VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Police Department’s repeated denials that a serial killer was preying on sex workers in the late 1990s was a “common mistake” that neglected the force’s duty to warn the public, the inquiry into the Robert Pickton case heard Tuesday.
Former detective Kim Rossmo, who has been credited as being among the first to warn that a serial killer could have been behind the disappearances of sex workers, is the first investigator who was actually involved in the case to testify since the hearings opened last October.
Rossmo was a PhD-educated geographical profiler with the Vancouver force when, in September 1998, he joined a working group that was brainstorming ways to investigate reports that a rash of women had vanished from the troubled Downtown Eastside.
The working group was about to issue a news release when the head of the force’s major crimes section intervened, blocking the release and disbanding the team.
Rossmo said there were a number of reasons to issue such a statement.
“One of the common mistakes repeated over and over again by police agencies with serial murder investigations is the initial denial that there is a serial murderer, which inevitably ends up in resulting in a lot of negatives, both with the community and the media,” Rossmo testified.
“There is a duty to warn the public regarding potential threats. It’s not our right to not warn people.”
Instead, the Vancouver police continued to insist publicly that there was no evidence to suggest a serial killer was behind the disappearances.
That continued until November 1999, when spokeswoman Const. Anne Drennan acknowledged for the first time that one or more serial killers could be at work.
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The inquiry has already heard that several investigators and senior management officials refused to believe the disappearances were at all suspicious, insisting the women were transient and would turn up eventually.
Rossmo said he ran into immediate resistance from Insp. Fred Biddlecombe, the head of major crimes, who was the officer who blocked the news release.
The inquiry has already heard allegations that a personality conflict between Rossmo and Biddlecombe contributed to the failure to take the missing women investigation more seriously.
Rossmo testified that Biddlecombe was immediately hostile, and described a “tantrum” during a meeting with the working group in late September 1998. Rossmo said Biddlecombe accused him and another officer of leaking information to the media, and said the serial killer theory was simply wrong.
“I found him to be arrogant and somewhat egotistical; he was not interested in a discussion or communication,” said Rossmo.
“He was angry and unreasonable. … It was clear that he didn’t want to deal with this issue, didn’t like what we were doing, didn’t want to work with us.”
It was the second – and final – time the working group met.
“In effect, given his position, which was the officer in charge of homicide, sex crimes and missing persons, basically killed the working group,” said Rossmo
“There was no way we would continue without his full co-operation.”
With the working group finished, the case returned to the domain of the missing persons unit, where Det. Const. Lori Shenher was the lone person investigating missing women cases.
Rossmo continued to be involved, preparing a report in early 1999 that compared the rate of disappearances from the Downtown Eastside. He produced a chart that showed a sudden and unmistakable spike beginning in 1995, rising even further in 1997 and 1998.
That chart was discussed at a meeting with several officers, and Biddlecombe again downplayed the disappearances, said Rossmo.
“He (Biddlecombe) said, ‘Look it, the only reason we have this bulge in the number of unfound missing women is that we haven’t had time to find these people. Give us a couple of years and that bulge will flatten out,'” Rossmo recalled.
Several months later, Rossmo provided yet another report into the missing women.
Rossmo conducted a statistical analysis of missing women reports, and he suggested the spike in missing women between 1995 and 1999 was too large to be a coincidence.
His report concluded that the women were likely victims of a single killer.
Rossmo left the Vancouver police in acrimony in December 2000, after the force declined to renew his contract as a geographic profile.
Rossmo had been given the title of detective inspector for a five-year contract to run a geographical profiler unit, but the force decided to discontinue the project.
Rather than accept a lesser-paying job as constable, Rossmo left. He sued the force for wrongful dismissal, but lost after a sensational trial and a subsequent appeal.
He now teaches at Texas State University.
Pickton wasn’t caught until February 2002, and a subsequent search of his farm uncovered the belongings and remains of 33 women.
He was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder, but he claimed to have killed 49.
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