Pickton's Case Study

On July 12, 2005, Liana White, wife and mother, disappeared in northern Edmonton. At 5:45 am that morning a woman called to report an abandoned car, left open with personal effects, including Mrs. White’s licence, scattered around it (Edmonton Journal, 2007, para. 2, 4). The next day her husband, Michael White, made a public plea for his wife’s return as they continued searching for her whereabouts (Harding & Shaw, 2005, Timeline of Events, para. 3). By July 14, Michael had become a suspect and the police were all too happy when he decided to lead a search party of his own, in the hopes that, if Michael was in fact the reason for Mrs. White’s disappearance, he would lead them right to her (Edmonton Journal, 2007, A Turning Point., para. 14).

In the case of the three murdered eight-year olds, West Memphis police department’s investigative work led to a numbered list of suspects. Some of the suspects were quickly ruled out while others took a little more investigative work. In the end, the list of suspects was shortened until all who remained were Christopher Morgan, Mr. Bojangles, John Mark Byers, Terry Hobbs, and the

14 year old Steven Truscott gave his classmate Lynne Harper a ride on his bicycle on June 9, 1959. Truscott had dropped her off before they parted ways. Lynne was reported missing later that night, and two days later, her body was found on a nearby farm. She was sexually assaulted and strangled to death. The community was horrified by what happened to this young girl and everyone was determined to find the killer. Immediately, investigators became fixated on Truscott as the prime suspect since he was the last person to see Lynne. They didn’t consider any other suspects, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the murder. He was arrested 24 hours later, and stood trial as an adult. (Steven Truscott |

Joseph Abbitt, 31 years old at the time, was wrongly accused of intruding in the home of two teenage girls and sexually assaulting them on May 2, 1991 due to eyewitness misinterpretation. Both girls identified the culprit as Abbitt separately in a photo lineup despite having limited view of the attacker’s face; Abbitt had previously lived in the neighbourhood and visited their home on a previous occasion. Treating him as the primary suspect, police collected evidence such as clothing from the scene and conducted DNA tests on them, producing results that were either inconclusive or did not match Abbitt. In his trial that took place in June 1995, the victims testified that Abbitt was their attacker. Abbitt’s employer acted as

The only way to prove someone committed a murder was to catch them in the act or get a confession. Though they increased the number of officers, they only ever came across the bodies, warm. There was more than one police force operating in London at the time, which meant that there was a lack of communication. In fact, the superior officers told their subordinates to not reveal any evidence they retrieved to their rival force, each police force wanting the glory of catching the Whitechapel murderer. The Metropolitan police force was responsible for all of London, except the city of London, which had its own separate, City Police force.

When looking at newspapers, one should look at an article issued directly after the murders, an article issued sometime later, and an article issued after the Family had been caught. The first article, Actress Is Among 5 Slain At Home in Beverly Hills, written by Steven V. Roberts for the New York Times on August 10th, 1969, frames the event as a terrible tragedy, using heavy phrases, such as “brutally murdered,” and “bloody mess.” This article also focuses mainly on Sharon Tate. Though she was not the only victim, the fact that she was in the public eye, and also eight months pregnant, served to shock the American people more than the death of the other four victims. It should be noted that the names of the other victims are only briefly mentioned in the article. The second half of the article focuses on the only suspect, William Garretson. Garretson was the 19 year old grounds caretaker, who lived in a small cottage on the edge of the property. He was charged with suspected murder, because he was the only living person found on the property. The second paper, Polanskis Were At Center of a Rootless Way of Life, written by Steven V. Roberts for the New York Times on August 31st, 1969, focuses very little on the murder, only mentioning the fact that the case remains unsolved and that the police were “having a field day.” This

When this Central park case was made public, the New York Police Department and District Attorney office’s main focus was to solve the case as quickly as possible. When the five teenagers were found “wilding” in the park the night of the women’s death, the police believed they had found the suspects. The police were so confident of the teenager’s guiltiness, the five boys were interrogated of their involvement in the crime. The police used their authority and persuasion to get the boys to confess and promise them that they would go home if they talked. Through strenuous and intense interrogation, the five boys confessed to the killing and rape of the young women on videotape. These confessions were given even though

