Accused B.C. serial killer Robert William Pickton now faces 15 counts of first degree-murder in connection with the disappearance of women from Vancouver's lower eastside.

The victims linked to the four new murder charges are Heather Chinnock, Tanya Holyk, Sherry Irving and Inga Hall. Seven of the 15 murder charges can be traced to 2001, while the earliest dates back to 1996 when Holyk disappeared.

The case has taken a series of stunning twists in recent weeks. A court date was set for today after four additional murder charges were laid against Pickton in September. At the same time, police increased the number of files in the B.C. missing women case from 54 to 63.

"This case is now the largest serial killer investigation in Canadian history," RCMP Const. Cate Galliford said Wednesday.

Canada's most prolific serial killer, Clifford Olson, claimed the lives of 11 youngsters during the 1980s from Vancouver's Lower Mainland.

Earlier this year, Pickton was charged with killing Georgina Papin, Patricia Johnson, Helen Hallmark, Jennifer Furminger, Mona Wilson, Dianne Rock, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Heather Bottomley, Brenda Wolfe and Jacqueline McDonell.

B.C.'s Attorney General Geoff Plant says he may cancel Pickton's preliminary hearing scheduled for November 4 and go directly to trial.

"Well, as the attorney general, someone who takes advice from the criminal justice branch on those matters, those are issues that are under consideration and they will continue to be and if the decision is required, we'll make it," Plant told BC-CTV.

Meanwhile, Pickton's lawyer is worried his client won't be able to afford the team of six lawyers required for a fair trial. Defence lawyer Peter Ritchie said Pickton has run out of money and doesn't quality for legal aid.

"Our client had some ability to fund the case but now with the mountain of evidence, it's beyond his ability," Ritchie said. "He does not have the capacity to pay for his own trial."

Plant said his staff is reviewing the legal costs, adding that in complex cases the $50,000 cap on legal aid funding isn't enough. He said the ministry now has to figure out what would be appropriate.

At least one major U.S. media outlet says it's ready to defy any court ban on publishing details of a preliminary hearing. A spokesman for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently said his paper would run stories on its website despite any court ban.

"We would treat this the same way we would if we were covering a case in Jakarta. We wouldn't let the local government determine what we write at home," James Wright, the newspaper's assistant metro editor, said.

A joint RCMP-Vancouver Police task force is overseeing the missing women investigation. A team of forensic experts is examining two properties Pickton owns with his siblings in suburban Port Coquitlam, 35 kilometres away from Vancouver.

The investigation is expected to exceed the $20-million mark this year alone, double the amount of a previous estimate. An expansion of the investigation to another property owned by Pickton is blamed for the increase.

The Pickton property on Burns Road was purchased in 1995. The following year Robert and his brother Dave Pickton began to hold parties at the site inside a venue dubbed "Piggy's Palace."

Residents on the lower eastside say many sex trade workers were lured out to the Port Coquitlam site by the promise of drugs and money. Several family members reported the location of the property to Vancouver police as early as 1998.

The Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP have been harshly criticized for their handling of the case. So far, two civil lawsuits citing negligence have been filed and there's a possibility of a class-action suit could be filed.

Others are trying to improve the plight of residents living on the lower eastside, which is the poorest postal code in the country. The MP for Vancouver East, Libby Davies, says the lack of social programs to help addicts contributed to the deaths.

"They're the easiest people to prey on and they are the easiest people to ignore," Davies recently said in a statement. "Basically, as a society, we treat these people as disposable garbage and that is why we have 63 women who are missing."