An RCMP application to destroy evidence from serial killer Robert Pickton’s trial set for May 15 has been cancelled by B.C. Supreme Court.
RCMP spokeswoman Janelle Shoihet said the cancellation was due to the COVID-19 situation. No new date has been set, she said.
The Port Coquitlam pig farmer was convicted by a jury in 2007 of six counts of second-degree murder involving women who went missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Those counts related to the women whose body parts were found on the now-vacant suburban Vancouver property.
Twenty further counts with less concrete evidence were stayed.
Evidence in Canada’s largest serial killer investigation ran from inhalers to clothes, DNA, body parts, blood-soaked items, vehicles and clothing.
Documents filed in court in New Westminster note evidence such as crime-scene tapes, shoes, hypodermic needles, sex toys, rosary beads, knives, a gun, pieces of ammunition and licence plates, among other things.
Human remains from the case were cremated in 2010, drawing concerns from victims’ families about how the remains were handled.
One family said they were told their daughter’s cremated remains were unfit for burial.
Crime scene videotapes are being kept by police.
An affidavit filed with the application to destroy the evidence said no further criminal proceedings were expected in the Pickton case.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, B.C.’s courts suspended all non-essential operations in March.
The destruction application was filed by lawyer John Ahern, a prosecutor in the case.
Pickton is being held at the federal Port-Cartier Institution prison in Quebec. As of May 11, there were 15 positive tests for COVID-19 at the facility.
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