Mission BC:
On February 23, 1995, Bill Wilson was selling his home-made birdhouses from a roadside stand along the Lougheed Highway, just outside Mission, BC.
It was a cloudy, winter day and nobody was stopping to check out his wares. He thought he’d spend the time trying to clean off his car. Around 3:00 pm he grabbed an empty water bottle and walked down to the creek to fill it up.
Wilson saw an object in the swampy area. His first thought was that it looked like an old bowl or Indigenous artifact, and he used his water bottle to flip it over, but when he looked more closely, he saw that it was half of a skull.
Wilson had a criminal record and wasn’t interested in getting involved in a police investigation. But the next day he reported the skull to the RCMP.
The skull had only been at the Mission slough for a couple of weeks but forensic testing revealed that the skull belonged to a Caucasian woman aged between 20 and 40, and she had been killed sometime between 1985 and 1995.
Missing person files were searched, but nothing matched her description, and her identity continued to elude police. The skull was named Jane Doe and eventually she was placed in an RCMP storage facility and forgotten.
Pickton’s Farm:
Then in 2002 police raided serial killer Robert Pickton’s Port Coquitlam farm and the strange cuts on Jane Doe’s skull began to make sense. The cuts matched three other skulls found on his property.
Police believe that Jane Doe Was Pickton’s first victim.
Pickton was known to pick up vulnerable mostly Indigenous women from the DTES and bring them back to parties at the family’s huge multi-million-dollar pig farm in Port Coquitlam. Pickton would supply them with booze and drugs. And then he would murder them.
The remains or DNA of 33 women was found on Pickton’s farm, and Jane Doe is the only woman who has not yet been identified.
That may soon change. Wayne Clary, an investigator with the RCMP’s major crime unit says they will be submitting Jane Doe’s DNA for forensic genetic genealogy testing, the same process that identified the Babes in the Woods – these were the skeletons of two little boys who were found in Stanley Park in 1953.
After 30 years, perhaps Jane Doe will finally get her name back.
If you know someone who fits Jane Doe’s description and you are not sure if she was reported as missing to police, please reach out to any RCMP or police detachment and mention that you are calling about the Mission Skull that is related to the Robert Pickton investigation. They will know where to forward the information. If, for any reason this does not work for you, call Crime Stoppers at1- 800-222-8477 or go to solvecrime.ca
Show Notes:
Music: Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’
Intro: Mark Dunn
Selected Sources:
The Alley Murders. Cold Case Canada podcast episode 41
Culbert, Lori. Vancouver Sun, March 21, 2007
Joyce, Greg. Canadian Press, May 4, 2007
Culbert, Lori. Vancouver Sun, September 11, 2007
Adam, Don. Vancouver Sun, November 27, 2010
Culbert, Lori. Vancouver Sun, February 19, 2011
Cameron, Stevie. On the Farm, Alfred A. Knoff, Canada, 2011
Culbert, Lori. Vancouver Sun. December 9, 2023
Related:
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Lora Redlich Large from Biggar Saskatchewan has never been found. Maybe it’s her
I’m really glad to hear this. It’s bothered me so much that she is nameless still.
Just my opinion but I think it was probably a scavenger bird like a hawk or eagle that picked up the half skull from the farm and eventually dropped it where it was eventually found. I live in the country and have seen eagles pick up animals and road kill many times.