List of missing women expected to grow by five
Times Colonist (Victoria)
Thursday 28 Mar 2002
Canadian PressVANCOUVER (CP) -- Vancouver police are adding the names of five more women to the list of 50 who have disappeared from the city's seedy downtown eastside since the 1980s, BC-CTV News reported Wednesday.
The RCMP-Vancouver Joint Task Force on Missing Women will officially release the names of the five at a news conference today, CTV said.
Meanwhile, police have not commented on a Tuesday BC-CTV report that quoted a lead investigator as saying some of the families of the missing women have been told that the women are dead.
The station also said 30 new investigators are being added to probe which already includes nearly 100 police and forensic specialists. Police searching a Port Coquitlam pig farm also say the investigation could last at least three years.
Relatives of the missing women, who are mostly prostitutes or drug addicts, also said they were told the investigation goes beyond the women. No other details were given.
In February, Robert William Pickton, the owner of the suburban pig farm just outside Vancouver was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Sereena Abotsway and Mona Wilson. The two women disappeared late last year.
A team of 40 investigators began their search of the farm in early February. Pickton was charged weeks later.
