There is a difference already - the “faint hope” parole provision is available to someone who kills once, but not to someone who kills twice.
Picton was smart enough to murder whores, though. It’s sad but true that some victims are far more likely to elicit a vigourous investigation than others.
Or, the disappearance of persons with no fixed address is a lot more difficult to investigate than people with homes and full time jobs. Which is more likely?
I guess I just have a totally warped sense of humour (but I knew that before this incident) - I have to admit I found those pictures hysterically funny!
(and yes, I agree that he should be put away for a long long long time; doesn’t stop the pictures from being hilarious).
There is certainly something to that, I’ve heard the BC cops being harshly criticized for not taking the disappearances seriously enough. A true test of the two would have been if the Colonel targeted crack whores, rather than his neighbours and fellow officers.
Nonetheless, it is heartening to see an apparently efficient, clever and successful police investigation which catches an undoubted bad guy who was both smart and powerful.
Criminal Minds has addressed the issue of serial killing of whores and homeless people (that was one of their best episodes). In one episodes, a politician asked Hotxchner “Nobody cares. Who are these people anyway that you waste time on them.” He replied “They’re daughters. Some of them are sisters and mothers.”
I suspect the Colonel did not target the homeless or prostitutes, exactly because what he got off on was a rousing sense of violation. Sneaking into a “good” home to steal and rape was, seemingly, “the point” to him. Raping & murdering the already downtrodden would, one suspects, not have provided the same sort of thrill.
That aside, it obviously makes mores sense, if one wished to be a serial killer with longevity, to target the homeless and prostitutes. Even with the best will in the world - which is certainly not guaranteed - the police work tracking such victims down would be a lot harder.
On the other hand, another medico is quoted in the media as saying that if Williams had sought psychiatric help, there’s a good chance he wouldn’t have escalated:
If true, very sad that he wouldn’t have sought help.
Daughters, sister and mothers who for the most part have become transients. The police can no more keep track of transients than their families could. When a transient relocates without informing anyone, it could be that she was murdered, or it could be that she relocated.
The pig farmer preyed on street prostitutes and out-call prostitutes. I have to wonder how many of them would have preferred to work in an in-call environment, where there would be some degree of security and stability, making it more difficult for them to be preyed upon, and making it easier for the police to provide police services for them rather than ignore them.
I hope the offences in our criminal code that are related to prostitution* – pimping, running a whore house, and advertising – are struck down, for it would make it easier for prostitutes to get off the streets or stop doing out-calls, and instead work in environments with security provisions. Recently these laws were struck down in Ontario, but the Feds are appealing. As Justice Himmel put it:
Back in the 80s, the Fraser Commission (Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution. Pornography and Prostitution in Canada. 2 Vols. Supply and Services Canada, Ottawa, 1985) made recommendations that for the most part were along these lines regarding the law related to prostitution, but the government did not adopt its recommendations.
Obviously this would not be a full solution – not even close – for there will always be psychologically disturbed, drug-addled crack whores drifting through the streets of our cities, being preyed upon by people like the pig farmer, but at least some prostitutes would be able to get off the street while still practising their legal* trade.
The one good thing to come out of the pig farmer debacle, is greater pressure being put on police to pay closer attention to reports of bad tricks and oddly disappearing prostitutes.
*(For folks who might not already be aware, prostitution has never been illegal in Canada.)
Did anyone watch The Fifth Estate last night, “The Confession”? It was fascinating. I had heard about the stellar job of interrogation by Detective Sergeant Jim Smyth and seen snippets linked online. It was a very sobering hour of television—commercial-free.
It was also the first time I’d seen in the coverage, that I recall, a picture of Russell Williams’ wife. I cannot imagine what she and their children are going through. Everything they known and believed must be shattered.
It occurred to me, when there was a snapshot of them both shown, that maybe her face should have been redacted, for her privacy. They are also victims.
But I also can’t help but wonder, were there any clues? Did she somehow suspect that he harboured these secrets? I’d like to think that I would know about objects stored in my home. Although my husband greatly assists with housework, it’s me that cleans out closets, decides where things are stored, and what needs painting. I can’t imagine having the stolen underwear and such hidden in my house all along, and me missing it.
A friend of mine was in Shoppers’ Drug Mart on Wednesday with her three year old son. Son pointed at the picture on the front page of the Toronto Star and said “Daddy!”. Everyone was laughing until she went to pay with her credit card - her last name is also ‘Williams’ (no relation). Utter shock and horror from the clerk. As she put it - “I’ve never explained a bizarre coincidence so quickly in my life!”
This could have already been passed and in place if they had not prorogued parliament…
The judge has made a Mareva order temporarily freezing Harriman’s and Williams’ assets while the case proceeds.
Harriman is defending the action. She has asserted that the property transfer was properly made under the Family Law Act. (When married couples in Ontario separate, they can equalize their net family properties under the FLA.) Needless to say, it is not surprising that they separated when she learned that he was a sex murderer, so as long as the figures in the equalization were reasonable, then the plaintiff’s claims against her will fail. Since all the figures are not public at this time, one can’t say if the equalization figures were reasonable, but from the figures that have come out so far, it looks like it really was an equalization, rather than simply a dumping of his assets on her – for example, she got the house and the mortgage, she transferred a sizeable chunk of cash to him, and he got the camp and his pension. On its face, that appears to be a typical FLA equalization. All bets are off if it is established that she knew what he was up to, but there has not been anything suggesting that she had any inkling of his hidden life.
Savannah Do they have children? I was under the impression it was just him and his wife, I haven’t seen anything about kids anywhere.
I think you’re right, Flutterby–accounts I am looking at make no mention of children.
They don’t have kids.
Article about the couple: no kids, just cats: Wife of Killer Colonel Avoiding Public Spotlight.
Latest in the Russell Williams story: the Canadian Forces burn his uniform. See the item in today’s Globe and Mail.
Poor kitties. 
I can see why they would do that. I wonder if any of them spit on it first?