Some of the victim-impact statements delivered Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster, B.C., at the sentencing hearing of Robert Pickton for six counts of second-degree murder:
Mona Wilson's sister: I Lisa Bigjohn, went through the great loss of losing my sister. It has affected my life a lot. I now live in a dark world.
Because of this person's actions, my life has totally changed. I am not the same person I used to be. A part of me is still out there searching for her. Sometimes I see someone that looks like her and it shocks me. I can't shake the manner of her death.
I live in fear now because of how she was murdered. When I hear a scream it gives me an image of her screaming and begging for her life.
Her loss has brought anger into the lives of my children. They always express to me how could something like that happen to her, she was streetwise?
I feel that my family is being punished by this man's actions. The murder of my sister brought a lot of pain into my family's lives. I have lost over 200 pounds. I have lost my appetite for food and sleep is difficult. I miss talking to her and confiding in her. She used to tell me her problems. She was reaching out to me. She wanted a home. When she was very young, I took care of her, I was a mother to her too. Just as we were reconnecting she was ripped away from me again She was very happy to be in touch again and Mona was making plans to come and live with me in Abbotsford.
No matter how hard I try I just cannot shake the feeling that her death could have been prevented. She had a lot to live for, to reunite with the family, meet her nieces. She was so looking forward to meeting them. Now they will never know the sister I love.
Mona wanted to get off the street, to get clean. She wanted a better life, future and hope, instead her death changed my life and the lives of my family members forever.
I honour her daily by trying to live as she had hoped too. I am sober now for seven years plus. Since the day I learned of her death each day of sobriety is my promise to her. I want justice for my sister and her family. She will rest in peace only when this man is given justice. Then she and the other victims and their families can have peace.
Karin Joesbury, mother of Andrea Joesbury: The loss of the child is one of the hardest a parent has to go through. Any loss of someone close to you or that you love is difficult even under the best of circumstances.
Our small family has endured many losses in our life but the loss of my oldest Andrea is almost unreal.
Our family is living in an ongoing nightmare. It seems to be never-ending, there is no way that this has not affected my life.
The high-profile nature of the case and the magnitude of it affected everything including my health, my relationships with my family and with others.
The gruesome, gory details are something out of a horror movie only it is a grim reality for some and it is usually the most vulnerable in our society. These images plague me. It makes me sick to my stomach. My daughter did not deserve to die in such a way.
She was also a mother who loved her daughter. I have been forced into seclusion, trusting no one, even those close to me at times. I have found my name in media and books, feel I am trapped no matter where I go. It is hard to talk about, it is hard not to talk about, I have so much anger.
Before this happened, I wanted to go back to school so I could work bringing social issues to light. I was interested in documentary film work, bringing a better understanding to current social issues. I have been involved in social work for many years. I have a drive to protect and advocate for those who face multiple barriers.One of my goals was to set up a foundation to protect (them) and possibly find funds and connect with supports and resources so they could succeed at their life.
Since all of this happened this part of my life has come to a halt. I still want to help people but I feel so depleted and my ability to think clearly has been affected.
My focus is scattered and my ability to even communicate has been hampered. To go to counselling was even difficult. I have to constantly monitor and I feel that I work hard not to talk about things that it is best not to. There are also times that I don't want to talk about it. The horrifying facts of my daughter's death haunt me. I just keep on crying for her, wishing I could have been there for her.
I have had times where I felt suicidal. All the stress and isolation has really taken a toll on me. Tension and stress worrying about my other children fills my days.
I have felt constantly bombarded by so many things it doesn't feel like I can properly grieve, I don't feel safe anywhere. I feel that I am living in a fishbowl, even turning on the TV or looking at the newspapers is incredibly disturbing. The images that I constantly see takes my mind right to the place of the horror and torture that I think Andrea went through. I feel trapped.
I avoided getting into relationships because of trust. No one can begin to understand what this is like for our family. It is hell.
Our small family have endured many losses in our life but the loss of my oldest Andrea is almost unreal. The impact on our family has been immeasurable, it has almost torn our family apart, This has left us isolated from each other, dealing with our grief in separate ways.
I don't know what to do anymore. I am lost as is my son. My youngest tries to be strong but put herself in risky situations to find her sister at a very young age as did I.
I am a parent and a grandparent and worry every day about them. They are strong but this has tested our strength beyond the limits. It has become difficulty to even be around some family members as it is stressful for everyone and it brings sad reminders _ holidays and celebrations are hardest.
