'Tell-all book' found after death of serial killer Robert Pickton

RCMP seized what they believed to be a 200-page handwritten "tell-all" book found in serial killer Robert Pickton's Quebec jail cell after his death from a violent jailhouse assault last spring, according to documents obtained by CBC.

A search warrant sworn in New Westminster provincial court following Pickton's death on May 31 says B.C. investigators travelled to Port Cartier in August to take custody of 200 pages of notes and a 200-page "collection" titled Pickton in his own words. My life as I truly see it.

The search warrant application — written by Missing Women Task Force member Cpl. Craig Mitchell — says police hoped the book might link "Pickton or any other unknown person with any murders from the DNA profiles located at "the killer's Port Coquitlam farm.

But RCMP claim the "writings have been thoroughly examined and contained no reference to any of the missing women or offences for which Pickton was convicted." 

"We recognize that there are families with questions about their loved one's disappearances. However, the content of writings did not provide any answers, and so, unfortunately, there is no new information to share with them," an RCMP spokesperson said in a statement to CBC.

News of the existence of a handwritten book and ongoing efforts by police to investigate the deaths of dozens of women Pickton is believed to have killed came as a surprise to families of his victims — who have been fighting to preserve evidence related to the case.

"The RCMP should be credited with continuing this investigation to identify Pickton's accomplices and further potential victims," said Jason Gratl, a lawyer acting in civil proceedings for the children of nine women allegedly murdered by Robert Pickton.

'But this new development does not sit well with the RCMP's plan to destroy previously gathered evidence on the basis that the investigation is closed."

Pickton was convicted of second-degree murder in 2007 in relation to the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Marnie Frey, Georgina Papin and Brenda Wolfe. 

He was initially charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder, but 21 of those counts were stayed.

The remains or DNA of 33 women, many of them taken from the Downtown Eastside, were found on Pickton's pig farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., about 25 kilometres east of downtown Vancouver.

At one point, Pickton told an undercover officer placed in a cell with him that he killed 49 women.

The search warrant says "reasonable grounds" exist to believe Pickton committed the murders of the 21 women named as victims in the stayed charges — including "Jane Doe," an unidentified woman whose remains were found on his property.

After Pickton's conviction, Mitchell claims task force investigators met with him on "numerous occasions in an attempt to generate conversation that would lead to identifying Jane Doe and any details pertaining to any of the other women whom he was suspected of killing."