This Unknown Serial Killer Stalked Vancouver Women

“The detectives say they know who killed these women, and he died in 2009.”

It’s been over 20 years since Robert Pickton was arrested after years of preying on women in the Downtown Eastside. The case shone a light on the failures of the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Police Department to protect vulnerable women in the Downtown Eastside and investigate their disappearances.

But Pickton was not the only serial killer to prey on sex workers in the city. In a recent episode of her Cold Case Canada podcast, historian and journalist Eve Lazarus reveals how VPD detectives worked to identify a man they believe killed six women between 1988 and 1990.

But before he could be charged with those crimes, the man died in 2009. His name has never been made public. Although two of the murders are included on the Vancouver Police Department’s Cold Case website, the VPD has never published a press release detailing the results of their own investigation.

Remarkably, these details have never been reported before and the families of the six women have been left in the dark about the outcome of the police investigation — until now.

Lazarus has published several books about cold cases in British Columbia. Working with the families of victims of crime, Lazarus tries to draw attention to unsolved murders and find answers.

In the episode “The Alley Murders,” Lazarus delves into the lives of six women who lived in Mount Pleasant and the Downtown Eastside in the late 1980s.

Rose Minnie Peters, Lisa Marie Gavin, Glenna Marie Sowan, Tracey Leigh Chartrand, Frances “Annie” Grant and Karen Lee Taylor were found dead in alleys in Mount Pleasant, in a shallow grave on the UBC Endowment lands and in an alley in Shaughnessy.

Three of the women were close friends who lived together and looked out for one another; some were mothers; some had been involved in the foster care system since they were babies. Two of the women were Indigenous.

Their families have been waiting years for answers.

“I wanted to talk about who these women were — that they were not just sex trade workers and drug addicts — that they had families and friends who loved them,” Lazarus told The Tyee.

In the podcast episode, retired VPD detective Alex Clarke relates how, starting in 2000, advancements in technology allowed investigators to test DNA collected for unsolved homicide cases.

That methodic testing linked two of the alley homicides together. Another retired detective, Brian Ball, explains how police finally closed in on the main suspect starting in 2007. But Crown counsel’s reservations about the case and the man’s death prevented criminal charges from being laid.

Lazarus, Ball and Clarke are urging the VPD to publicly confirm that these murders are not unsolved.

Lazarus says she realizes that police can’t share information that could affect an ongoing investigation — “but withholding information about the task force and its conclusions from the families seems exceedingly cruel,” she said.

“Lisa Gavin’s family have spent more than three decades wondering if the man who killed her is still walking around free.”

Lazarus shared a note she received from Sharon Tuerling, Gavin’s sister, after the episode aired.

“I just finished listening to the podcast,” Tuerling wrote. “I am absolutely devastated that the VPD has known who murdered Lisa and didn’t tell us. All these years of talking to so many detectives, and no one said a thing. They gave us hope again when they highlighted her case on the VPD Cold Case website. My mother and brother both died in 2013 praying every day that we would get justice. Our family deserved to know the truth. Now the healing can begin.”

You can listen to the podcast episode on the Eve Lazarus website or find it on Apple Podcasts, Google Play or Spotify.