The possibility of Canada’s most notorious serial killer, Robert Pickton, going on parole has drawn outrage from the families of his victims.
Pickton, now in his 70s, claimed to have killed 49 women on his farm and fed them to his pigs.
The families of victims say they are ‘disgusted’ by the fact he has aged into parole eligibility.
He was jailed for life without the possibility of parole for 25 years in 2007. But a Canadian law means prison sentences can only be served concurrently—at the same time—rather than consecutively, one after the other. That means Pickton is now eligible to apply for day parole and can apply for full parole in 2027.
He can apply once every two years, although the gravity of his crimes means that it’s unlikely any parole board will ever free him.
Palexelsiya Lorelei Williams, the cousin of victim Tanya Holyk, told Global News CA that his potential parole makes her feel ‘sick to my stomach.’
Pickton, also known as ‘The Butcher’ and the ‘Pig Farmer Killer’, is yet to send a request for a parole hearing, and it is expected that he would be denied if he did so.
Pickton made international headlines in February 2002 when Canadian police issued a search warrant on his pig farm in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, for firearms offenses, only to find he had carried out far more grisly crimes.
Inspectors found items belonging to numerous missing women in the BC area, and after an excavation of the farm that cost over $70 million, they discovered evidence of dozens of murders.