- Mona Wilson was reported missing to the police by her foster family
- Mona wasn’t the only young woman to have disappeared
- When pig farmer Robert Pickton was suspected of hiding illegal firearms, police searched his property
- That’s when the gruesome truth was uncovered. Robert Pickton was a serial killer, who may have killed up to 49 women
Greg Garley checked his little foster sister’s pockets before she went to bed. There, he found four baby chicks.
It wasn’t the first time Mona had smuggled animals up to her room. Since coming to live on the Garleys’ farm, she’d play with chicks in her bed in the middle of the night, or have a baby rabbit in her dresser drawers.
Mona was sweet and loving despite the horrific start she’d had in life.
Aged 10, she’d been found by her elderly neighbour bleeding in a hallway close to where she lived with her mum and mum’s boyfriend.
Authorities discovered she was being physically and sexually assaulted, and took her to Langley Farm, a care home for children near Vancouver, Canada ran by the kind and loving Garley family. And Mona grew into a sweet and nurturing teenager.
She loved the colour pink and adored the chickens, turkeys and ducks kept on the farm.
The Garleys tried to adopt but were unsuccessful. When she was 16, the government gave Mona a cheque and a small apartment in the city to stay in – but she missed the Garleys and called them regularly.
Time passed, and one day, Mona called Greg with some happy news – she was engaged.
What Greg didn’t know at the time, was that Mona had taken up sex work and some of new friend took drugs.
When Mona didn’t call for two weeks, the Garleys called police to report her missing. But it turned out Mona’s fiancé had already called them and said he’d seen a man picking her up.
Over the past few years there had been many reports of missing women in the area.
Like Mona, many of them were Indigenous Canadians. Many were sex workers, others were addicts or had transient lifestyles. They were vulnerable women, was someone preying on their desperate circumstances?
If they were, police weren’t on the hunt for them.
It wasn’t until after Mona disappeared in 2001 that they formed a task force to investigate the missing women.
Then, in February 2002, a former pig farm worker said he’d seen some illegal weapons on the farm.
Police searched the place, which was owned by a farmer called Robert Pickton.
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But a few illegal guns wasn’t all they uncovered.
Clothing, jewellery, makeup and other personal effects belonging to women who had been reported missing were discovered, including an asthma inhaler prescribed to Sereena Abotsway, 29, who’d vanished. Like Mona, she’d grown up in foster care.
Then Mona’s DNA was found in the trailer where Pickton slept. The seven-hectare pig farm quickly became the largest crime scene in Canadian history.
As they sifted through the dirt and manure, police found bones – Mona’s decomposing skull, hands and feet. A jawbone belonging to another victim was located in an animal trough. And the investigation uncovered a monster had lived at the farm, who could have killed up to 49 women.
Most of his victims were women he’d invited to raves he held on the property. Other he’d invite over for barbecues.
A total of 26 murder charges were laid against him. Some of the victims had been stabbed, while others had been strangled. He’d had no respect for his victims in life, and he had no respect for them in death either.
Bodies had been ground up and left for the pigs on the farm to consume.
Denying the charges, Pickton eventually stood trial for the six most watertight cases – the killings of Mona Wilson, 26, Andrea Josebury, 22, and Sereena Abotsway, 29, who all disappeared in 2001, as well as Georgina Papin, 34, and Brenda Wolfe, 32, who vanished in 1999, and Marnie Frey, 24, who went missing in 1997.
The 11-month trial began in January 2007 and included evidence from 128 witnesses.
In December that year, Pickton was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder – the jury voted against first-degree murder as they were unable to establish if all the murders had been premeditated.
Pickton was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
Seeing coverage on the news, journalist Lorraine Murphy realised she’d had a lucky escape from Pickton back in 1990.
Pickton was taking photos at bar she was writing a story about and they spoke about her using the pictures. But two men warned her not to accept a lift home from Pickton, telling her he had no door handles on the inside of the passenger seats.
Meeting Pickton in a cafe a few days later to talk about the work photos, Murphy realised he thought it was as date when he turned up smartly dressed.
But she told podcast What Was It Like that he’d smelled bad. ‘It was as if metal could rot,’ she said.
He’d tried to insist she went to the farm to look at his photos, but thankfully she’d refused.
Speaking after his conviction she said she felt police ‘hadn’t cared’ because the victims were sex workers.
‘Maybe if he’d killed me, they might have cared,’ she said.
While Pickton was finally locked up, victims’ families also questioned what had taken so long.
‘These were all our mothers and sisters, our aunts,’ Greg said. ‘These people were loved even though they had a different lifestyle.’
After the verdict, the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry was launched into the police investigation.
In his final report, inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal said, ‘I have found that the missing and murdered women were forsaken twice: once by society at large and again by the police.’
As for Greg Garley, he’ll remember his little sister as a joy to be around, and a fighter too.
‘I know Mona,’ he said. ‘She probably fought like a demon to the end.’
Robert Pickton died in hospital aged 74 days after being assaulted by a fellow inmate on May 19 2024.
If you’ve been affected by this story, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 (Aus) or Safe To Talk on 0800 044 334 (NZ)
Who was Robert William Pickton aka The Pig Farm Killer?
Robert William Pickton was born on October 24, 1949, in Port Coquitlan, British Columbia, Canada.
He worked on his family’s pig farm, Pickton Pig Farm, which became the scene of his killing spree.
Who were Robert Pickton’s victims?
Pickton chose to target vulnerable women, including sex workers and people struggling with drug addiction. They were mainly from the Downtown East area of Vancouver. He lured his victims to the pig farm, where he murdered them and hid their remains.
Robert Pickton was originally charged with 26 murders, but he was eventually convicted of six counts of second-degree murder and jailed for life with a minimum of 25 years.
He was given the maximum sentence allowed under the law at that time for those charges.
But he told police he’d killed 49 women.
When was Robert Pickton caught?
Pickton was arrested on Feburary 22, 2002. Police had searched his farm after being tipped off that he had illegal firearms there.
Police found human remains, including bones and DNA and also belongings which could be traced to missing women in the area.
