Val Hughes doesn’t care to join other families as they gather to watch the first stage of the Robert Pickton trial unfold.

"I don’t need to hear that stuff," said the former Maple Ridge resident, who has ignored the headlines and new reports since the pre-trial hearing began on Monday.
Hughes’ sister, Kerry Koski, a mother of three, vanished from Vancouver’s downtown eastside in January 1998.

In 2004, the Joint Missing Women’s Task Force confirmed that Koski’s DNA had been discovered on Pickton’s Port Coquitlam pig farm.

Hughes fell silent on hearing that the accused serial killer had entered a not guilty plea to 26 charges of first-degree murder, including her sister’s.

"This thing never ends," Hughes whispered from under a sob.

"We ignored this thing. It has been a fight from the very beginning, with the police and now this."

During the extensive search at the Pickton property, Hughes took on a leadership role - maintaining a healing tent set up at the entrance of the farm for family members of the missing women.

She also started the Missing Women’s Legacy Society, an organization that honours the missing through public education and helps drug-addicted women.

Families continue to post messages on the site for their missing daughters, mothers and sisters.

"We’ve had to slow it down a bit," Hughes said of the society.
Right now, she finds solace in quilting.

The legacy society gave 15 quilts to women in 2005 and continues to create more this year.

"We give the quilts to women who are recovering from addiction," Hughes explained.
"It is a wonderful thing when women get together and quilt. It’s something beautiful to give them to remind them about their victory and recovery."

© Copyright 2006 Maple Ridge News