Pig Farmer: Serial Murder Claims "Hogwash"
A Canadian pig farmer whom prosecutors said confessed to killing 49 women told police in a videotaped interview shown to jurors Tuesday that the allegations against him were "hogwash," yet concedes he's "a bad dude."
Robert Pickton, 56, is charged with killing 26 women, mostly prostitutes and drug addicts who vanished from a drug-ridden Vancouver neighborhood in the 1990s. He has pleaded not guilty to the first six counts. A separate trial will be held for the other 20 murder charges.
If convicted, Pickton faces life in prison. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976.
The jurors in the most sensational murder trial Canada has ever faced began watching 11 hours of videotaped interviews Tuesday. A day earlier, prosecutors said the interviews would go on to show Pickton telling an undercover police officer that he had killed 49 women and intended to make it "an even 50" before he got sloppy and was caught.
In the interview with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment in Surrey, British Columbia, on Feb. 23, 2002, a disheveled Pickton laughs when Staff Sgt. Bill Fordy tells him he's being investigated for "upwards of 50 other disappearances and or murders."
"In your own words, Rob, can you explain to me what that means to you?" Fordy asks Pickton.
"What it means to me. Hogwash," Pickton answered. "I'm just a working guy, a plain working guy is all I am," he says. "I'm just a pig man."
He then goes on to blurt out, "I'm a bad dude."
The prosecution on Monday laid out some of the gruesome evidence against Pickton, including finding skulls, teeth and DNA of the six women in the freezer, slaughterhouse and troughs at Pickton's 17-acre pig farm outside of Vancouver.
Defense lawyer Peter Ritchie countered that Pickton did not kill or participate in the slayings of the six women. He asked them to pay close attention to Pickton's demeanor when they watch the videotapes, in particular his level of sophistication and intellect.
Investigators said Pickton and his brother David threw drunken raves with prostitutes and drugs on the family's pig farm. After Robert Pickton's arrest in February 2002, health officials issued a tainted meat advisory to neighbors who may have bought pork from his farm, concerned that it may have contained human remains.
David Pickton, who has not been accused in the murders, told The Associated Press in December that he intended to raise cattle on the property, now surrounded by townhouses.
The first trial covers the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey.
Though some 300 media have been accredited for the trial and the courthouse in the suburb of Vancouver was the scene of chaos Monday, there were 10 empty seats in the 50-seat courtroom on Tuesday as some family members said they could not stomach further testimony.
Pickton, clean-shaven with a bald crown, sat emotionless in a specially built defendant's box surrounded by bulletproof glass. He carried a notebook and thick green binder which appeared to carry legal documents.
If found guilty of more than 14 charges, Pickton would become the worst convicted killer in Canadian history, after Marc Lepine, who gunned down 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnic in Montreal in 1989 before shooting himself.