Canadian Serial Killer Self-Published a Memoir on Amazon

Amazon has just removed a self-published memoir from Robert Pickton, a man convicted of killing six women and charged in the deaths of 20 others. The memoir, Pickton: In His Own Words, was apparently smuggled out of his jail cell by another inmate. In the ebook memoir, Pickton proclaims his innocence, which caused pleas from the victims family not to read. The Vancouver Sun reported:

That was the reaction from family members of the victims of Robert Pickton to news the serial killer has just released a book. A police officer involved in bringing the murderer to justice had the same message for any would-be readers. [..] Ernie Crey, whose sister Dawn Crey’s DNA was found at Pickton’s Port Coquitlam pig farm, said the book is just one more slap in the face to people who lost a family member to Pickton. “I am deeply troubled by it and so are the other families who had a loved one a victim of Robert Pickton.”

The book was published on Amazon Canada through Outskirts Press, a self-publishing service based in the United States. The book was published under the name Michael Chilldres, a man who said he published the book as a “favor” to a friend who had met Pickton in prison. After the outcry, Childres told The National Post, “If I had to do it all over again, I would say ‘no.’ […] I didn’t think this book was going to be as big of a deal as it is; I just thought it would be a little deal.”

Childres said he received the manuscript in the mail and, at the time, didn’t know about Pickton’s crimes. When he googled him, he “looked up his arrest record and stuff, and he was kind of creepy,” but decided to go through with self-publishing the book anyway. He said the self-publishing process cost about $2,500 dollars.

Canadian public safety minister Ralph Goodale said, “We will be examining all those who have assisted in any way in this odious enterprise.”