Robert Pickton: Canadian serial killer book pulled from Amazon

A memoir apparently written by a Canadian serial killer has been withdrawn within hours of appearing for sale online. Former multi-millionaire pig farmer Robert Pickton was convicted in 2007 of murdering six women. Charges relating to 20 other deaths were suspended.

Prosecutors claimed Robert Pickton confessed to 49 killings

Another inmate helped him smuggle the book out of prison, CTV reported. The publisher requested its removal from retailer Amazon and apologised to victims' families, reports said.

A memorial was left at Pickton's pig farm for the women who went missing

Officials in British Columbia had earlier vowed to prevent Pickton, who says he is innocent, from profiting from sales of the memoir, entitled Pickton: In His Own Words.

"It is not right that a person who caused so much harm and hurt so many people could profit from his behaviour," said the province's Minister for Public Safety, Mike Morris, in a statement.

• The first woman disappeared from Vancouver's deprived Eastside district in 1983, with a spike in the numbers going missing in 1995
• The police were accused of being slow to act, partly because many of the women were drug addicts or sex workers
• Police searched Pickton's farm in 2002, finding some of the missing women's possessions and remains
• One of the most expensive trials in Canadian history opens in 2007, with the judge comparing the case to a horror film
• Pickton convicted on six counts of murder