Book Review: The Pickton File by Stevie Cameron

When we hear about horrific events, we usually express immediate shock and outrage. But without looking further and seeking out the full story, any real opinions we have on the subject tend to be superficial, and fade into a few stock responses we offer up whenever the subject is raised.

For years I felt and expressed the usual sadness and disbelief about the holocaust and other events associated with WWII. But it was only when I visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem many years ago that the true horror sunk in. The devil, and the understanding, are always in the details.

That was the thought that I had when I started reading The Pickton File by Stevie Cameron. The book is about Robert Pickton, the women he murdered on his farm in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, and numerous related storylines.

I hoped that I would gain some insight into the mind-numbing events that took place. I wanted my loathing for Pickton to ratchet up several levels, and I wanted to feel more for the women who were killed than just the angry but ultimately hollow feelings a person has when hearing about terrible things that happen to strangers.

The Pickton File starts off well. However, ultimately the frustration that the author, Stevie Cameron, felt when she was writing the book will also be felt by the reader. No clear sense of which tale this book wants to tell ever fully emerges.

That lack of focus is partly due to the time frame in which the book was written. Cameron accumulated the information that went into the writing of this book starting after Robert Pickton was arrested in 2002. She followed the preliminary hearing that dragged on for six months, interviewed family members of many of the missing women, and then released the book shortly after Pickton's trial finally started in January 2007. Unfortunately, numerous publication bans prevented any information from the preliminary hearing from being included in the book. Of course, in such a huge case that affected so many people, there should have been plenty of other sources of information.

But nothing much was being said by anyone who could have provided valuable insight in the lead-up to the trial. The Vancouver police and local RCMP detachments were in defensive mode after being highlighted as some of the most shamelessly incompetent and insensitive police forces on the face of the earth. In the early pages of the book, the reader gets the sense that Cameron will explore this tale of incompetence in detail. What does appear on the topic is great, and is likely to stoke the anger of anyone who has followed this sad saga for any length of time.

For example, one of the most accomplished and educated members of the Vancouver police department was driven out of the force for, among other things, daring to suggest that there was likely a serial killer at work. However, while Cameron talks to the former police officer, Kim Rossmo, on numerous occasions, she does not, or is unable to, provide any other perspectives on this matter. The best and most thorough non-fiction books (and especially true crime) give credible perspectives from more than one side when warranted.

But the focus on police insensitivity to the missing women tails off. It is revisited incidentally throughout the book but is never fleshed out completely. As Cameron mentions, an entire book could be devoted to how the police refused to start looking into the issue until long after it was too late. As a lone writer working on a book, Cameron was simply overwhelmed at times by the amount of information, the numerous angles, and the spin that was being offered up by police:

All of this information was useful and interesting. It was good to know that so many qualified people were examining evidence on the farm. I was relieved that no expense was being spared, that nothing was too much trouble. But I began to feel as if I were being choked with numbers, statistics and little fact nuggets. I wouldn't say, exactly , that the information was spin, but it was so far from so many important issues that it began to worry me. All the public relations bustle, the steady torrent of numbers, couldn't stop people from asking how this had happened in the first place. Why had the police ignored, for years, the anguished efforts of family members and friends to have their loved ones listed as missing persons? Why didn't the police look for them? When Kim Rossmo told his colleagues in the Vancouver police in 1998 that he was convinced a serial killer was working in the Downtown Eastside, why was the official response a humiliating demotion—essentially a public dismissal? And if Pickton was taking women out of the Downtown Eastside to kill on his farm, why hadn't the RCMP, whose jurisdiction included the farm, picked up on the rumours that he might be involved? Especially when he was "known to the police," as the expression goes, a man who had once been caught by the RCMP running a chop shop (an illegal bit of entrepreneurial activity where he helped take apart stolen cars for their parts) on the farm for the Hells Angels.

One of the other very good sections of the book involves Cameron's investigating in Port Coquitlam, where Pickton's pig farm is located. A great atmospheric image of the town and its inhabitants emerges. This is where the writing is also at its best, with a real rhythm and purpose that makes you want to keep reading.

The Victims

Cameron interviews some of the family members of the dead and missing women, and this could have been one of the best and most riveting sections of the book. However, the interviews are generally brief and the picture of the women that comes through is often quite superficial. In the few cases where more details are given, you still get the sense that more could have been included.

