CANADA CANADA - ROBERT PICKTON, Pig Farm Killer, Vancouver, 1990'S

[Rle7]

RCMP Sergeant Tim Sleigh stood in the witness box at the Robert Pickton trial yesterday, speaking in a gravely monotone voice.

Referring to charts, police documents and photographs, the officer confirmed the identity of fingerprints of Mr. Pickton, his brother Dave and his friend Dinah Taylor on items found in Mr. Pickton's home and on the farm.

The jury followed along as he dryly testified about the numbers assigned to exhibits to keep track of them. He told the court about officers who identified the fingerprints and officers who verified the conclusions. He explained the intricacies involved in comparing fingerprints.

However, he was not asked and did not volunteer anything about the significance of the evidence. That was left to another time during the year-long trial.

Defence lawyer Adrian Brooks drew attention to the fingerprints of Dave Pickton and Ms. Taylor. Prosecutor Michael Petrie asked about fingerprints that turned out to belong to Robert Pickton.

Dave Pickton's right index finger was found on a piece of cardboard in a metallic toolbox that was on top of a freezer holding the partial human remains of two women, Andrea Joesbury and Sereena Abotsway, Sgt. Sleigh said.

Previously, the jury has heard that Dave Pickton was the subject of an investigation into the disappearance of prostitutes from Vancouver's skid row, but he was not a suspect.

Ms. Taylor's fingerprints were found at several places in Mr. Pickton's bedroom, including on a wooden headboard of a bed, on a spray can and on a piece of paper in the drawer of a bedside table. Investigators also found an application for B.C. assistance and a letter from the federal Department of Indian Affairs with her name and fingerprints.

Ms. Taylor had been arrested in February, 2002, two weeks before Robert Pickton, but was released without being charged. Earlier in the trial, Inspector Don Adam testified that Dave Pickton had told police that Ms. Taylor had done some of the killings. However, police did not believe him, Insp. Adam said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070322.BCPICKTON22/TPStory/National

 

[Rle7]

For the first time in Robert "Willie" Pickton's serial-killing trial, a witness has linked items found at the Pickton farm to alleged victims in the case, through DNA profiling.

Civilian RCMP lab analyst Joy Kearsey testified Thursday that a blanket found in Pickton's trailer contained a hair matching the DNA profile of Sereena Abotsway, who vanished in July 2001 and whose decomposing head, hands and feet were found in a bucket in a workshop freezer at the farm.

The chance that another person would share that same DNA profile is one in 42 billion, Kearsey said.

That white blanket, with blue stripes, also bore a hair matching the profile of Robert Pickton, but the DNA material provided a "partial profile," and the chance that someone else could share that profile are one in 180 million, she testified.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=ddffcad7-6aa1-49e0-bbac-a0259969e6f5&k=4764

One in 180 million? There isn't that many people in the entire nation of Canada!

 

[Rle7]

More than 50 of the expected 240 Crown witnesses have testified so far in the murder trial of Robert Pickton, which nearing its third month.
Most of those testifying so far were involved in the massive police search for evidence at Pickton’s Port Coquitlam farm.

On Tuesday, the jury heard that the DNA of Sereena Abotsway of Surrey was found on a black blouse seized from Pickton’s home.

An RCMP lab employee also described how a swab taken from a stained orange plastic bag found inside the pig farmer’s slaughterhouse contained DNA that matched a second alleged victim, Andrea Joesbury.

The jury has previously heard that the partial remains of both women were found at the farm.

Pickton is being tried on six counts of first degree murder in the deaths of Abotsway, Joesbury, Mona Wilson, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey.

http://www.tricitynews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=74&cat=23&id=963380&more=

 

[Rle7]

The trial of Robert Pickton entered a new phase Thursday, away from expert forensics witnesses and on to personal details about the victims and the final weeks of their lives.

Incidents from the women's lives were read into the court record — information taken from files from various government agencies and friends of the six women Pickton is accused of killing.

Pickton has been charged in the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Mona Wilson, Marnie Frey, Georgina Papin and Brenda Wolfe, all women who went missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Pickton is accused of killing another 20 women and will face a second trial later.

