VANCOUVER – Angel Wolfe told the missing women’s inquiry that she once hated her mother for dying in such a notorious way.
Her mother, Brenda Wolfe, was one of six women serial killer Robert Pickton was convicted of killing in 2007.
Wolfe, now 18, told the inquiry she was just six when she last saw her mother and eight years old when police visited the Toronto foster home where she was living to tell her that her mother had been murdered.
She began her testimony Thursday by reading a prepared statement to the inquiry that is examining why police failed to stop Pickton from murdering women on the city’s Downtown Eastside.
Wolfe said she wasn’t prepared for the graphic detail she was to hear in the media about her mom’s death.
“I grew a hatred to my mother with no reason because — at that time — of what was being said in the paper, I didn’t know what to be certain of,” she said.
Wolfe said her foster home was in a “rich” area of Toronto, and once media coverage began, local mothers didn’t want their children associating with her.
As the trial coverage continued, friends even accused her of lying about her own life, she said.
Her foster mother didn’t want to hear about the investigation and trial, so Wolfe said she kept her own scrapbook of newspaper clippings.
“Finally, I burned the book for my own healing,” she said.
“The media and everyone wanted to identify these women as drug-addicted sex workers, not me. I see them as survivors,” she added.
“I remember looking at the (missing women) poster for the first time and seeing the 69 different women. What I saw was hurt families, other people’s mothers, sisters, aunties and friends.”
On two separate occasions Wolfe, who’s now a student living in Toronto, received rounds of applause from the audience which included family members of other Pickton victims.
Pickton was able to get away with murder because the women were from high-risk and marginalized communities and were already forgotten in society’s eyes, Wolfe testified.
She called for more detox centres, treatment beds and aboriginal and community representation on a new police board.
Wolfe also called the disappearance of aboriginal women across Canada an atrocity and genocide.
Commissioner Wally Oppal thanked Wolfe and wished her luck.
“You’ve impacted all of us with what you’ve told us and how this horrible crime has affected you, and I just want to admire you for your courage, admire you for what you are doing,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Ernie Crey, a member of the Sto:lo Nation, gave the inquiry some suggestions on how police can improve relations with First Nations.
The DNA of Crey’s sister, Dawn, was found on the farm of serial killer Robert Pickton, although he was never charged with her murder.
Crey said he hasn’t encountered many First Nations officers in the city and suggested the Vancouver Police Department should hire more First Nations for front-line work.
He told the inquiry that trust and pride would build if more First Nations were hired and if police took part in more aboriginal cultural events.
Pickton was originally charged with 26 murders, but the remaining charges were dropped when he lost his final appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada.
The DNA of 33 women was found on Pickton’s Port Coquitlam, B.C., pig farm, but Pickton’s trial heard that he bragged of killing 49 women.
Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver
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