There are several reasons for the ambiguity about the number of victims of Robert “Willy” Pickton, but one major part of the narrative is the fact that his victims were sex workers and other people who lived on the margins of society, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia. Inasmuch as many of these people have no friends or family to look after them, it’s possible that Pickton could have murdered several more women than those for which he was tried and convicted.

Indeed, Pickton was only convicted of six murders, though he was charged with 27 of them. The murderer, for his part, allegedly bragged to a cellmate — actually an undercover police officer — that he killed 49 women, and that he wanted to kill 50 but got caught before he could complete the goal, according to Murderpedia.

As to the number of victims eaten by pigs, that figure could be anywhere between zero and 49 or more. The operation to search Pickton’s farm for human remains turned up hundreds of thousands of bits of physical evidence, including DNA samples. However, due to the advanced state of decomposition, it’s impossible to say if they’d been eaten by pigs or insects, or decomposed naturally in the elements.