The jury heard how one of the women Pickton is accused of killing, Brenda Wolfe, spent her welfare cheque on Christmas presents for her children and asked for more money to buy "bread and milk."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/05/11/pickton-trial.html

 

[Rle7]

Evidence before the jury at Robert Pickton's first-degree-murder trial has been suspended while the trial judge hears submissions from the prosecution and defence lawyers. The jury was sent home Tuesday morning.

Mr. Justice James Williams said yesterday he could not say with any certainty when the trial will resume before the jury. The issues were "somewhat complicated and going to take a reasonable amount of time," he said.

A publication ban prohibits the media from reporting on the matters currently before the court.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070524.BCBRIEFS24-1/TPStory/National

 

[Rle7]

Balanced on a tiny pair of high-heeled shoes and wrapped in a black blazer against the chilly January evening, Georgina Papin downed a couple of beers at the Balmoral Hotel with an old friend, got up from the table and rushed off to work.

“She had no money. I gave her 10 bucks,” Papin’s long-time friend Evelyn Youngchief recalled for jurors in the Robert Pickton murder trial last week. “She couldn’t sit still. She had to go to work.”

That was the last time she saw Papin, a mother of seven whom police say was a sex trade worker who disappeared from Vancouver’s seedy Downtown Eastside in March 1999. She was 35.

Three years later, a bone from her hand was discovered at Pickton’s farm.

http://www.surreyleader.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=73&cat=23&id=991243&more=

 

[Alta]

The National Post has a timeline of the trial if anyone has missed anything.The more evidence and statements that come out in this trial I cannot believe they have not arrested other people in connection with all these women.Namely his brother.

Here is the link to the timeline,it starts from day one up until recently.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/pickton/index.html

 

[Rle7]

The Robert (Willie) Pickton murder trial resumed today after a two-week summer break.

However, the hearing opened Tuesday morning with legal arguments that cannot be reported because of a publication ban.

It is anticipated the jury may hear some evidence this afternoon.

The trial has been in recess since July 19 so the 12-member jury could have a summer holiday.

Since the trial began on Jan. 22, the Crown has called 97 witnesses.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=a6ac0f51-9ec3-4a2c-a165-4c5122c57956&k=20309

 

[Taximom]

Thanks for the update, Rle7. I can't believe it's gone on this long. I think I'd be having a nervous breakdown if I were one of the jurors. :sick:

 

[Rle7]

Whether jurors will hear Robert Pickton defend himself against accusations that he's Canada's worst serial killer could soon become clear after his defence lawyers begin laying out their case Monday.

Although Canadian law required the Crown to tell the defence team about each of the 98 witnesses called for the prosecution, no similar obligation exists for defence lawyers.

So it remains a mystery about whether Pickton will testify himself.

All defence lawyer Adrian Brooks has said is that the defence team is "confident and ready to go" and that their case will last about three weeks.

He gave no hint about how many witnesses his side would call or who they would be.

Pickton himself would be the most eagerly anticipated, but legal experts caution there are up-sides and down-sides to having an accused testify.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/08/26/4448050-cp.html

 

[SewingDeb]

Your link didn't work but I found another one:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/PicktonTrial/News/2007/06/04/4234048-cp.html

 

[Rle7]

Robert (Willie) Pickton's murder trial was in recess Friday and will resume Monday.

This past week marked the beginning of the defence case.

In a 20-minute opening statement, defence lawyer Adrian Brooks asked the jury to consider Pickton's level of intelligence, suggesting he was not smart enough to understand what he was saying to police immediately after his arrest.

The defence also said it would challenge some of the DNA evidence presented by the Crown and the testimony of at least two key Crown witnesses, Lynn Ellingsen and Pat Casanova.

Pickton's lawyers have called eight witnesses so far. A couple of them testified the accused's Port Coquitlam pig farm was a bustling place, not the "isolated" property where the Crown contends the murders took place.

However, prosecutors have aggressively cross-examined those witnesses, including one who admitted she was untruthful about some of her evidence.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/....html?id=8014f978-7788-4cff-a4e5-9770a617b8ab

 

[Rle7]

Closing arguments in Robert (Willie) Pickton's murder trial have been postponed for one week.

