Families of Robert Pickton’s victims brace for his ‘horrific’ day parole application eligibility
Warning: This story deals with disturbing subject matter that may upset and trigger some readers. Discretion is advised.
It’s been more than 20 years since police raided the B.C. farm of one of Canada’s most prolific serial killers, but according to Palexelsiya Lorelei Williams those painful decades have “flown by.”
Her cousin, Tanya Holyk is among more than two dozen women who were murdered or suspected to have been murdered, by Port Coquitlam pig farmer Robert Pickton.
The serial rapist — now in his 70s — was charged with 26 murders in the deaths of women who disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, but only convicted of second-degree murder for six of them.
On Thursday, he becomes eligible to apply for day parole.
“The fact that he can actually apply is horrific,” Williams said Wednesday, ahead of a candlelight vigil taking place by Pickton’s old farm on Wednesday night.
“That threw me right off. I didn’t know and the other families that I’m close to didn’t know.”
On Wednesday evening, she was joined by dozens of friends and family members of victims at the former site of Pickton’s farm in Port Coquitlam, where they hung posters, flowers and red dresses in memory of their loved ones.
It’s extremely unlikely that Pickton would ever be released, but Williams — a fierce advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls — said the mere fact that he can apply is “disgusting.”
“Our justice system is horrific. It’s racist and puts Indigenous women’s lives in danger,” she said. “It makes me sick to my stomach.”
Pickton was not convicted in Holyk’s death, but those of Marnie Frey, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Sereena Abotsway, Brenda Wolfe and Georgina Papin.
The remains or DNA of 33 women were found on
Read more on globalnews.ca
