VANCOUVER – The children of another three women have launched lawsuits targeting the police and Robert Pickton, marking the first such lawsuits filed by people Pickton was convicted of killing.

The latest round of claims bring the total number of lawsuits filed since May to nine, though until now the lawsuits have involved women whose remains or DNA were found on the farm, but for whom Pickton was never put on trial.

Statements of claim were filed this week by Brenda Wolfe’s daughter, Angel Wolfe; Marnie Frey’s daughter, Brittney Frey; and Georgina Papin’s daughter, Kristina Bateman.

The three latest lawsuits allege the Vancouver police and the RCMP failed to properly investigate the women’s disappearances and failed to warm sex workers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside that a serial killer was likely at work.

The lawsuits also target the Crown over prosecutors’ decision in 1998 not to put Pickton on trial for attempted murder after he attacked a sex worker the previous year.

Pickton is named as a defendant, and the lawyer representing all the families in all nine lawsuits has said he wants to compel Pickton to testify.