Pickton inquiry to hear final arguments this week

Final legal arguments are slated to begin Monday morning at the Missing Women Inquiry in Vancouver, which is investigating the police mishandling of the Robert Pickton serial murder investigation.

Testimony began eight months ago and Commissioner Wally Oppal has heard about a series of bungles that allowed Pickton to continue killing Downtown Eastside women for years after the first sex trade worker vanished from Vancouver streets.

Lori-Ann Ellis, the sister-in-law of one of Pickton's victims, says a new missing person's unit is now operating in Vancouver and she approves of the changesalthough she notes anything would have been an improvement on the fractured system that was in place when Cara Ellis vanished in 1998.

Most of Vancouver's missing women disappeared between 1997 and 2002before Pickton was arrested and charged with the murders of 26 women. He was eventually convicted for the second-degree murder of six women in 2007.