Shadows In The Pines

Robert Picton - Part 4 - The Outcome

Robert Pickton — Part Four: The Outcome
Podbean Description:
The search of the farm expands.
What began as a firearms warrant becomes one of the largest and most expensive crime scene investigations in Canadian history.
In Part Four of our Robert Pickton series, we walk through the excavation of seventeen acres in Port Coquitlam — the slaughterhouse, the freezer, the buckets beneath it, the pig pens, the industrial grinder, and the rendering plant connection that triggered nationwide fear.
Investigators recovered fragments.
Human tissue on hooks.
A severed head identified as Mona Wilson.
Dismembered remains stored beneath a freezer.
A jawbone in a pig enclosure.
Human DNA inside an industrial meat grinder.
Nearly 200,000 DNA samples.
Roughly 600,000 exhibits logged.
A $70-million investigation.
Twenty-seven women identified.
We examine the undercover cell recordings where Pickton bragged about numbers, competition, and wanting to “beat the boys in the States.” We read the names of the women identified. We walk through the verdict, the second-degree convictions, the parole ineligibility ruling, and the Crown’s decision to stay additional charges.
We also examine what this case exposed — systemic failures, jurisdictional breakdowns, and the disproportionate vulnerability of Indigenous and marginalized women in Canada.
And we close with the factual timeline of Pickton’s 2024 death in custody following an assault inside Port-Cartier Institution.
This episode is heavy.
It is direct.
And it centers the women whose lives were taken.
Listener discretion advised.

Mini Pines - The Red Light Of The Silver Valley

Episode Title: The Red Light of the Silver Valley
For nearly a century, the small mining town of Wallace, Idaho operated one of the most openly tolerated red-light districts in the American West — not in secret, not underground, but woven directly into the fabric of the community.
In this episode of Shadows in the Pines, we step back into the boomtown chaos of the 1890s, when silver ruled the Silver Valley and Avenue A became home to a line of brothels that would define Wallace’s identity for generations.
We explore:
• The rise of the district during the mining boom
• The powerful madams who shaped it — from Maggie “Molly B’Dam” Hall to Gracie Edwards and Effie Rogan 
• The scandals that made national headlines
• The unspoken agreements between law enforcement and business owners
• The 1988 federal raid that shut it down overnight
• And the lingering hauntings reported inside the former Oasis Bordello
This isn’t just a story about prostitution. It’s about survival, economics, gender, power, and a town that chose practicality over pretense. It’s about how an entire community normalized something the rest of the country pretended didn’t exist — and what happened when the outside world finally forced its hand.
And yes… we’ll talk about the ghosts.
If you’ve ever wondered how a red-light district could operate for nearly 100 years in plain sight — this is the episode.
Because in Wallace, the mines ran deep.
And so did the secrets.
—
🎙️ Shadows in the Pines
In the pines, the truth never stays buried.

Robert Pickton - Part 3- The Women

Shadows in the Pines — Willie Pickton Part Three: The Women
By 1999, this was no longer rumor.
The names were stacking.
Women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside were disappearing within a compressed window of time. Families were reporting them missing. Friends were organizing their own searches. Bad date lists were circulating. And inside police departments, files were beginning to feel less isolated.
In this episode, we move from suspicion to escalation.
We cover:
• The anonymous tip naming Willie Pickton
• The prior attempted murder charge that never went to trial
• Witnesses who describe women’s belongings inside his trailer
• Accounts of what allegedly happened inside the barn
• The role of people orbiting the farm
• The jurisdictional fractures between Vancouver Police and the RCMP
And finally — the break.
Not because of the missing women.
Not because of the mounting witness statements.
But because of guns.
When police executed a firearms warrant on the Port Coquitlam property, they weren’t expecting to find what was waiting inside that trailer.
Women’s IDs.
Clothing.
Blood-stained restraints.
A collection of hair ties.
Names written down.
An inhaler belonging to a missing woman.
That inhaler changes everything.
This is the episode where rumor becomes physical evidence.
Where suspicion turns into probable cause.
Where the door to the farm finally opens.
Next episode: the excavation.
Follow Shadows in the Pines and share the show — because in the pines, the truth never stays buried.

