VANCOUVER -- Reports of an Internet auction site offering farm dirt from the alleged murder scene of 15 women from Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside has horrified the family of accused serial killer Robert William Pickton.

"Some guy is really sick, trying to make money on this," Robert Pickton's brother, David, said yesterday in an interview.

"This is so stressful for the families of the missing women, and some guy comes along and does this thing," Mr. Pickton said. "I don't know what to think. A lot of people are not dealing with a full deck."

He said the listing on eBay could be a hoax, or the dirt could be from land adjacent to property excavated by the police in their search for evidence. Alternately, it could have been stolen off the site, he said.

The Internet listing appeared on-line on Wednesday and was taken off the eBay Web site the following day before any bids had been made, according to Vancouver media reports.

Dirt from the Pickton pig farm was advertised under Collectibles: Rocks, Fossils, Minerals. The site included some details about the murder case, including speculation about what police have found in their search of the farm. The requested opening bid was $9.99 (U.S.).

"I live minutes from his farm and have been to his farm to party at his bar, Piggy's Palace," the seller, who identified himself as Dizan Hamilton, reportedly stated on the Web site. "What I'm selling here is the dirt from his pig farm which the investigators are currently searching through."

Robert Pickton's lawyer, Peter Ritchie, said the listing was "a most unsavoury thing" and declined to comment further.

"Why do people prey on other people's misery," said Rick Frey, the father of Marnie Frey, who disappeared in August, 1997. "You cannot get any lower than that."

In Canada's deadliest serial-murder case, Robert Pickton is charged with the murder of 15 women, who were among 63 -- mostly drug addicts and prostitutes -- who have disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Police have found DNA from several missing women on the Pickton properties in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam. An intensive search of an 11-acre property that included Piggy's Palace was completed yesterday. Police continue to dig up the Pickton pig farm on Dominion Road, where Robert Pickton lived until his arrest last February.

RCMP spokesperson Catherine Galliford has told reporters that security at the two sites has been "impeccable" and no one could have gone onto them. Police will investigate the eBay listing, she said.