Summary of Stevie Cameron's On the Farm

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 On February 23, 1995, Bill Wilson, who made his living as a woodcarver and handyman, was on his way to get some water from a narrow slough that ran along the south side of the Lougheed Highway, close to the mouth of the Stave River. He spotted a human skull about forty or fifty feet away.

#2 The skull was sent to Corporal Tim Sleigh, a young detective in the RCMP’s Investigative Section in Vancouver. He was intrigued by the skull, which looked as if it had been cut in half with an electric saw.

#3 The skull of the woman was sent to Tracy Rogers, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Toronto, who was able to reconstruct her face. No one was reported missing who matched her description, though, so she remained Jane Doe for years.

#4 The Pickton brothers, among their many interests, were in the dirt-moving business. Their shabby white clapboard farmhouse needed painting and repair, and the wooden outbuildings seemed on the verge of collapse. The family attended church services at St. Catherine’s Anglican Church in Port Coquitlam.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669389217

IRB Media

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Insights on Stevie Cameron's On the Farm

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

On February 23, 1995, Bill Wilson, who made his living as a woodcarver and handyman, was on his way to get some water from a narrow slough that ran along the south side of the Lougheed Highway, close to the mouth of the Stave River. He spotted a human skull about forty or fifty feet away.

#2

The skull was sent to Corporal Tim Sleigh, a young detective in the RCMP’s Investigative Section in Vancouver. He was intrigued by the skull, which looked as if it had been cut in half with an electric saw.

#3

The skull of the woman was sent to Tracy Rogers, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Toronto, who was able to reconstruct her face. No one was reported missing who matched her description, though, so she remained Jane Doe for years.

#4

The Pickton brothers, among their many interests, were in the dirt-moving business. Their shabby white clapboard farmhouse needed painting and repair, and the wooden outbuildings seemed on the verge of collapse. The family attended church services at St. Catherine’s Anglican Church in Port Coquitlam.

#5

Louise was a strange woman, who didn’t just look weird, but also behaved outside the norms of convention. She didn’t pay attention to her teeth, and eventually most of them rotted out. She lost most of her hair, and covered the remaining wisps with a kerchief.

#6

The Picktons’ farm was a mess, and their children stank. They never seemed to care about either, though. Their own memories of those years are not warm and cozy.

#7

Louise and Leonard were appalling parents, but they tried to do their best. They looked out for Willie in particular, knowing that he had a harder time than the others.

#8

Willie’s parents were extremely strict about their children going to school, and they were constantly missing class. The Pickton kids were constantly bullied by the kids from the hospital, who were wealthier and more sophisticated.

#9

When the government first moved three hundred male patients from the overcrowded Provincial Hospital for the Insane, known as PHI, in New Westminster to the Coquitlam site near the Picktons, it changed the name of the New Westminster hospital to Woodlands and turned it into a residence mainly for mentally and physically disabled kids.

#10

By 1951, Essondale had 4,630 patients, and was like a small town with many of its inhabitants working on the various properties. Patients who needed psychiatric assessment before being transferred to the appropriate centre worked in the dairy, fields, and barns of Colony Farm.

#11

Willie was a sweet boy, but he was also very shy. He would often help his parents sell meat from the small store they had opened on the north side of the Lougheed Highway at Shaughnessy Street in Port Coquitlam.

#12

In 1963, when Willie was 14 and Dave 13, their parents bought a new parcel of land on the far eastern side of Port Coquitlam. They had their old blue and white farmhouse pried off its foundations, lifted onto a flatbed, and towed over to Dominion Avenue.

#13

The farm was well-treed and green, but everyone knew that most of it was below the water table, which meant acres of brackish, swampy land as well as patches of dangerous quicksand on the eastern side.

#14

Linda’s brother, Willie, was always marginalized by society. He dropped out of high school at the age of fifteen, and he never really went back. He was always available for farm chores full-time.

#15

Dave Pickton, the younger brother of Willie, stayed in school longer than him, dated girls, and seemed to be able to function more or less normally. But he got into trouble more often than Willie, and it was always much more serious than anything his older brother did.

#16

The police were called, and when they arrived, they found Tim Barrett lying at the side of the road. His parents took him home and fixed the dent in the right front fender of the truck, and then called a mechanic to fix the turn signal.

#17

The story that Dave Pickton had hit a post and damaged his truck, and that he was in a rush to get it fixed, did not work with the police. They seized the red truck and found that it had been mud-covered on the outside of the passenger door, which was identical to two other spots. The truck was in good mechanical condition.

#18

The Pickton brothers were known to be helpful and friendly, but they were also known to be eccentric and miserly. They would help a stranger, but they would also pick on their family members.

#19

By 1972, Dave had a steady girlfriend, Sandy Fehlauer, who lived just north of the Harveys’ blueberry farm on Devon Road. She gave birth to a girl named Tammy in 1973, and a year and a half later, Douglas John was born.

#20

Dave and Sandy knew that the farm couldn’t generate enough income to support everyone, so Dave continued to work in construction and demolition. He saw an opportunity in the topsoil business and began buying up soil and selling it to farmers, gardeners, and new home builders.

#21

Willie’s life was very Spartan during these years. He didn’t drink or smoke, and he didn’t hang out in bars. He didn’t date, and he never had a girlfriend. But he was more comfortable around his mother, and more assertive.

#22

By 1976, the Pickton farm had started to shift. Linda, who had married Byron Leigh Wright in Vancouver in 1977, was working in Vancouver. She