Robert Pickton - Part 2 - The Horrors Continue

EPISODE DESCRIPTION — PART TWO
 
In Part Two of our three-part series on Robert William Pickton, we move beyond the missing women and into the place where everything converged: the farm.
 
This episode examines daily life on the Pickton property—how it functioned, who passed through it, and why so many warning signs went unchallenged for years. We look closely at the family dynamics between Robert, his siblings, and their parents, and how neglect, isolation, and dysfunction shaped the environment long before police ever took notice.
 
We also unpack the mounting complaints, eyewitness accounts, and documented encounters with law enforcement that failed to stop what was happening. From parties that drew vulnerable women onto the property to repeated missed opportunities to intervene, Part Two focuses on the systemic failures that allowed the farm to operate unchecked.
 
This is the middle chapter of the story—the point where prevention was still possible, but accountability never came.
 
Listener discretion is advised.
This episode contains discussion of violence, exploitation, and the disappearance of multiple women.

Mini Pines - The Centennial Trail

The Centennial Trail: A Walk from Spokane to Coeur d’Alene
This is not a travel guide.
It’s not a history lecture.
And it’s not about distance.
This episode is a slow, full-length walk along the Centennial Trail — a gentle, continuous journey following the Spokane River from the heart of Spokane, Washington, to the still waters of Lake Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Moving mile by mile, the episode traces how water shaped a city, how industry rose and fell along its banks, and how quiet returns when the noise fades. From the roar of Spokane Falls to the long middle miles where nothing remarkable happens and everything does, this walk explores what it means to move without urgency and listen without expectation.
Along the way, you’ll pass through history, neighborhoods, wetlands, and open sky. You’ll hear how the river sustained Indigenous communities long before borders existed, powered a growing city, and eventually softened into something wide and reflective. The trail becomes less about where you’re going — and more about what happens when you give time somewhere to go.
Best experienced in one uninterrupted listen, this episode invites you to slow your pace, let the river walk beside you, and notice what surfaces when you stop trying to arrive too quickly.
Put on your headphones.
Step toward the water.
And walk with us.

Robert “Willie” Pickton - Horrors On The Farm

Episode Description — Robert Pickton: The Horrors on the Farm (Part One)
 
In this episode of Shadows in the Pines, we begin our deep-dive into one of the most disturbing and devastating cases in Canadian history — the crimes of Robert Pickton.
 
Before the headlines.
Before the farm.
Before the missing women became numbers.
 
Part One focuses on the origins of the Pickton family and the environment that shaped what would later unfold. We examine Robert Pickton’s early life, his upbringing alongside siblings Linda and David, and the deeply troubling influence of his parents, Leonard and Louise Pickton. This is the foundation — the dysfunction, neglect, and isolation that created the conditions for violence to grow unchecked.
 
We also begin to explore life on the Pickton farm: a place known locally for chaos, exploitation, and rumors long before law enforcement took notice. This episode sets the stage for what was allowed to happen, who was ignored, and how warning signs were repeatedly missed.
 
This series is told with a victim-centered lens and is based on court records, investigative reporting, and primary source material, including On the Farm by Stevie Cameron.
 
Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of violence, exploitation, and sexual assault. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
 
Part Two will examine the disappearance of women connected to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and the early failures of the investigation.
Part Three will confront what was ultimately uncovered — and the questions that remain.
 
Keep your eyes open…
and your footsteps light.
Because in the pines, the truth never stays buried.