It is difficult to be in relationships with others. I am scared to make friends. I am scared to talk to anybody.
Feeling trapped like this with a combination of media concerns and relationship complications is killing me.
I sit around and stew about things and get more and more depressed. This is not who I am, but this is my reality. This is all consuming. I feel so vulnerable and it feels like my instincts are getting scrambled. I'm normally an open and trusting person. I like helping people out and now I don't know who I can trust and don't know who I can reach out to.
Stress has affected my life on so many levels. Physically I am a complete mess. The stress of all of this has made things so much worse. All the things I usually do to boost my spirits, walking, getting fresh air, painting, sketching, journalling, etc. are things I can't do.
My mobility is next to nothing. I feel trapped also within my own body.
I have medical conditions that cause some things but this makes it so much worse. Stress has caused my health to deteriorate in a way that makes me further isolated. I constantly worry about the effects of all this on my children who don't always want to talk about it.
They loved their sister very much and were very close.
I don't sleep because of pain and there are always thoughts running through my mind about all these things. I can't sleep at night, I'm completely exhausted due to stress, pain, anxiety and I can't stop the thoughts.
It is a struggle to get some of my basic needs met. I don't know who to reach out to. I've been labelled in the past and this prevents me from getting the help that I need. Having to move just about killed me.
My daughter was a lovely creative girl who wound up in a freezer cut into parts. The pain will always be with me.
My mind creates images that I can't get out of my mind. These actions killed not only my daughter but once a living family.
The love is still there but we're all pretty messed up. I don't know how I will ever recover from this.
Lila Cummer, grandmother of Joesbury: We have such a small family here. They are so precious to us. Andrea was like our own child because her mom was ill a lot and we took her with us to help her mom out.
We have so many wonderful memories going to the beach and parks. She was a beautiful little girl who loved to dress up.
We are going to miss her wedding and her children. She always wanted to have kids.
She wanted to have a family. She wanted to come and get her daughter. She doted on her daughter and took wonderful care of her.
She was going to come back to Victoria. She said she was ready to come back. She had been working in a clinic to help others that were on drugs to try and get them off.
The last phone call we had from her was that she was going to a party. She was getting dressed up in her best clothes because she had never been to a party.
Someone in the background during that phone call told her that she looked pretty. It was the last we heard from her.
She was so kind and so nice. She was a wonderful, helpful person that never complained. At times we can't think about her because it hurts too much. I can't stand reading the paper any more. I worry about my daughter Karin.
It seemed that the whole world was reading this horror story that is ours.
I ended up in the hospital when we first found out about Andrea with heart problems.
She will be missed forever. We have many memories. We have boxes of pictures that are too difficult to look at. She is forever loved.
Daughter of Brenda Wolfe, who didn't want to be named but identified as A, submitted by social worker David Routledge: At age 14, I felt it was important that she give this victim impact statement so that she could speak for her mother. She stated that she never got to know her mother, she then got to know her through how the media portrayed her as a result.
She now realizes that the media had sensationalized a great deal about her mother but in the beginning she did not know this and believed all that she had read.
She therefore grew to hate her mother. She has learned in the last year that who her mother was is different than what she did in the last year of her life She wonders if Robert Pickton had not killed her mother, if her mother would have returned to her and be her mother and the mother that A needed her to be.
Because of how her mother was portrayed in the media, she began to feel that she did not deserve to have good things in her own life, because she is the eldest daughter as is her mother, she felt she had to take on the responsibilities her mother could not manage.
This became an additional burden for her as the conflict about her mother increased.
She felt that did not deserve to have good things happen in her life. She felt that she was going to wind up like her mother and she had to assume responsibility for her family She has come to realize that these are not responsibilities a young girl should have. She said that sometimes her heart got so full of emotion that she did not know how she was going to hold all the emotion in.
She tried a variety of ways to deal with these emotions. Some of the ways were not positive such as angry bursts and experimentation with alcohol.
Others were more positive, such as support from biological and foster families. She also writes to deal with the internal pain she feels.
There's a poem she wrote called Silent here: Sitting here in the silence with it being pure dark/ Wishing someone would break it with a soft bark/ You sit there crying and everything hurts/You want someone to help you, not just lurk/ You think about everything spoken that night now you want to take back things and forget that fight.
