"A habitue of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, a sometime prostitute and longtime drug abuser, Rebecca Guno disappeared in June 1983.

She was named the first potential victim -- the first of more than three score who comprised the official list of women missing from the Downtown Eastside.

Her round face, glasses and megawatt smile beam out of the now iconic poster asking for information about their whereabouts or fate.

There had been others before her, there is no question about that.

But after Guno's disappearance, they seemed to vanish more often until the late 1990s, when the staggering number of missing, and the Pollyanna assurances from police, triggered visceral outrage.

Blame years of political indifference, police infighting and investigative impotence.

With the Supreme Court of Canada-blessed conviction of Robert (Willie) Pickton, we have put to rest six of those vulnerable women: Sereena Abotsway, Mona Lee Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Ann Wolfe, Marnie Lee Frey and Georgina Faith Papin.

Twenty more also were likely killed by him, though those charges were stayed this week.

There are others too whose blood is on his hands.

Pickton boasted of butchering 49 women and planned to take a rest after reaching 50.

He didn't make it."

Get the Story:
Ian Mulgrew: A society that simply doesn't care enough (The Vancouver Sun 8/7)