On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver's Missing Women [Hardcover]

"I had one more planned, but that was the end of it. That was the last. I was gonna shut it down. I was just sloppy. Just the last one." - Calgary Herald, August 2010

I found this book to be a sad and painful reminder of how strong the forces of evil can be when they are intent on destroying all that is weak and vulnerable in society. Cameron's exhaustive researching of the infamous Robert `Willy' Pickton file, stretching back as far as the nineteen eighties, creates a bizarre and twisted story of one man's fiendish desire to prey on and murder prostitutes living in Vancouver's East End. To get at the truth of the matter as to why Pickton went on this rampage and how he managed to elude police for so long makes for a fascinating and blood-chilling read. While much of the evidence that Cameron uses to answer these questions has since emerged in testimony recently unsealed by the BC Supreme Court, her analytical and compelling account should still be considered the key authority on this horrible train of events. To achieve that distinction, Cameron, author of other investigative efforts, provides credible information that sets the scene of the crime, gets inside the mind and personality of the killer, ties in with the various ongoing forensic investigations, looks at motive and, most importantly, focuses on the lives of Pickton's numerous victims. Cameron's retelling of this tragically macabre affair contains a balance of praise and rebuke for the police, politicians, and the courts with respect to their roles in either assisting or frustrating the investigation. Here are ten useful ideas I acquired from reading this book that, I believe, could help others come to grips with the magnitude of this crime:
a) Pickton was definitely psychopathic in his behavior though he was very cunning in his ability to disguise his urges as innocent eccentricities;
b) Much of Pickton's anti-social behavior can be traced to a very abusive and dysfunctional upbringing;
c) As DNA technology improved over the years, much of the evidence collected from various crime sites involving murdered call girls in the Lower Mainland focused on a prime list of suspects that included Pickton and Gary Ridgeway, the Green River killer;
d) There were plenty of incriminating clues - the virtual connection between the farm, the Astoria Hotel and the East End -that pointed in Pickton's direction but nobody with any legal clout seemed interested in going beyond joining the dots;
e) The Pickton brothers were well known to police for some serious criminal activities involving the Hell's Angels;
f) Pickton is portrayed as a vicious and blood-thirsty killer of both pigs and women. There seems to be ample proof of a cross-over of methods in disposing of both. The detail here was, perhaps, the hardest to stomach;
g) The reader gets to see how the various forensic teams conducted their respective inquiries leading to a successful prosecution of Pickton;
h) For anyone having grown up in the Lower Mainland, Cameron's description of familiar landmarks like the Pickton Farm, the Barnett Highway, Port Coquitlam and Essondale create a very strong sense of deja vu;
i) Cameron writes widely and competently about many of the investigative weapons at the disposal of the investigators such as profiling and DNA sampling. With these techniques and technologies, one gets the feeling that Pickton should have been nabbed considerably earlier than he was;
j) While justice was finally realized with the sentencing of Pickton to indefinite life behind bars, there is a nagging feeling that the system, as represented by the indifference and gross negligence of the Vancouver Police Department, seriously let the women of the East End down. Cameron's book serves as a guide through these terrible times as well as a critique of where the establishment went wrong in protecting society's weakest members: the derelicts of society.

Here's what's wrong with this book:

When Willy Pickton was first put in a jail cell following his arrest, he went over to the cell's urinal and peed in it. His bladder movement lasted nearly two minutes, according to the policeman who was in the cell pretending to be another prisoner so he could get information from Pickton.

The book is packed full of such petty, useless details - 700 pages of it - but there's not a single page about why Pickon did what he did - no psychological evaluation, no exploration of his personality type - just the odd hint that he was a 'sexual psychopath'.

This is a thoroughly researched book as far as the details of the case go. It's also admirable for the amount of attention it pays to the victims, giving biographies of each of them.

Just prepare yourself for an overwhelming deluge of facts that are, in themselves, largely meaningless (for instance, we don't need to know where the coffee shop in the Vancouver courthouse is, when the building was built, what style the architecture is, what kind of trees grow outside it. We don't need to that on the day of Pickton's arrest, the police who picked him up left twenty minutes later than they meant to, and so on...)

This 700 page doorstop would probably have been far more effective as a 400 page paperback.

I think the book could have been clearer about some of the why's and wherefores. I was wondering when they were going to write a book about this farmer. We got information about the police not being able to do a job because of internal strife. There was an absence of pictures to my liking. A picture tells a thousand words. There were some pictures and I guess there is a victims site but I'd hoped for more. We got dates mostly.