Pickton ruling means relief for Edmonton woman
The sister of a victim of Robert Pickton expresses relief that the serial killer will not get a new trial, but also has sympathy for the families who still don't know for certain what happened to 20 other women he is accused of killing.
Cynthia Cardinal of Edmonton is the older sister of Georgina Papin, one of six Vancouver women Pickton was convicted of killing during a year-long trial in 2007.
On Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld those convictions against Pickton's appeal.
As a result, the cases won't be retried and 20 other murder charges against Pickton that the Crown had put on hold pending the top court's decision won't proceed.
For Cardinal, it means closure on her sister's murder; for the other families, enduring uncertainty.
"I just want to have this behind me so me and my sisters and brothers can move on," she said. "I have some sort of closure. … I still feel her around me everyday. I think about her all the time too. And I know when she's with me. I just get a really warm rush in me."
The families of the other 20 women need to know what happened, Cardinal said. For her, however, the priority now is to have Papin's remains turned over to her family so she can finally be buried.
"We'll arrange a funeral for her, and we'll try to bury her by my mother," she said.
Now that Pickton has exhausted his appeals, British Columbia's coroner can turn over the remains of Papin and victims Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Marnie Frey and Brenda Wolfe.
The Port Coquitlam, B.C., pig farmer murdered the women, all from Vancouver's troubled Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, between 1997 and 2002.
At his trial, the prosecution presented evidence that he lured women to his farm and killed them, butchered their corpses and disposed of their remains.
The Crown also said Pickton had confessed to killing 49 women in all and wanted to make it 50, but got sloppy and was caught.
Pickton is serving a life sentence in prison with no possibility of full parole until 2027.