A MEMOIR BELIEVED to have been written by a serial killer has sparked outrage in Canada.
Robert Pickton, a former pig farmer, was convicted of murdering six women in 2007.
The book, entitled Pickton: In His Own Words, was withdrawn from sale hours after it appeared online.
The 144-page memoir briefly topped the bestsellers list on Amazon, where it was being sold for $20 (about €13).
Christy Clark, premier of British Columbia (BC), told CTV she was “at a loss for words” upon hearing about the book.
The government is doing everything we can to try and stop him from profiting from this at the very least.
Only four provinces in Canada have a rule that prevents killers profiting from recounting their crimes, but the public safety minister Mike Morris said BC will soon have a law of its own.
CTV reported that Pickton gave the book to another inmate who sent it to a friend.
The publisher, Outskirts Press, apologised to the families of Pickton’s vitims for “any additional heartache” the release of the book may have caused.
A Change.org petition calling for the book to be removed from Amazon had, at the time of publication, received over 54,000 signatures.
The trial
The so called “missing women case” became Canada’s largest police investigation, after dozens of women vanished over a 25-year period. Pickton was arrested in 2002.
During his 18-month trial the court heard gruesome evidence of how police found the heads and hands of some women stored in buckets on his farm, and the DNA and personal items of the six women in his home.
He was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Marnie Frey and Brenda Wolfe.
All of the victims in the case were sex workers linked with drug addiction.
In 2010 the Supreme Court of Canada denied him a retrial.
Pickton did not face trial for the murders of another 20 women because prosecutors said they would proceed with the other murders only if Pickton’s conviction on the first six cases was overturned.
- with reporting from © AFP 2016
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