REVIEW: Voice of a Serial Killer S2 E4 presents a unconventional confession story

If there’s anything we’ve learned from watching murder documentaries, it’s that incomplete body disposal is the way most murderers get caught.

The latest episode of Voice of a Serial Killer tells the story of one monstrous individual with a unique method of disposing remains that played to his skill set. Robert Pickton was a wealthy Canadian pig-farmer, who ground up the remains of his victims to feed to his pigs.

Pickton claimed to have murdered 49 women over a period of nearly 20 years before he was apprehended in 2002. Most of his victims were indigenous prostitutes, whose disappearances were not tracked by local police.

His crimes, though horrific, aren’t unusual for a television series that examines the confessions of prolific serial killers. The Pickton case is unique in the manner with which his confession was procured.

Like many killers, Pickton was uncooperative with the police who sought to procure his confession. Police instead tried a more unconventional tactic – placing an officer undercover as a fellow criminal in Pickton’s cell. In what turned out to be a stroke of genius, the officer pretended to be in awe of Pickton, catering to the narcissistic tendencies of the psychopath. As it turns out, all it took to gain Picton’s confession was an opportunity to boast to a like-minded individual.

This untraditional method of acquiring a confession makes for a very different episode of Voice of a Serial Killer. Instead of listening to a murderer confess his crimes knowingly to a police officer, he is recalling them with someone he believes to be like-minded – a man perhaps as depraved as himself.

The result is equally chilling and fascinating. There are moral issues with obtaining information through undercover police operatives, and Voice of a Serial Killer is not here to discuss them. What it does do is deliver a wholly different confession, one that reveals both more and less about the true nature of Pickton.

Pickton is egotistical, yes, but why did he do what he did? An undercover officer cannot ask that question. The public might never know.