Canada's Largest-Ever Murder Trial Begins

Accused Serial Killer Confesses To 49 Murders, Planned 50, Prosecutors Say

(AP)  An accused serial killer allegedly confessed to killing 49 women and intended to murder one more to make it an even 50, a prosecutor told jurors Monday during opening arguments of his trial.

Robert William Pickton has been charged with 26 counts of first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty to the first six counts in what is expected to be the most macabre and lengthy murder trial in Canadian history.

The 56-year-old pig farmer is charged with murdering the women, most of whom vanished from Vancouver's impoverished Downtown Eastside neighborhood in the 1990s.

The first trial covers the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey, and is expected to last a year.

Hundreds of people began lining up before dawn outside the small courthouse in the Vancouver suburb of New Westminster, vying for the 50 seats in the courtroom.

A judge warned jurors to expect testimony "as bad as a horror movie" during the trial, and some of those shocking details came immediately.

Prosecutor Derrill Prevett said the government would prove that Pickton murdered the six, cut up their remains, and disposed of them. He told the jury that as a successful pig farmer, Pickton had the expertise, the equipment and the means to dispose of them.

When police first went to the farm to investigate in 2002, they found two skulls in a bucket in a freezer in Pickton's mobile home. DNA tests would later identify them as those of Abotsway and Joesbury.

"The heads of the individuals had been cut in two, vertically," Prevett said. "With the skulls were left and right hands and the front parts of the left and right feet."

He said both skulls had wounds caused by 22-caliber bullets. He said investigators found a Smith & Wesson rifle in the laundry room of Pickton's home.

Jurors sat in rapt attention, but the initial details caused some relatives of the victims to cry and leave the courtroom.

British Columbia Supreme Court Justice James Williams, who is presiding, ruled that the other charges will be heard in a later trial so as not to overburden the jury.

Evidence presented in more than a year of preliminary hearings, which has been under a publication ban, has been so gruesome that some reporters have sought psychological counseling.

Under the ban, details of the case have remained off limits to the media. Williams ruled earlier this week, however, that the ban on courtroom testimony would be lifted on Monday because neither the defense nor prosecution has objected.

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.

It is believed that Pickton, who was arrested in February 2002, lured women to his family's 17-acre pig farm outside Vancouver in Port Coquitlam.

Sarah de Vries is among the women in the second set of murder charges against Pickton. A 1995 entry in her diary revealed the prostitute was aware of the dangers she faced working the streets of Downtown Eastside.

"Am I next?" she wrote. "Is he watching me now? Is he stalking me like a predator and his prey? Waiting, waiting for some perfect spot, time or my stupid mistake."

After Pickton was arrested and the first traces of DNA of some missing women were allegedly found on the farm, the buildings were razed and the province spent an estimated $61 million to sift through acres of soil at the farm.

Health officials then issued a tainted-meat advisory to neighbors who may have bought pork from the Pickton farm, concerned the meat may have contained human remains.

It was not the first time Pickton has appeared before a judge. He was charged with attempted murder and unlawful confinement in 1997 in the case of sex worker Wendy Lynn Eistetter. She claimed she had been handcuffed and attacked at the farm, but Pickton countered he acted in self-defense and for reasons that remain unclear, the charges were dropped.

The prosecution is expected to call about 240 witnesses.

Pickton sat for pretrial hearings in a specially built defendant's box surrounded by bulletproof glass. Clean-shaven with a bald crown and shoulder-length hair, he has occasionally chuckled to himself or scribbled in a notebook.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Vancouver police have come under intense criticism by community activists and advocates for sex trade workers who claim authorities were slow to search for the missing women. Authorities countered that their resources were limited and the magnitude of the case overwhelming.

A police task force says it has located at least 102 women who were believed to be missing. Another 67 women remain on the list, as well as three unidentified DNA profiles from the Pickton farm.

Frey's mother, Lynn, was lined up with other relatives outside the courthouse early Monday, hoping to get one of the 35 seats reserved for family members of the victims.

"It's been a long haul," she told The Associated Press. Her daughter was 25 when she disappeared from the Downtown Eastside neighborhood in August 1997. "I need answers, then hopefully I can carry on with my journey and my life, and let Marnie be at rest."

Hanging is to quick. He needs to be tied to a horse and dragged accross cactus very slowly until he slowly dies, then left there to rot as a warning to anyone who would kill for the fun of it.

