.
Perhaps I’m misinformed but I was under the impression that the Vancouver Police had been running this investigation for many years with no apparent results. The RCMP with lead investigator Don Adam finally closed the case didn’t they? I don’t really understand why native status is the major issue. I thought everyone was upset about the lack of attention due to the fact that these women were prostetutes. They were calling Don Adam the closer so what happened?
You obviously have no idea how a profile would be arrived at. The number one point that is common to all the victims is that they were all street workers. Not all were Native and if he would have looked at that singular point this never would have been solved. People need to stop looking for holes and look at the positives in this investigation, which there are hundreds, if you care to look!