Pickton Trial Underway in BC, Canada

[jjreason]

Well, just across a short body of water from my former home a murder trial of great significance in Canada has finally gotten underway.

Robert "Willy" Pickton, accused of some 26 murders (largely of prostitutes and downtrodden drug addicted homeless women previously living in the Vancouver area) is currently facing the first 6 murder charges against him (more will be tried at later dates). Should he be convicted of all of them, he will go down in infamy as Canada's most prolific mass-murderer.

The investigation into Pickton has been underway for years - the RCMP searched his large property (formerly a pig farm - draw your own body-disposal conclusions) for months on end digging up DNA evidence of all the murders. Sadly, a few sets of DNA standards were found there but not identified, and charges of murder were not added for those invdividuals. It is possible that he was responsible for the deaths of nearly 50 women.

For the RCMP this is extremely significant - this will be our highest profile case since the doomed-from-the-onset Air India fiasco, which led to not guilty decisions for all involved.

Is this news at all in the US, or do you guys have too much other grisly shit going on down there for this to even get a mention?

[Slicker]

Is this news at all in the US, or do you guys have too much other grisly shit going on down there for this to even get a mention?

I was actually reading up on it the other day. I saw it in an article on Yahoo! then did some more searching and found a good article on Slickipedia.


I would assume that you guys don't have the death penalty?

[jjreason]

You would assume correctly. If convicted, he'll get life sentences of 25 years for each murder, complete with the "faint hope" clause (which gives even the most heinous criminals a chance at parole after 25 years - they never get it, and it's a complete farce that it even exists... but that's Canadian justice for ya).

[Antropov]

Is this news at all in the US, or do you guys have too much other grisly shit going on down there for this to even get a mention?

The only mention I've heard of this in the States was on the CBC which, by the way, is the best channel on the planet.

We're much too worried about our obese children and what Sandra Oh wore to the Golden Globes to be concerned with trivial stuff like this.

[Eternal Padawan]

I don't watch the news. It's too depressing.

[anarky]

I'm excited. I'll wager Newsbot is excited, too.

[mabudon]

I am just pissed that WE (me and JJ) are paying so much for this stupid trial- I mean, are they REALLY gonna try him in bits and pieces?? This fucking trial is about 6 of the alleged 49 murders he's possibly commited, and ALL of the victims families will likely demand "closure" which means that Pictons fucking next of kin will be on the stand years after the dude dies on trial at this rate, I swear it's ridiculous

What's yer take on it overall JJ?? It sure looks like he was involved at the very least, and he supposedly admitted to several of the murders, I don't know what kind of BS his lawyers can pull but to me this trial shows how damn useless our "legal system" is