Pickton was in jail when an undercover LE became his cell mate. Pickton confessed to the undercover to killing 49 women on the farm and said he had planned to kill another one to make it an even 50. That information was used as evidence in court and was valuable in securing his conviction.
Very true. Jumping off from your post, SB, I'm going to go into a little detail about one of the reasons the cell tape was important. I'm going start with some context and then focus in on the tragic fact that, even if some victims could escape from the hell of the farm, the cases might never have made it to court.
Robert "Willie" Pickton was being investigated and evidence gathered by LE, long before his arrest. Rumours that had been flying around Vancouver at the time of the disappearances were acknowledged as true during the recent Missing Women Commission of Inquiry into possible mishandling of the case by LE. Pickton been identified by various women (some sex trade workers, many others just attractive women who worked night shifts) as having been their assailant in assault cases in East Vancouver. In one case, a prostitute barely escaped with her life, clearly identifying Willie. She'd agreed to perform an oral sex act with him at his farm. Then the date turned bad.
At the farm, after the sex trade worker agreed to have sex with Pickton, he grabbed her wrist and slapped handcuffs on her, the officer said. The two struggled and the woman grabbed a knife and fought back. Later, after escaping with the knife still clenched in her hand, she was taken to hospital in critical condition.
Had she died, mortifying as that is, had she died, we probably would have had a slam-dunk murder conviction, Shenher said. In fact, attempted murder charges against Pickton back in 1997 were stayed after prosecutors considered the sex trade worker was too unreliable as a witness.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...bert_pickton_was_the_killer_inquiry_told.html
IIRC, LE was attempting to find out just which of the missing women had actually died at Picton's farm. "Pickton was convicted in 2007 of murdering six. He was charged with killing 26, though bragged of having 49 victims in total." He was suspected of being involved in 60 disappearances. (
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...efended-by-man-who-warned-of-killer-1.1169223)
Pickton was also brought to the attention of LE because some people who attended his parties saw evidence of horrors. Like Bill Hiscox's friend who was afraid LE would not listen to her, for example. Hiscox felt something had to be done, and did his best to alert authorities.
Four years and more than a dozen slain women before Pickton was arrested, Hiscox went to police with accurate and macabre details pointing to the horrors at Pickton's Port Coquitlam, B.C. pig farm...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...efended-by-man-who-warned-of-killer-1.1169223
However, since LE was charged with looking into many disappearances, Pickton was only one of many men who could have been the prime suspect in any of the cases.
Robert Pickton was just one of a growing list of "hideous" people who were considered prime suspects in the disappearance of Vancouver sex workers in the year before his arrest, says an RCMP officer who led one of several investigations into the case...Retired Staff Sgt. Don Adam led a joint RCMP-Vancouver police task force known as Project Evenhanded, which was formed in January 2001. Within a few months, the list of viable suspects had ballooned into the hundreds, he said. "This file was full of hideous human beings, and they needed to be looked at," Adam testified Wednesday at the public inquiry into the Pickton case.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...-not-sole-suspect-in-women-s-deaths-1.1157267
The undercover officer's conversation with Pickton is brutal to watch, listen to, or read and is easily found on the net, but I'll put some sites at the end of this post. Since the potential witnesses against Pickton were people whose lifestyles or occupations could have made them seem to be unreliable witnesses, Pickton's confession during the conversation was a very important part of the case.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/08/06/pickton-interview-transcripts-released/
http://www.citynews.ca/2007/02/06/r...ersonality-emerges-in-undercover-police-tape/
At the time, Pickton was only charged with two of the slayings. I got a murder charge on me, hes heard saying. And 48 more, 48 more to come. Whoopee. The accused killer was well aware he was being taped during the conversation but didnt restrain much of what he said.
http://www.citynews.ca/2007/02/06/r...ersonality-emerges-in-undercover-police-tape/