“The LePard and Evans reports tragically seem to have been used as a guide to this Commission. They are suspiciously similar…”  — Vanessa Christie, counsel for Terry Blythe and John Unger, June 6, 2012

……

The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry received the report of Vancouver Police Department’s Deputy Chief Doug LePard as its very first exhibit.  Thereafter, the Commission’s Executive Director, a non-lawyer named John Boddie who was once LePard’s supervisor during Boddie’s 16 year tenure with the VPD, apparently worked with LePard and Peel Deputy Chief Constable Evans to assist them with managing the evidence presented to the public inquiry.  The Commission, directed by Boddie, apparently used LePard’s report as a template for the evidence it received.  This document, 408 pages in length, does not contain the phrase “Hells Angels”  at all and mentions the phrase “Piggy’s Palace” but once (at page 117).

Before the Commission hearings began, it was well known, and indeed well-publicized, that David and Willy Pickton hosted wild parties at Piggy’s Palace, 2552 Burns Rd., Port Coquitlam, that were attended by members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and drug-addicted sex trade workers from the downtown eastside of Vancouver.  It was also well known, and well-publicized, that from 1996 onwards the CFSEU and OCABC (Organized Crime Agency of BC and Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, respectively) conducted major investigations into the Hells Angels’ activities throughout the Lower Mainland that included the use of wiretaps, surveillance and undercover agents.

During these extensive operations, what did the OCABC and CFSEU investigators learn about the activities that were occurring at Piggy’s Palace and at the two residential properties around the corner, one occupied by the Hells Angels, and the other, across the street at 953 Dominion Ave., occupied by the Pickton brothers?   The OCABC and CFSEU records weren’t produced to the Commission and Peter Ditchfield, the supervisor of one of the major investigative efforts (Project Nova) who in 1999 declined a request to provide resources to investigate Willy Pickton, was not called as a witness.

Has the nexus between the Pickton brothers, organized crime and the police investigations thereof been studiously avoided by the expensive public inquiry struck to “to inquire into and make findings of fact respecting the conduct of the missing women investigations”?

Just asking….

According to Tim Dickson, counsel for the Vancouver Police Department and Vancouver Police Board, the RCMP’s handling of the investigation into Robert William Pickton after July of 1998, when he was a known murder suspect, was “a chronicle of inaction”. 

While this is hardly in dispute, the real question, the question that should have been answered in these hearings, is why?  Why did the RCMP allow their investigation to languish?

Just one example of the inadequate state of the evidence: on the last day of the Commission hearings, May 24, 2012, former RCMP S/Sgt. Keith Davidson testified about a meeting held on February 14, 2000 involving him and his colleagues Cst. John Cater, Cpl. Marg Kingsbury, Cpl. Nicole St. Mars, Cpl. Scott Filer and Cpl. Dave McCartney.  These members were tasked with various responsibilities; McCartney, for instance, was to obtain an authorization to intercept communications and to get a search warrant for Pickton’s property.  Nothing was apparently done…and 14 more women died between the date of that meeting, February 14, 2000, and February 5, 2002 when Pickton’s property was in fact searched by Cst. Nathan Wells.  Why didn’t Cpl. McCartney get the authorization and the search warrant two years before Cst. Wells did?

The Commission didn’t call Cpl. McCartney to the stand.  Nor did it call the other attendees at the meeting – Cater, Kingsbury, St. Mars or Filer – because of time constraints.

Minister of Justice Shirley Bond has responded to the disclosure of a video depicting Paul Boyd’s last moments by referring the matter to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team for further review.  Boyd, 39, a mentally disturbed local animator, was shot in the head by VPD Cst. Lee Chipperfield while crawling, mortally wounded and unarmed, across Granville Street nearly five years ago.  Local journalist Ian Mulgrew has penned an opinion piece in today’s Vancouver Sun questioning, in Mr. Mulgrew’s inimitable style, whether the use of lethal force was reasonable.

The answer to that question appears obvious.  We have a different question, though.  Why not hand the case to Richard Rosenthal, the chief civilian director of BC’s new Independent Investigations Office, whose appointment was announced with much fanfare last December?  What better test for the new investigator, who has been on the public payroll for almost six months, than this highly charged and controversial case?  For those of us watching how the long-overdue civilian investigative office is going to perform, this case would have afforded a golden opportunity to test Mr. Rosanthal’s mettle.

The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry announced at 4:00 p.m. today that oral submissions will not be taking place next week, as scheduled, but would be postponed to the week of June 4, 2012.  We were not consulted and received no prior notice about the sudden change in scheduling.  We also have a previously planned professional commitment that week.

We had made arrangements for our clients, the families of 25 murdered women, to travel to Vancouver to be in attendance next week but these plans will apparently have to be changed.  It is bitterly ironic that the Commission has been plagued by the same indifferent attitude toward the families that permeated the police response to their loved ones’ disappearances.

Yesterday morning, we finally received a document we had sought months ago.  The printout of an offline CPIC search of David Francis Pickton revealed that police queried his name 107 times prior to January 17, 2002.

David Pickton resided with his brother, convicted serial murderer Robert William Pickton, at 953 Dominion Ave. in Port Coquitlam.  The Pickton brothers owned and operated Piggy’s Palace, a notorious after hours “booze can” at 2552 Burns Road, just around the corner.  According to Project Evenhanded team leader Don Adam’s testimony, Willy Pickton began his killing spree in 1991 and DNA evidence from 32 of Vancouver’s missing women was found in the dirt in the brothers’ property after the police executed a search warrant on February 5, 2002.

The offline CPIC search, marked as Exhibit 186, wasn’t reviewed by the Commission’s expert witness, Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans.  As there are only three days left in the Commission’s schedule, we are unlikely to determine why police were so interested in Willy Pickton’s younger brother.  Our application to have the Commission call David Pickton as a witness, so we could ask him about his dealings with the police while his brother was killing women at their farm, was dismissed.  Unfortunately, it looks like a great deal of the story will remain untold, despite the public inquiry.  More on this soon….