Other women who lived the life and were friends of the dead women also have compelling stories to tell. For example, Cameron accompanies Maggy Gisle to the court during the preliminary trial. When she is first mentioned, she is making a good effort to change her life. Her story is one of constant struggle and setback, and like many of the women trapped in drugs and prostitution, you are never able to believe she will finally be all right. The shocking difference between Gisle when she was on the streets and when she got clean, as evidenced by two photos that appear in the book, is proof of what a nightmare life so many in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside live. When, a few chapters later, Cameron mentions almost as an aside that Gisle's life again spiraled out of control after their meeting, you wish that she would provide more details.

Most people aren't honest about the voyeuristic appeal provided by the broken lives of these women. Like stars in a real-life crime noir, there is not only tragedy in reading about these women but, if it hadn't been for the brutal deaths at the hands of the murderous freak Pickton, a kind of poetic beauty in the fact that so many of them chose a life of slow suicide.

As referenced by Cameron numerous times in the book, the website missingpeople.net contains the best collection of information on the missing women, and numerous interviews with the women's families. As much as you might think that the family members will white-wash the lives of the murdered women and provide a romanticized version of events, they often are forthcoming with honest anecdotes. Yet, the result is still hauntingly tragic in a way that makes our problems seem small and manageable. And like so many people who fall hard, they discovered too late that things can always get worse.

There is something almost naive and child-like in the images that are painted of these women by their surviving family members. That's probably because the families naturally reference the years before their lost daughters' descent into hell began—i.e., when they were little girls. But the fact that they did succumb to the pressures and dropped out is also an indication of their fragile, child-like state. Most drug users are of the functional variety and never fall as far as the women who end up on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. A combination of early trauma in childhood (often sexual abuse), a family that was unable to support them (although that is not always the case), and a lack of self-esteem is the usual profile.

And gutless animals like Pickton prey on these weaknesses and know how to exploit them.

Beyond the Generalizations

Yet it is far more complex than the visceral responses of pity and guilt that most people have when they hear about the fate suffered by these women. If you had met any one of them before they were killed by Pickton, when they were at their worst on the streets, would you be able to summon the compassion to help them in any real way?

The honest answer for most would be no. Make no mistake, while many of the drug addicted prostitutes need our sympathy and help, when they are at their worst, some of them can be nasty pieces of work who do plenty of their own victimizing. In the most truthful accounts on missingpeople.net, families of the women who were killed admit that they did not have what it takes to rescue their daughters, sisters, and mothers. Sometimes, people simply are unreachable. But that doesn't alleviate the guilt. As Cameron mentions,

But the saddest family members were those who had seen their girls taken to foster homes by welfare officers because of neglect and addiction in the family. The regrets of these people had no limits and no answers, and most of the people I interviewed will never forgive themselves.

To go beyond the stereotypes and present this huge part of the Pickton story, there really needs to be an in-depth and thorough presentation. To avoid the normal divisions that this subject prompts, it has to go beyond the superficial. It has to let people know that all of these women have pasts, families (sometimes fractured, destructive, and the source of much of their pain, but families nonetheless), and, hopefully, futures.

For a grim and very difficult look at many people caught up in this life, the National Film Board's Through a Blue Lens is an excellent look at life on Vancouver's streets. No matter how far people have fallen, most still seem to have something worthwhile to offer, and, unbelievably, flashes of optimism and a sense of humour.

I mentioned in a previous post that the sick tale of Pickton offered no sense of humanity. But I was wrong. Brief glimpses of the people who devote their lives to helping the women trapped on skid row Vancouver provide a sense of hope. If we all had the compassion of these people, no doubt our society would be different in many ways. Perhaps there wouldn't be so many individuals who seem to experience a twisted schadenfreude at seeing others suffer, simply because they think "it's all about choices."

This takes us to about the half-way point of the book, and after that there isn't much more of interest related to the case.

Too Much Filler

Cameron writes in the first person and includes many of the obstacles she encountered when gathering information. The book is often more about her trying to come to grips with the enormity of the case, and find credible information, than it is about the case itself. This works quite well in the early part of the book. But the bland minutiae of her day-to-day interactions and travels becomes very tiresome after a while. Did she include these sections to contribute to a kind of general theme of confusion that is part of the Pickton case? Perhaps. However, it comes across as so much filler after a while.

The only really gripping part of the book appears in the closing chapter as we hear details from the opening arguments from both the lead Crown prosecutor and the lead defense lawyer.

This book is really only a primer. After so many years devoted to following this story, Cameron obviously wanted to get something out to capitalize on the publicity surrounding Pickton and his crimes. To be fair, Cameron doesn't claim this book is a comprehensive look at what happened. In the foreword, she states that she did her best with the restrictions in place and the constantly increasing scope of the case. Still, that bit of prolepsis doesn't insulate the book from criticism.

