[SWAF-Potluck] Deadly danger on the stroll

[Andy Sorfleet]

​


http://www.vancouversun.com/
VANCOUVER SUN
Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Mike Hager and Kim Bolan



p. A10.

Deadly danger on the stroll

Serial killer Robert Pickton is in jail, but sex workers are still killed
and experts say proposals for new legislation could make things worse



[photo caption]
Kerry Porth, Pivot Legal Society's chairwoman and a former sex trade
worker, believes little has changed since the Robert Pickton case. At least
11 sex trade workers have been killed since that time.
Photograph by: Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun

Sharon Anne Dietrich, Michelle Caroline Choiniere and Lisa Arlene Francis.

They were sex trade workers murdered, then dumped under bridges or into the
brush beside quiet logging roads -- dark and desolate places similar to the
areas they worked.

Experts say the unsolved murders of at least 11 Lower Mainland sex trade
workers in as many years are a testament to the dangers still faced by
these marginalized women, despite the absence of a prolific serial killer
like Robert Pickton.

Between 1978 and 1998, the murders of at least 40 sex trade workers went
unsolved in the province, the vast majority occurring on B.C.'s South
Coast, according to Vancouver Sun archives.

"The danger really hasn't changed post-Pickton," Pivot Legal Society's
board chairwoman Kerry Porth said of the murders, adding that it is nothing
to celebrate.

In December, the Supreme Court of Canada gave the Conservative government a
year to draft new legislation after it ruled that three prostitution laws
-- which banned keeping a brothel, living off avails of prostitution and
street soliciting -- violated sex trade workers' constitutional rights to
life, liberty and security of person. Meanwhile, B.C., like other
provinces, has said it will only prosecute cases where pimps or customers
have exploited these vulnerable sex trade workers, many of whom are working
to support an addiction or battling mental illness.

Little is known about the murder of Charity Marie Cassell, a 28-year-old
whose body was dumped in an Abbotsford cornfield near the American border
on Sept. 16, 2004, and is one of the Integrated Homicide Investigation
Team's oldest open files.

Cassell's alias was Sherrie Marie Morrison and she first was arrested and
charged for possession of illegal drugs in Surrey on March 18, 1999, at the
age of 23, according to online court records. Two days later, she was
charged in the same city with communicating for the purpose of
prostitution. From then, until two weeks before her body was found in the
field, Cassell was in and out of jail for a variety of probation violations.

The deaths of sex trade workers like Cassell can be very difficult for
police to solve because they often involve a murderer who is a stranger to
the victim, according to Porth.

Danielle LaRue's short and painful life likely came to an end at the hands
of a stranger who hired her for sex.

The 24-year-old went missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in late
November 2002. A month later, the VPD received an anonymous letter from her
killer.

"This is about a Vancouver prostitute who disappeared at the end of
November 2002. Don't remember name she gave me, had no ID. Sounded like she
had just recently come to Vancouver. Caucasian, long black, curly hair,
jeans, black leather jacket, tattoos and jewelry. She is dead," the letter
read. "To her family. I am sorry more than you can imagine. I did not
intend this but am still responsible. She will not be unmourned. Have
brought flowers to her grave once already, plan to do so every years as am
able. Not ideal, but better than no visits at all. I know you can't forgive
me, but please believe I tried my very hardest to bring her back."

In the letter, her killer pleaded with investigators to release information
about the homicide to The Vancouver Sun, so that he could learn LaRue's
identity. The VPD likely considered the information "holdback" and LaRue's
story remained untold until a 2007 news report by Global's John Daly. Now,
it's one of eight cold cases in a new VPD microsite aimed at getting tips.

Today, a case like LaRue's would likely be publicized, according to John
Lowman, a Simon Fraser University criminologist and one of Canada's leading
experts on the sex trade.

In January, IHIT held a news conference after the arrest of a Surrey man
charged with the August 2013 murders of New Westminster sex trade workers
Karen Nabors and Jill Lyons, who were friends that lived in the same
apartment complex. Lyons' mother spoke at the event, as well as Nabors'
father, who asserted that "murder is a crime not acceptable in any job."

After criticism over its past tactics toward sex trade workers, the VPD
pledged last year to hire two community liaisons and has changed the name
of the squad assigned to police the trade from "vice" -- archaic and loaded
with moral implications -- to the counter-exploitation unit. It also
implemented new sex worker enforcement guidelines in 2013 that represent a
sea change in the attitudes of law enforcement since the days of Pickton,
according to Lowman.

As required by the policy, VPD spokesman Const. Brian Montague said
enforcement of the laws against sex trade workers or johns "is often a
last-resort tool because it may have unintended consequences."

"The enforcement could inadvertently displace sex workers, and as a result
of police intervention, create safety concerns by forcing sex workers to
engage in riskier behaviour to avoid buyers being detected by police,"
Montague said.

The Conservatives have said they will announce their overhaul soon and are
leaning toward a variation of the "Nordic" model, which criminalizes pimps
and johns for buying sex while funding so-called exit programs for sex
workers. But many experts argue that a system that criminalizes any
participant in the sex trade will end up hurting the most vulnerable people
-- the women in the industry.

Under the Nordic model, sex trade workers would continue to be forced into
working in dangerous areas, remaining easy prey for any violent,
misogynistic man, Lowman said. "We put a target on them, essentially."

He added the street sex trade and driving a taxi are among the jobs most
likely to get someone murdered in Canada, according to statistics. "Guess
what? (they're both) alone in dark places, late in the evening."

If johns are singled out in a new law, they will also have an incentive to
buy sex from the youngest sex trade workers "because they know they won't
be police decoys," Lowman said.

Porth, a former sex trade worker, said that targeting johns would push the
trade further underground where workers are forced to take greater risks to
get paid, like jumping "in the a car before negotiations take place."

Wally Oppal, who chaired the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, says
changes can't come soon enough as it's only a matter of time before another
serial predator begins operating in Metro Vancouver.

"We need to be able to be in a position whereby the police respond in a
more positive way, and society responds in a more positive way, than they
did during the Pickton years."


Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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