Robert Pickton

**Robert William Pickton** (October 24, 1949 – May 31, 2024), also known as the **Pig Farmer Killer** or the **Butcher**, was a Canadian serial killer, serial rapist, pig farmer and possible cannibal. He is thought to be the serial killer with the most murders in Canadian history.

## Killings and conviction

Pickton is believed to have begun his murders in the early 1990s after taking ownership of his family's pig farm. He was arrested in 2002 and was later convicted in 2007 of the second-degree murders of six women.

Pickton was charged with the deaths of an additional twenty women, many of them from Vancouver, but these charges were dropped in 2010.

Pickton was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 25 years—the longest possible sentence for second-degree murder under Canadian law at the time he was sentenced. During the trial's first day of jury evidence, Pickton had confessed to forty-nine murders to an undercover officer, who was pretending to be a cellmate. It was reported that Pickton told the officer that he wanted to kill another woman to make it an even fifty, and that he was caught because he was "sloppy".

## Death

On May 19, 2024, Pickton was attacked by another prisoner at the Port-Cartier Institution in Quebec. The prisoner, stabbed Pickton in the head with a "broken broom-like handle." He was hospitalized and put on life support after being airlifted to a hospital.

Pickton died at a hospital in Quebec City, Quebec from problems caused by his injuries on May 31, 2024. He was 74 years old.

## Other websites

- Women Commission of Inquiry ("Oppal") Report (November 19, 2012)

- _R. v. Pickton_, decision of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia (June 25, 2009) (defence appeal)
- _R. v. Pickton_, decision of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia (June 25, 2009) (Crown appeal)
- _R. v. Pickton_, decision of the Supreme Court of British Columbia (December 13, 2007) (ruling re: re-instructing the jury)
- _R. v. Pickton_, decision of the Supreme Court of British Columbia (January 16, 2007) (ruling re: media application to access and publish exhibits #1)
- Robert William Pickton Trial Information  (Court Services, Ministry of Attorney General)
- Covering The Trial: Former Sex Trade Workers Work As Citizen Correspondents For Orato
- Backgrounder
- TruTV article on Robert Pickton
- BBC Article on Pickton (2007-01-21)
- Pat Casanova testimony, June 4–6, 2007
- History of Sex Work in Vancouver  (downloadable PDF book written by sex workers)
- PDFs of the Pickton letters obtained by The Vancouver Sun.
- Interviews and oral histories with victims' families and community workers, part of research stored at Simon Fraser University Library.

## Infobox (serial killer)

- **name**: Robert Pickton
- **birth name**: Robert William Pickton
- **birth place**: Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada
- **death place**: Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
- **victims**: 6 convicted
26 charged
4 suspected
49 confessed
- **country**: Canada
- **beginyear**: 1983
- **endyear**: 2002
- **apprehended**: February 22, 2002
- **conviction**: Second-degree murder (×6)
- **sentence**: Life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 25 years