VANCOUVER - Vancouver's missing women's inquiry heard that Mounties watched in 1999 as Robert Pickton carried metal drums to a rendering plant.

The inquiry also heard that an informant told Vancouver police just days before that Pickton had put body parts in 45-gallon drums.

The inquiry examining why it took police so long to catch Pickton also heard that Vancouver police and the RCMP ran separate but related investigations.

Vancouver police were investigating the disappearances of sex workers while the R-C-M-P probed information implicating Pickton, who had already been accused of trying to kill a sex worker in 1997.

Investigators eventually found the remains or DNA of 33 women on Pickton's farm but he was only convicted of six counts of second-degree murder.