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Missing women: Dave Pickton among 20 outstanding witness requests ignored since 2011

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Dave Pickton
The convicted serial killer's brother lived with Robert at 953 Dominion Avenue in Port Coquitlam, a property they co-owned, during the period of dozens of women being killed. In 1993, Dave himself was convicted of sexual assault, and was accused of violent sexual assault in 1999 -- in which the alleged survivor said he restrained her with a bungie cord and forced pills in her mouth. Though that charge never went to trial, police found the bungie cord and pills described in his room.

Police have alleged that Dave was associated with the Hells Angels, and was known to police for illegal activities including cockfighting, prostitution, petty theft and drugs, according to the document. On at least two occasions, Dave persuaded police not to investigate the Pickton farms – including one incident in Oct. 22, 2001 when police responded to an emergency 9-1-1 call from inside Robert Pickton's trailer.

During her Jan. 19 inquiry testimonyJennifer Evans -- the Peel, Ont. deputy police chief who authored a report on the Pickton investigation -- said she saw documents indicating Dave Pickton was a Hells Angels associate. Her report itself stated that "(RCMP) Corporal Connor . . . advised that the Pickton's had connections to the Hells Angels Outlaw Motorcycle Club and owned a 'booze can.'" Furthermore, during Robert Pickton's murder trial, his defence lawyer Peter Ritchie said, "I'm going to suggest to you that there was considerable association between Dave Pickton and the Hells Angels." 

But a spokesperson for the city's Hells Angels chapter told the Vancouver Observer that neither Pickton brother was ever a member or associate of the group.

"Dave Pickton is not now nor has he ever been a member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club," Rick Ciarniello, head of the East Vancouver chapter of the group. "To call him an associate of the Hells Angels is, in fact, stretching the truth.

"A person that has, at one time, met or knows a member of the Hells Angels is not an associate of our club."

Another intriguing aspect of the brother is why he was not required to testify at his brother's trial, just as at this inquiry. Some family members expressed outrage that the co-owner of a dumping ground for murder victims has effectively been offered legal immunity. Last December, the Vancouver Observer revealed for the first time that Dave appeared on “bad date sheets” handed out to sex workers, who had spotted him cruising the Downtown Eastside sex work strolls.

Dave Pickton recently started a charity, the Pickton Foundation, for Ghanaian poverty relief.

Ross Caldwell
After Hiscox, Caldwell was likely the second person to provide information to police about Pickton. In July 1999, he told the Vancouver Police Department that his friend Lynn Ellingsen had seen Pickton skinning a dead sex worker from a pig hook in his barn. She told Caldwell that he threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Caldwell also claimed Pickton boasted he could dispose a body “without a trace” if needed.

Lynn Ellingsen
This star witness in Pickton's eventual murder trial lived with Pickton in 1999, and only left after she claimed she saw her friend skinning a sex worker who the two had picked up in Downtown Eastside Vancouver. Pickton allegedly told her that if she told anyone, she would be up there beside the other victim.

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