[dmotte]

zeekylord,why don't you report me to the F.B.I. and lets see what they can do.I do have these dreams about eradication and retribution and different ways of payback.

[pasdebas]

Zeekylord, as if it was supposed to be a surprise, if you would close your mouth and lift your knuckles off the ground, I didn't say this was a comparison!! What I said was the press will stop at nothing to do the, "Look, folks, this is the one that eclipses them all!!!" What pedantic BS. Not surprised you didn't get it. Slackjaw.

[dmotte]

The correct spelling is Pickton,you insufferable idiot.

[zeekylord]

dmotte... I surely hope you rot, burn, and otherwise suffer in Hades. Inhuman scum like you need to be eradicated with all due prejudice.

We Americans wonder at how terrorists can kill large numbers of people at the drop of a hat and without remorse. I believe YOU are the type that could do it, dmotte and cubby701. In fact, I'm sure that the FBI should be looking at you hard and closely to see if you haven't been killing neighborhood pets with dreams of killing another human.

To me and other actual humans, you are not that to far dissimilar to Mr. Picton.

[zeekylord]

What the frak is wrong with some of you?

Do you value human life so little that this suffering amuses you? Do you have no empathy at all for other people traveling through life on this planet?

What if these women were your your sisters, mothers, or nieces?

The fact that they are hookers, escorts, and other types does not make them worthy of a tortuous and inhumane death. cubby701 - would do you do that makes you sooo much better? What makes you worthy of a civil death? People like you need to experience true misery and pain to get a reality check - I guess that's gonna be waiting for you after your long and hateful life. What comes after the old age home won't be the Pearly Gates.

As for the Air India tragedy... these two events can't be painted with the same stroke. That would be like comparing Ted Bundy and 9/11. Give your head a shake.

[dmotte]

kiddo_ck the correct spelling is ones not once.Yes it is very entertaining,so Eat |Me.

[kiddo_ck]

I really think that some of the people who posted those comments are really sick in the head. Well i think thats what you call reality ha ha... but frankly speaking, this should be something thats shockingly sad yet aome of you find it entertaining. It's really sad to see some people who has no respect at all for the once who perish.

[dmotte]

61 million will buy a lot of nookie.

[finestkindfa]

61 million dollars is alot of money to spend investigating the farm for contents.The government could have spent that money on the women and maybe their self esteem would have risen and they would not have been available to this man in this manner. We are still spending money on this matter, and it is extremely repulsive, bearing no fruit for the public.

[pasdebas]

Nope, sorry. Got it wrong once again. Over 300 innocents lost their lives in a horrendous manner over the Irish Sea, (Air India disaster). Guess it sells papers to lie to the readers - this 'pig', you call a farmer pales by comparison to the low lives who killed men, women and kids in the name of Khalistan. They are a bit more impressive in their dress, but fall well below Willy on the 'human scale'. I hope their Gurus spit on them.

[pasdebas]

This is NOT the largest murder trial in Canada. It may help to sell papers, but a little truth is in order. Over 300 innocent people lost their lives in the Air India murders. This 'pig farmer' pales by comparison to the inhumanity that was committed by the lowlives who still walk the streets of Canada, committed in the name of religion, (not faith), and political (greed) considerations. May Khalistan Zindabad live forever in shame.

[zeekylord]

I'm sure whomever - and I did not say me, btw - would be able to clear the room first.

I'm tired of these ********** getting off easy. He'll probably get sentenced to 490 years in a comfy prison cell situated far from the prison population so he doesn't get the Dahmer treatment.

Canada doesn't have the death penalty - though they used 40 years ago. They were a hanging state.

This monster needs to swing from the gallows slowly, so he can feel his life draining away.

[zeekylord]

This is truly a horrible thing to read about, but the details are compelling.

It also cements that in the public mind, *** trade workers are less than human and don't require police protection or efforts of detectives. How very sad indeed.

However, you can be rest assured that Hollywood is watching this one. This story - even at this early juncture - seems to rival The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies in it's gory details. Whichever studio rushes the thing into production when the case is finished will undoubtedly pawn the flick off as a vehicle for truth and information - whilst raking in cash made off of someone else's sorrow.

I wonder what an RPG would do to the bulletproof box they have this monster hiding in?