Defence and Crown lawyers appeared before Justice James Williams on Wednesday, and a request was made for more time to prepare the final summations for the jury.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/....html?id=7369febc-0b22-4ac4-a5f0-57da7449f8eb

 

[Taximom]

This has to be one of the longest trials in history. Is there any doubt locally how this will end? Surely he will be convicted!

 

[bing1]

I live in Vancouver and as far as I can see there is no doubt that he will be convicted. There is just so much evidence and that is one of the reasons they only charged him with a few of the murders. The others charges will follow once he is safely put away. :woohoo:

 

[Rle7]

The lawyer for a pig farmer accused of being Canada's worst serial killer opened the defense's final arguments Monday by denying the man ever confessed to killing six women.

Robert "Willie" Pickton went on trial last January on the first six of 26 first-degree murder charges filed against him in the deaths of women, most of them prostitutes and drug addicts from a seedy Vancouver neighborhood.

Prosecutors said early in the trial that the 57-year-old Pickton told an undercover officer he killed 49 women and was caught before he could reach his goal of 50.

Lawyer Adrian Brooks urged jurors to keep an open mind and reject the prosecution's interpretation of what Pickton said

"This is nothing like a confession. It is not a confession at all," Brooks said.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5itRxUkKqAeqRi4ulOppAxjHSCC0wD8T11T681

 

[Taximom]

Thanks, bing1, for the local viewpoint. I can't imagine how this creep will be treated in prison.

Thanks for the update, Rle7.

 

[Rle7]

Among the rogue's gallery of hookers, junkies and grifters drawn to Robert "Willie" Pickton's pig farm, like moths to a flame, there lurked an assortment of at least potential killers.

To hear the defence team tell it, punitive maniacs were thick on the ground, any one of whom – but two in particular, three if the defendant's domineering younger brother is included – could have slain the six drug-addled prostitutes Pickton stands accused of murdering and dismembering.

The forensic evidence, lawyer Adrian Brooks posited yesterday, is just as compelling against others who frequented the property, even lived there, and they could easily have committed the gruesome crimes. Indeed, had police not homed in so obstinately on Robert Pickton as their fait accompli suspect, more extensive examination of evidence would have perchance mutated the investigation, Brooks suggested, with other individuals in the defendant's box today.

http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/278907

 

[Rle7]

A small group of friends and relatives of women missing from the Downtown Eastside released balloons Sunday into a beautiful sunny sky as they remembered loved ones who vanished years ago.

As music played, one by one the mourners laid flowers, candy canes and other Christmas decorations on a memorial bench in Crab Park.

The bench facing Burrard Inlet was dedicated years earlier to the long list of women -- most of whom worked in the survival sex trade and/or had drug addictions -- who were vanishing from city streets.

Two photographs were propped on the bench: one of Marnie Frey, as a smiling 14-year-old with braces, and one of Cara Ellis, when she was a young girl of eight or nine.

A few years later, when those children became women struggling with addictions, they both disappeared. That was in 1997.

Robert (Willie) Pickton has been charged in both their deaths.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/....html?id=7f69fe11-fecb-49c2-9864-b4a3397e550c

 

[Rle7]

Jurors can convict Robert (Willie) Pickton even if they believe he acted with others, Justice James Williams said Tuesday as he began instructions to the jury.

"It is not necessary for you to conclude that Mr. Pickton acted alone," he said.

"You may find that Mr. Pickton acted in concert with other persons, although you may not know who they are.

To convict on each of the six first-degree murder counts in this trial, jurors must decide that Pickton "actively participated in killing the victim."

Williams told the jury murder is first-degree if the perpetrator planned to kill and did so deliberately.

The judge also addressed the gruesome nature of some aspects of the case.

"Some of the testimony you heard and exhibits you saw have the capacity to be shocking and upsetting," he said. "There's a concern that the evidence of that nature may arouse feelings of revulsion and hostility that can interfere with the objective and impartial approach that jurors are expected to bring to their task.

"I want you to be aware of that possibility and ensure that it does not happen to you."

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=b8204739-c720-4562-b885-c6555ddd64a2&k=47275

You couldn't pay me enough to sit on that jury. Enduring 10 months of horrendous testimony and now the judge is taking three days to instruct the jury.

I wouldn't be surprised if all the jurors just voted guilty right away to get out of reviewing all that testimony and evidence.

And this is just phase one. Another trial is slated for the other victims.