Serial killer Robert Pickton managed to smuggle a book he wrote behind bars outside a maximum security prison in B.C. and get it published, CTV News has learned.
The 144-page book, entitled "Pickton: In his Own Words" and that is available for sale online, gives a glimpse into the mind of Canada's most notorious serial killer.
In 2007, Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder and is serving a life sentence in Kent Institution in Agassiz, B.C.
The remains or DNA of 33 women were found on his Port Coquitlam farm. He also confessed to an undercover police officer that he had murdered 49 women -- many of them sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside -- but had fallen short of an even 50 because he got "sloppy."
Pickton's communications from Kent Institution are closely monitored. However, Pickton appears to have sidestepped the efforts of prison guards by passing a handwritten manuscript to a former cellmate.
That inmate then sent the manuscript to a friend -- a retired construction worker from California named Michael Chilldres -- who typed it up and is credited as the author of the book.
"It's his account: How it happened, and what happened and how he claims his innocence," Chilldres told CTV News.
In the book, Pickton claims he's a "fall guy," and belongings and remains of the women found on his property were actually from vehicles he was trying to salvage.
He says that blood from one of the victims that police found on a mattress was just spilled wallpaper glue. He goes on to insinuate that the Hells Angels were behind some of the killings.
Pickton quotes passages from the Bible in arguing that he did not receive a fair trial, saying the judge was "the blind leading the blind" and prosecutors led the jury "down a crooked and dark pathway."
He also calls his guilt a "conspiracy theory linked to a bazaar insolent (sic)," which is an example of some of the many spelling errors in the book.
"Pickton: In his Own Words" was published by the American company Outskirts Press and is being sold for $20 on Amazon.ca.
Chilldres says that neither he nor Pickton is getting a cut of the sales. Instead, that money is going to Pickton's former cellmate, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a teen.
"Pickton is completely out of it," said Chilldres. "My friend I'm doing it for is to help him get some money to hire an attorney because he says he's innocent as well."
The fact that the book is available at all has frustrated the family members of Pickton’s victims.
Rick and Lynn Frey, whose daughter Marnie was one of the six women Pickton was convicted of murdering, said their main goal is finding out whether the serial killer will make money from its sales.
"If he does profit from it, we have to stop it. We have to find some way that he doesn't get a penny out of this book," Lynn Frey told CTV News Channel Sunday.
Lawyer Jason Gratl, who represents a group of the victims' children, said he also wants to ensure that Pickton never sees any of the book's profits.
"I would consider seeking an injunction to prevent the funds from going to him," he said.
There's also the question of how Pickton's manuscript was smuggled out of a maximum security prison.
Stevie Cameron, the author of "On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver's Missing Women," said she was shocked to hear Pickton managed to get a book published.
"I'm very surprised," she told CTV News Channel Sunday.
"I can't understand how the guards in that prison would've been able to let Pickton's friend get that manuscript out. I mean, everybody is searched, their letters are read … they're very careful about these things."
Rick Frey was also "baffled" by the manuscript's release.
"It is amazing to me that a person who is supposed to be under such tight security is able to get a manuscript out to an American publisher," he said.
Cameron said the incident will likely lead to an internal investigation.
"It is a joke. The man is a maniac: He has admitted to killing all those women; he's been put into prison; he loves the attention," she said.
"I find it just appalling that the people at the prison didn’t find this and didn't stop it."
With a report from CTV Vancouver's Jon Woodward