A states that her family has been torn apart. First of all the loss of her mother and then by the internal conflict that has developed in the extended family over the situation. A feels that she cannot trust anyone now. If she could not trust her mother to be there for her, how can she trust anyone else? A has done her own research into her mother and her past. As part of that journey she has revisited her mother's last year of her life and the last moments of her life. She wonders what he mother was thinking when she first met Robert Pickton and she wonders what Robert Pickton thought of her mother.
She wonders what her mother was thinking in her last moments and what was it that caused her to go to the farm.
She is visited by dreams of her mother and what happened to her. She wants the trial to be over so she can deal with the past, put it in the past and move on with her life.
She knows that her mother was a good person. She was a person caught in addiction. A realizes that she will never have the love of a mother but she is grateful for the life and the supports that she has now.
Her mother should not have died that way and deserves to be portrayed in a more positive way.
She does not want her mother's life story to be that of a crack- addicted prostitute but as one who's life journey was cut short by Robert Pickton.
She wonders if mother could have returned to her if she was still alive, and be the mother that A believes that she could have been.
Brenda Wolfe's mother Elaine Belanger: The impact the trial has had on me has been devastating and traumatizing. There is an anger within me that reacts to fear, powerlessness and pain. I've started to heal and the media opens up the wound again.
And now this impact statement has again reopened up the wounds.
Oh, I know that life is a healing process from the time that we are born until the time that we meet the creator.
There is a hole in my heart and soul that will not ever close, the loss of my first-born child Brenda.
Brenda was a mother to two beautiful little girls. As much as I try to protect (them) from the circumstances that ended their mother's life it was impossible.
There are some things that are really troubling me. I am wondering how a portion of my daughter's remains ended up on the farm. I am also wondering how my daughter Brenda's jacket ended up in Mr. Pickton's bedroom.
Even if Brenda had not been murdered like this, giving her money and drugs would only enable her addiction.
I really want to know what happened to my daughter in the final hour of her life. Only the person who murdered her knows that and can tell me that.
Brenda was not only a mother, a daughter, my first-born was loved and wanted. Brenda was a sister that was loved, wanted and respected.
Brenda was an aunt and was very proud, loved by her nephews. Brenda was also a niece and loved, adored and respected by her aunts.
There is a pain in my heart that will not heal. I have tried to forgive you as my native traditional elders have suggested me to do. This is impossible to do. The tears that I shed would fill an ocean. And knowing my granddaughters are growing up without a mother is heartbreaking and devastating. The dreams I have of my daughter Brenda are so real and she is alive. And then I wake up and the emptiness in my stomach realizes Brenda is gone but not forgotten.
If the teardrops I shed made a pathway to heaven I would walk all the way and bring you home again and hold you in my arms again Brenda and never let you go.
Brenda's sister, Lenora Belanger: My sister Brenda's cause of death haunts me deeply inside. I can't help but feel so scared inside when I think about what she went through. I really felt very worried about Brenda emotionally and physically in her passing on.
My sister brought two beautiful girls into this world and a lot of the fear I have is for my two young nieces, who truly didn't deserve to have their mother taken away from them.
I am aware that my sister Brenda was battling a drug-addiction but I truly believe in my heart that she was on her way to recovery and that there wasn't one day that her two children didn't cross her mind.
Brenda was a remarkable person. She was the most genuine person I have ever met.
I referred to Brenda in this manner not because she is my sister but because I felt and adored who she truly is.
Brenda was an incredible caregiver for her two daughters, her loving ways were amazing and are dearly missed.
This is the harshest for my nieces emotionally. I can't even imagine the pain they are going through and will continue to have throughout their lives. The fear, loneliness, anger and confusion they both feel. It breaks my heart.
Everything about their mother's remains. Being exposed to the public through the media has been traumatizing for my nieces and all of the people who knew and loved Brenda.
Brenda's mother, our mother, I believe will always be traumatized by Brenda's death. I can't begin even begin to explain the utter pain and devastation I saw in my mother the day we were notified of Brenda's passing.
I will never forget the scream of horror that came from our mother in our apartment that day when RCMP detectives and Frida confirmed our fear being a reality.
Our sister Patricia and our nephews have lost one of their favourite persons. Brenda's someone we truly always wanted around us.
My sister Patricia lost her only best friend, I believe and I know she feels just as much pain as I have described if not more. Everything about what has happened to my sister Brenda aches within me in the worst way. I didn't think a person's heart could break but when you think of someone you love having her body dismembered on a pig farm, what led up to it, I believe this person who killed my sister killed a part of us but broke her, Brenda's heart, most of all.
