'Human Heads found in pig farmer's freezer'
Pastor Dale Morgan
'Human Heads found in pig farmer's freezer'*
By Deborah Jones in British Columbia
January 23, 2007 09:11am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
POLICE searching the home of a Canadian pig farmer found the severed
heads, hands and feet of two women hidden in a freezer, a court was told
today at the start of one of the world's most grisly murder trials.
"In each case the head had been cut in two vertically," prosecutor
Derrill Prevett told the court at the start of the trial of Robert
William Pickton, who has been accused of the murders of 26 women in
Canada's worst serial killings.
With the skulls were the left and right hands and the front part of the
left and right feet, Mr Prevett said.
The body parts were found inside two buckets in two freezers in the
workshop of Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam, 50km outside western
Vancouver.
Pickton, 57, has pleaded not guilty to the murders of six women for
which he went on trial first today.
He is due to later stand trial on charges of killing another 20.
The prosecution said earlier that Pickton allegedly confessed to killing
49 women and intended to kill another to make it an even 50.
Mr Prevett told the court the prosecutors "intend to prove the murders
of these six women were the work of one man, the accused.
"The crown intends to prove he murdered them, butchered them and
disposed of their remains," he said.
All six victims were drug-addicted prostitutes, and DNA tests and dental
records were used to identify the gruesome remains as those of Sereena
Abatosway and Andrea Joesbury.
They both had gunshot wounds to the heads.
Police also searched the grounds digging down several metres and found
animal, and human bones and teeth.
In one room in Pickton's trailer, police also found a .22 calibre gun,
which had a dildo attached to the barrel. Both showed traces of DNA
belonging to Pickton and another alleged victim Mona Wilson.
Pickton was arrested in 2002 and has appeared before the courts several
times. But a gag order barred any publication of the details of the case
in order to ensure an impartial jury.
Justice James Williams of the British Columbia Supreme Court last year
warned the trial would be like sitting through a horror film.
With lights blazing and sirens screaming, a convoy of sheriffs' cars
delivered the accused killer to face a jury in part one of his murder trial.
At high speed, sheriffs drove Pickton inside the courthouse complex in
front of flashing cameras and a crowd of reporters.
More than 350 journalists are accredited to report on the trial.
Pickton walked into court with long, lank hair, and wearing a grey
shirt, carrying a binder full of papers and a blanket.
The complex trial was earlier broken into two parts by Justice James
Williams of the British Columbia Supreme Court.
Jurors will hear six of the charges against Pickton in the first trial,
expected to last for one year, and when it is finished, Pickton will
stand trial on the remaining 20 charges.
The pig farmer has been in jail since his 2002 arrest, during an
elaborate police investigation of dozens of missing women from
Vancouver's squalid Downtown Eastside, an open street drug market where
prostitutes ply their trade at all times and in all weather.
Police identified 65 missing women and continue their investigation.
The gruesome case has been described as a horror film, but most of the
explosive details were under a gag order, used in Canada to help ensure
an impartial jury.
Tips had led the police to Pickton's home in Port Coquitlam, 60km east
of Vancouver, a ramshackle gravel pit and pig farm locals dubbed
"Piggy's Palace'' for the wild parties held there.
In the Downtown Eastside, residents and aid workers said the trial was
welcome after so many years of waiting for resolution, but said it would
rekindle grief, especially for those who knew the missing women.
"Women who still live and work down here knew women who have died and
gone missing,'' said Kate Gibson, executive director of WISH, a drop-in
centre for female sex-trade workers.
"All of the publicity brings that to the fore for them. It's very
disturbing, in light of the fact they're still out there working on the
street.''
But she said some good had come of the case. Police, previously
reluctant to investigate reports of missing women, were now responsive
when someone reports a woman's absence, and residents keep more careful
track of each other.
"It's always so hard to tell if someone's missing or moved, but
everyone's much more responsive to those concerns,'' Ms Gibson said.