Israel Keyes - Part 4 - What He Took With Him

Israel Keyes — Part 4: What He Took With Him
In Part 4 of our deep-dive into Israel Keyes, the violence stops moving — but the damage doesn’t.
After his arrest, Keyes enters federal custody not as a confessed murderer, but as a fraud suspect tied to a missing woman. What follows is not a breakdown, but a negotiation. Over months of FBI interviews, investigators attempt to determine the true scope of his crimes while Keyes carefully controls what he will — and will not — reveal.
In this episode, we walk step by step through:
• The early interviews conducted while Samantha Koenig was still officially missing
• The moment Keyes slips and admits to prior homicide
• How the FBI analytically builds the case beyond confirmed victims
• Why investigators believed he was responsible for at least 11 additional murders, with estimates reaching as high as 36
• The demands, conditions, and leverage that defined every exchange
• And the final act that permanently sealed the unknown
Part 4 is not about pursuit or confession.
It’s about information — how it was traded, withheld, and ultimately taken away.
This is the episode where the case becomes fixed in place, leaving behind unanswered questions, unnamed victims, and a record shaped as much by silence as by evidence.

The History Of The Davenport Hotel

The Davenport Hotel: History, Hauntings, and the Shadows of Spokane
In the heart of downtown Spokane stands the Davenport Hotel — a landmark synonymous with elegance, ambition, and a century of Pacific Northwest history. But beneath the polished marble floors and grand ballrooms lies a quieter legacy, shaped by loss, transition, and stories that refuse to fade.
In this episode, we explore the full history of the Davenport Hotel — from its early days as a symbol of modern luxury, through financial collapse, abandonment, restoration, and rebirth. Along the way, we examine the people who lived, worked, and died within its walls, and how those histories gave rise to the hotel’s enduring reputation as one of Spokane’s most haunted locations.
We look at documented accounts from staff and guests, long-reported apparitions, unexplained sounds, and recurring experiences tied to specific rooms and hallways — not to sensationalize, but to understand where legend ends and memory begins.
This is not a ghost tour.
It’s a study of place — how buildings absorb human presence, how history lingers, and why some locations never fully let go of the past.
🎧 Shadows in the Pines
📍 Pacific Northwest history, folklore, and the stories that still echo

Israel Keyes - Part 3 -The Unraveling

Episode 3 — The Unraveling
In Episode 3 of Shadows in the Pines, the investigation finally gains traction — not through a witness or a confession, but through a debit card.
As ransom-linked ATM withdrawals begin appearing outside Alaska, investigators shift from reacting to a disappearance to tracking a moving trail. Each transaction produces a timestamp, a location, and eventually a pattern — one that leads across state lines and narrows onto a single vehicle.
This episode follows that trail step by step:
the financial data, the surveillance footage, the emergence of a BOLO, and the Texas traffic stop that ends the movement investigators had been following for weeks.
What begins as a fraud arrest quickly becomes something more complex. In custody, Israel Keyes agrees to speak — but on his terms. As the first interviews unfold, investigators realize they are not dealing with a suspect who will unravel under pressure, but one who intends to control the exchange itself.
Episode 3 ends not with answers, but with a new understanding:
the truth is now within reach — but it will not be given freely.

Israel Keyes - Part 2 The Curriers & Samantha Koenig

Israel Keyes – Part Two: The Curriers & Samantha Koenig
In Part Two, the distance becomes the weapon.
After leaving Alaska, Israel Keyes travels thousands of miles to rural Vermont, where a quiet farmhouse becomes the site of the abduction and murder of Bill and Lorraine Currier—a crime with no bodies, no traditional crime scene, and only the details he would later choose to reveal.
From Vermont, the story returns to Alaska, where a deliberate cooling-off period follows. Ordinary life resumes. Work continues. And beneath that surface, something far more calculated is taking shape.
This episode also examines the crimes that ran parallel to the murders: bank robberies, financial planning, and long-distance movement designed to blur timelines and distract from violence.
The episode then turns to Anchorage, where the restraint ends with the abduction and murder of Samantha Koenig—the crime that finally forces his careful system into the open and brings years of silence to an end.
Part Two traces the line between these crimes, the choices that connected them, and the moment when a system built on distance and control finally began to collapse.
Shadows in the Pines — keep your eyes open, and your footsteps light.