Robert Pickton lived alone in a trailer on his family’s pig farm in Vancouver B.C. where he prayed on the young women working in the sex trade in the neighbourhood Downtown Eastside which was well known for its crime and especially its prostitution. There were many disappearances at the time of young women working in the sex trade, and not much was done to look for them as the lifestyle of the women caused many of them to go completely unnoticed or never reported, so when young women started disappearing from Downtown Eastside in 1978 nothing was ever done about it and some of the girls were never even found to this day. The earliest case that can be linked with Pickton was Diana Melnick in December 1995, and the last case that could be linked to Pickton was Mona Wilson who was last seen in November 2001, which

The people were so intrigued with the case that reporters spread out across the nation for background, anything that had to do with Elizabeth Short (Hodel). The investigation was front page of newspapers, the desire to solve the mystery was so incredible that newspaper owners paid whatever it took to get a big story on the streets first (Hodel). The detectives could not do much because the crime reporters were always ahead of them, the crime reporters interviewed and located the people before the detectives (Hodel). The killer had written letters and had them sent to the newspaper offices. The killer sent some of Elizabeth Short's belonging. The media had the whole investigation covered and some people sought out to be in the

It seems that they got tunnel view when it came to Bloodsworth and were going to make the evidence stick one way or another. This is made evident in the fact that Bloodsworth was the only suspect that they looked at for the crime. They never investigated any other leads to the crime. They even did not take into account that Bloodsworth in no way resembled the description that was given to police by the witnesses at first. It is quite funny the sketch that was done by a police sketch artist resembles Bloodsworth their prime suspect at this time. A sketch mind you that the witnesses said did not look like the person they saw. I find it also odd that two of the witnesses did not pick put Bloodsworth at first, it was not until later that they had time to “think” that Bloodsworth was the one that they saw. While we are on the subject the police ruled out a potential suspect his demographical features did not meet the description that was given by the witnesses. How odd one suspect is ruled out by demographical features but one is not.

When they did discover the murder the Number of intentionally inflicted deaths where a total of eight which where all believed to be white women. The final show that was part of my Measurement Procedure was Murder choose me. In this episode the victim was a younger mother to be. In this cased the dectivees took the same method used in the first case my identifying all the victims closest to the person while also identifying the victims that wanted to cause her harm. In this case only two people were interviewed which narrowed down the killer or killers the two interviewed them.

Up to the present time, the case is still trying to be solved by few with more and more information being brought to the light. While viewing the case, looking at evidence, looking at the case and all the different suspects that the police believed did it back then viewers came up with numerous conclusions. After looking at everything that was presented some of the information started to make sense and the pieces started to slowly come together. The only problem is that all the pieces that is needed to solve the case isn’t fully there and probably never will be. Moving on, who ever killed Elizabeth Short also known as Black Dahlia wanted their existence to be known by everyone. This person sent in letters and different items to the media and

Many people believe that the disappearances along this highway is some delirious serial killer who preys on young women. The police have never identified a suspect in the case, and many people say the women were easily just victims of the severe and isolated wilderness of Canada. There is a project called E-PANA, which has spent many years investigating the deaths and disappearances of 18 young women along three highways in the northern part of the province. About 60 officers were assigned to the case but that number has since dropped to between 12 and 15. This group of officers just want to be able to sit down with the families and tell them that they have the guy. The last indicative progress came in September 2012, when investigators said they believed a dead American man named Bobby Jack Fowler was responsible for killing as many as three of the women.The RCMP said investigators had uncovered evidence of DNA linking Fowler, but he had died in

A familiar murder involving women, was in 1969, the Tate-LaBianca murders that were orchestrated by a

The killer had a modus operandi in all the murders. The killer murdered only women. Women were brutaly murdered. They were not just stabbed but were butchered.