The investigation of serial killer Robert Pickton suffered from the same kind of systemic failures as the investigation of Ontario serial killer Paul Bernardo, the Missing Women inquiry was told Monday.

Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans, who was asked by the inquiry to provide an expert analysis of the Vancouver police and RCMP investigations of Pickton, said there was a systemic communication breakdown between Vancouver police and the Mounties.

There was a similar problem in Ontario with sex killer Bernardo, she said, recalling that Bernardo was a multi-jurisdictional serial rapist. When he stopped committed sex assaults in one community, police would make it a lower priority, but Bernardo was still active in other communities.

In the Pickton case, the women were going missing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and were being killed at Pickton’s farm in Port Coquitlam.

Vancouver police were investigating missing women and Coquitlam RCMP were investigating possible murders, but the two police forces did not share enough information and resources, Evans said.

There was initially good communication between Vancouver officers and Coquitlam RCMP, she said, but senior police managers failed to take ownership of the investigations and make sure adequate resources were allocated.

“There was a breakdown in communication at the management level, which is not good for an organization,” she told commissioner Wally Oppal.

Police managers should have ensured information was being shared, Evans said.

For example, she said, the RCMP thought the missing women were historical cases and were not made aware soon enough that women were still going missing, suggesting there was an active serial killer preying on women.

Evans said Vancouver’s police chief could have picked up the phone and called the chief of the Coquitlam RCMP to form a partnership sooner.

“Police leaders need to be accountable not only for their authority but for the community they serve,” she testified.

Senior police managers should have been properly supervising the investigation to make sure it was moving forward, Evans said, but the investigations became stalled and tasks that were set out were not completed.

For example, police surveillance followed Pickton to West Coast Reduction in east Vancouver, but no one followed up and investigated what was in the barrels that Pickton was observed dumping at the rendering plant, she said.

Evans said commanding officers needed to fully understand the missing women problem and make sure investigators had enough tools to do the job.

She pointed out that former Vancouver police chief Bruce Chambers seemed “shocked” in February 1999 when an officer told a community meeting in the Downtown Eastside that women who had disappeared had likely met foul play.

Evans said VPD management refused to endorse the serial killer theory and kiboshed the idea of former detective inspector Kim Rossmo, who wanted to issue a press release saying police were looking at the possibility of a serial killer.

“I saw no reason why they wouldn’t put out a public warning,” she said.

In 1998 and 1999, three informants told Vancouver police that Pickton bragged that he used a meat grinder to get rid of bodies and had women’s ID at his home.

One informant said he was told by a woman who had been on Pickton’s farm that she saw Pickton butchering a woman’s body in a barn.

Vancouver police passed along the information to Coquitlam RCMP.

The inquiry is probing why it took so long to catch Pickton, who was arrested on Feb. 5, 2002.

A number of senior lawyers turned up Monday morning at the inquiry to represent senior Mounties and VPD members.

Pickton, who once admitted he killed 49 women, was convicted in 2007 of six counts of murder.

nhall@vancouversun.com