EDMONTON -- A woman, feared to be a victim of accused serial killer William Pickton, may in fact be in an Edmonton-area graveyard, dead of a natural cause.

"I cried for her. I've never cried. She was my little sweetie," said the last boyfriend of Sharon Anne Bye, 54, who died June 20, 2001, of cirrhosis of the liver.

Bye was the assumed name of Sharon Anne Goselin, reported missing in December, 2002.

She was last seen in May 2001, according to the missing-persons report being investigated by the Joint Missing Women Task Force in Vancouver.

The task force, in the midst of the largest serial murder probe in Canadian history, asked in a Nov. 20 press release for information about Bye and three other missing women.

The woman named Sharon Anne Bye who died in Edmonton is of the same age and from the same hometown as the missing woman described by Vancouver police. Her boyfriend tentatively identified a 1987 police photo of the missing woman. Police also confirmed that the woman's family last heard from her in a phone call placed from Edmonton.