Suzanne Fournier (Vancouver Province) – The RCMP officer who headed the missing women task force in 2000 said he had an “amazing” police team, but blamed computers, police record-keeping, DNA banks and many other factors for its failure to stop a serial killer until 2002.
Retired RCMP Insp. Don Adam, a 40-year career Mountie, told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry that he was tasked in November 2000 with investigating a large number of unsolved murders, mostly of Vancouver women.
Despite Adam’s “phenomenal” team of “seasoned” VPD and RCMP officers, eight or nine more women died at the hands of Robert Pickton between December 2001 and February 2002, while the joint VPD-RCMP task force was on the job.
Adam strongly denied under questioning Wednesday that his team, Project Evenhanded, was just conducting a “file review,” shuffling papers or “blindly stumbling” along.
He said his team was “disciplined” and “tight. We were investigators.”
He admitted that at first the investigation “took me a while. Things occurred that jarred me. I thought our [police] systems would be working, but they weren’t working.”
Police didn’t know it then, but Pickton began killing as early as 1991, Adam not-ed. Pickton’s earliest known victim was Nancy Greek, also known as Mary Ann Clark, who vanished in 1991.
The VPD’s Project Amelia had concluded that 27 women were missing from the Downtown Eastside (DTES) by the end of 1999 and had likely met with foul play, although top VPD brass believed, wrongly, that the disappearances stopped in that year.
From late 2000 until Pickton’s arrest in 2002, nine more women vanished from the area and were later found to have been murdered by Pickton.
Adam said he doesn’t want to appear “bitter” but told commissioner Wally Oppal: “I cannot overstate to you how damaging it is that our country has not chosen to have a DNA databank for the missing.”
Adam said a national databank that holds DNA from missing people would be highly useful, rather than the current system where police are forced to wait for proof of a homicide before DNA tests are conducted.
The DNA system used by the VPD didn’t mesh with the RCMP, said Adam.
Project Amelia officers “busted their butts” and even got “biological material” from the relatives of missing women, but it wasn’t tested for DNA.
“They didn’t collect DNA because they were not allowed to develop the DNA,” said Adam. “It was an appalling situation. They ended up being forced to keep it in a cardboard box under their desks.”
Adam’s group also was tasked with investigating not only the missing DTES women, but also the “Valley” murders of three Vancouver prostitutes and a “cluster” of murders on Vancouver Island.
Adam testified that he had to investigate all suspects, not just Pickton.
The inquiry hearings are slated to continue until the end of April.
[Source]
I am wondering if anyone has called dibs on “managing conflict” for Linda and Unjust to use as a competency?
Hey unjust, I don’t need anybody to answer for me you know. just like everybody else here I have an opinion on stuff that gets talked about. I dont expect everybody to see things the way I do but if they do I got no control over that.
As far as the voting thingy, you get one kick at the cat and if I am reading it right so far, on your first note 30 people cared enough to vote but did not want to add their own note. So 22 disagreed with you and 8 didnt. Nothing strange about that as far as i can see.
Strange that DT you answer to my comment/quiry when part of my concerns are really directed at Linda and this strange questionable voting system going on in here. Looks very suspicious from here.
Someone seems paranoid.
Contrary to your view unjust, I find the information being proffered by the lead investigator quite instructive. If one looks back at some other notable cases in Canada, namely Bernardo and Williams in the Province of Ontario, Olsen and the paper-bag rapist in the Province of BC, and Fyfe, in the Province of Quebec, one notes some startling similarities in certain areas of failure. Adherence to the stale script of finger pointing is a fruitless exercise.
At this juncture the intellectual paucity with which the issues are addressed do little to reach informative analysis. Endless jeremiads are a waste of time and resources and must try the patience of the average citizen.
Mr Adam notes the lack of a DNA data bank hindered the investigation. (Similarly the absence of a fingerprint data bank would also hinder efforts, however, that River Styx was crossed a long time ago and has proved invaluable in solving crimes.) This DNA issue has been around for some time, so why has it not been a categorical imperative?
Similarly, the lack of standardization of record keeping/cataloging/analysis seems to have also been an issue, as far back as Olsen and Fyfe. Why has this not been addressed?
We are now informed of the size of the suspect pool, of “hideous human beings” with which police had to work with, as well as territorial concerns in that different parts of the Province were at play. We were not aware of these important facts previously in the roiling waters of the inquiry.
Indeed, the issues that form a basis for failure have remained constant for may years, and are actually out of the grasp of the various police agencies. If we are to bring organizational coherence to bear on these atrocities and their investigation, intervention and leadership is needed at the highest political levels.
The entire country needs its scarce resources all on the same page as it were. We have heard the political rhetoric before on how such atrocities will be handled henceforth on all the cases which I mentioned above. Have the authorities been given the necessary tools with which to undertake such activity? No they have not. Have they been given standardized (as much as possible) policy with which to address likely scenarios? No they have not.
We have, all this long while, been given tepid platitudes at best, whilst we poke and prod at non productive finger pointing for political and legal expediency.
The Officer said; had an “amazing” police team, but blamed computers, police record-keeping, DNA banks and many other factors for its failure to stop a serial killer until 2002.
Sounds like they trying to transfering the blame again for their failures to act accordingly after this man apparently killed up to 49 woman to someone else, using the arguments that The RCMP somehow would do a much better job IF ONLY.
I for one don’t buy it.
Just like Linda’s comments are more important in here that anyone.
I for one believe this voting system should be done away with. Look at all the pass voting entries and you will see for yourself how Linda’s comments are about the only ones that matter.
Still stacking the deck I see.