In his book, Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime, Eric Hickey wrote about a type of victim that he called, “the Less Dead”. These are people that are seen by the media or law enforcement as having less value than others. Usually sex workers, drug addicts, houseless people, and sexual or racial minorities. The case we’re discussing today is about dozens of these types of victims. Women whose disappearances were ignored or were straight up covered up because they happened to be addicts or sex workers. One police officer told a woman’s terrified family that the series of missing women were “just junkies and hookers. Don’t waste our time.” These were human beings. With friends and families, hopes, dreams, stories, lives. The fact that the authorities ignored their disappearances for so long is one of the worst miscarriages of justice that we’ve seen in our decades of true crime study. This killer roamed the streets of Vancouver, like a shark swimming among a school of fish, unchecked and under the radar, taking almost 50 lives before anyone stopped him.
Sources:
Cameron, Stevie. On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver's Missing Women. Knopf Canada. Kindle Edition.
https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw?utm_term=mmiw%20statistics&utm_campaign=MMIW+-+Search&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_tgt=kwd-1652454857508&hsa_grp=144380966783&hsa_src=g&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_mt=b&hsa_ver=3&hsa_ad=646853914079&hsa_acc=3651624507&hsa_kw=mmiw%20statistics&hsa_cam=19633980915&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwlbu2BhA3EiwA3yXyu8y0N86jvR6NFomqQUWY1AD3h0y48ITuUopInfNw6Tb_MBFkRKbaRhoC0ikQAvD_BwE
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/05/features11.g2
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