Cameron states that she is in the process of writing The Pig Farm, which will presumably be a longer, more structured, and better book. It will no doubt include the details that emerged during the preliminary hearing, the court case in which Pickton was found guilty, and will probably provide more details related to numerous killings. As far as it goes, The Pickton File is worth reading but doesn't provide much more than the experiences of Cameron as she researched the book.

There are numerous tales at work here, and I hope that Cameron does them justice in The Pig Farm, which is supposed to be released in early 2011. More than all the individual strands of the story—the women, the sicko Pickton, and the hell on earth he created on his farm, the monumental failure of the police—this is a story of how people can rationalize anything and look the other way as long as they aren't the ones who are being victimized. And I hope that Cameron seriously considers renaming her coming book to something more memorable and lyrical than The Pig Farm. While that may elicit all the horror of what happened, it doesn't do justice to the memories of the women who were killed.

Robert Pickton and the Limits of Morbid Curiosity

If you think that newspapers that previously prided themselves on reporting only serious news now include more gossip and seediness in their pages, you're right.

Most major newspapers, and especially their online editions, now carry columnists who would have only been able to make a living in the most shameless tabloids a few years ago. No argument is too specious, no inflammatory statement too outrageous, and no lack of supporting evidence problematic for a good portion of columnists in the dwindling world of today's newspapers.

Of course, the broadsheets still make sure to employ more serious journalists as well. But more and more, the sneering, smug, demagogic spewers of poorly written, disingenuous tripe are taking up greater space on newspaper pages.

The more base and simplistic the better. All the easier for the average person to get their head around.

But wait, haven't newspapers always been devoted to the most salacious, bloody, sensationalistic stories possible? Yes, but as with all things in life, it's all about degrees. In the past, you could count on certain publications having standards to which they would adhere. The tabloid sleaze was left to the tabloids. All that seems to be changing.

This steady decline of the quality of both content and writing in today's newspapers is due to numerous reasons. But the one that stands out more than any other is the ease with which editors at newspapers can now determine which stories are most popular. Readers click on the stories that appeal to them most, and the number of clicks quickly confirms that sleaze, degradation, and anything that allows us to rank ourselves against others, are the determiners of whether people are interested in a story.

So you really can't blame the move towards more tripe in newspapers.

Newspaper Bloggers

Most online and print newspapers now employ numerous bloggers. Yet anytime a blogger not employed by the newspaper is mentioned, either as someone who originally broke a story or as part of the story itself, sneering condescension inevitably comes through. Instead of rising above this generalization, many newspapers seem determined to emulate and perpetuate it.

Regardless of whether you label someone a blogger or not, they are still writing, and their work still appears under the banner of the newspaper. And so in a kind of gutless easy out for printing absolutely anything, there often seems to be no standards for this breed of newspaper writer.

But if you think that the move towards a more lurid type of storytelling in newspapers means that the most vile and repugnant stories are always the most popular, then you would be wrong.

When Horror Trumps Intrigue

The sick tale of serial killer Robert Pickton confirms that readers actually do have limits to how much they can stomach. When news broke about the pig farmer who may have slaughtered more than 60 women and then disposed of their bodies in the most repellent ways possible, editors at various newspapers must have thought that they had the story of the decade.

But after the initial explosion of publicity and interest wore off, an interesting thing happened. People stopped clicking on stories about the Pickton trial. Sure, there were still a significant number of people who were interested and had a strong enough stomach to check out the details. But the numbers just didn't reach a level that might have been expected when the story first broke.

Something so base, vile, and sickening that it makes most people want to curl up and convulse at the absolute horror of it all. Nothing redeeming, no seed of hope that there is anything good in the world. No compelling story-lines, and no inkling of humanity.

However, the women who were killed by Pickton make up some of the most heartbreaking, haunting and desperate tales imaginable. But most people in society are not concerned with the marginalized. Not while the hardest done by are living, and certainly not when they have passed from the world after short, brutal lives. Even less likely are people to care about them when the possibility for experiencing some collective guilt about their deaths is very real.

So the trial of the most notorious and prolific serial killer in Canadian history was poorly attended by journalists, and ignored by many in the public. Had Pickton not been the complete vile piece of filth that he is, or if the women murdered had come from middle or upper class neighbourhoods, the interest would have been much higher. But on a more basic level, the sick, horrific details were just too much for most people to handle. Who can blame anyone for not wanting the imagery from that house of horrors to be burned in their brains?