Diana Melnick was a young woman who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown East Side in December of 1995. She was one of the earliest known victims of the serial killer Robert Pickton.
Case[]
She was described as 5 foot 2 inches tall and 100 pounds, with short brown hair and brown eyes. She was a known drug user who had 4 prostitution-related charges against her, as well as a charge for theft, in the months prior to her disappearance. Little information is available regarding her life or family.
When police investigated Robert Pickton's property in 2002, her DNA was found on one of the freezers in his workshop and on plastic sheet liners inside. She was one of the twenty-seven victims that Pickton initially stood accused of murdering, but the charge in her death-like many of Pickton's other victims - was stayed in order to expedite the charges against him for the six victims whose remains were found on his property.
None of her remains have been located on the farm itself. It is speculated that her body had entirely decomposed, or been disposed of by the various methods used by Pickton before police had fully searched the property.
Sources[]
- Diana Melnick at Find a Grave
- Robert Pickton on Wikipedia