Canada: Picton denied killing anyone

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In an emotional conversation about Robert (Willie) Pickton being under investigation in the missing women case, a good friend of the accused killer said he told her he didn’t “kill any of them.”

In her second day on the stand, Gina Houston said the conversation happened on Feb. 20, 2002 — after police had seized Pickton’s farm but two days before he was charged with murder.

“You asked him, ‘Did you kill any of them?’ and he said, ‘No’?” asked defence lawyer Marilyn Sandford.

“That’s correct,” replied Houston.

Houston also testified that she told Pickton she didn’t think he killed “Mona.”

“Mr. Pickton explicitly said to you that day, the 20th of February, ‘I did not kill Mona?” Sandford asked.

“Yes,” replied Houston, a frail woman battling cancer who says she still cares for Pickton.

Houston testified Tuesday that Pickton had told her in the same conversation that Mona “didn’t make it” after a scuffle on his farm, and that he had done everything he could to help her.

No last name was used during the conversation but Pickton is accused of killing Mona Wilson, whose partial remains were found in his slaughterhouse.

Sandford then suggested to Houston that Pickton pointed the finger at Dinah Taylor, a former friend who had lived on his Port Coquitlam farm.

“Mr. Pickton said to you on the 20th of February in the car that Dinah Taylor shot some of the girls?” Sandford asked.

Houston said Pickton did not use those exact words, but had suggested to her that Taylor “was responsible.”

Taylor was arrested, but not charged, in the missing women case.

“Willie told me that he believed ... that she (Taylor) would do the right thing,” Houston continued. “She would take responsibility for what she said she would take responsibility for ... She was responsible for three or four.”

Houston was not asked by Sandford to elaborate.

Taylor’s DNA was found on multiple items on the farm, and is one of the people the defence has focused on because she was frequently on Pickton’s property and had ties to Vancouver’s rough Downtown Eastside neighbourhood where many of the missing women worked.

The jury has heard that on a few pieces of evidence seized from Pickton’s trailer, Taylor could be linked by DNA to some of the missing women. That included two lipsticks, on which she and Brenda Wolfe were possible contributors; hairs on a sheet which bore DNA matching Pickton, Taylor and Sereena Abotsway; and a beaded rosary that bore Taylor’s DNA, and which the Crown says it will prove belonged to Mona Wilson.

Houston gave more details Wednesday about the scuffle that was linked to “Mona,” saying she overheard it during a telephone conversation she had with Pickton when she called his home in early December 2001.

The jury has heard that Mona Wilson was reported missing on Nov. 30, 2001.

Houston said she heard in the background of his trailer the raised voices of several people and a woman screaming. She said that Pickton had remained on the phone with her while repeatedly saying “stop it, not here” before the line went dead.

Houston asked her boyfriend, Ross Contois, to go to Pickton’s farm to make sure everything was all right because Pickton was not answering his phone.

When Contois returned home a couple of hours later, she said, he was muddy and had a bite mark on his left calf. “It looked like human teeth marks in it,” Houston said.

Again, Houston was not asked to elaborate.

So far, 84 Crown witnesses have been called at the trial, which is in its 17th week.

Pickton, 57, is facing 26 counts of first-degree murder.

This trial is focusing on the deaths of six women: Abotsway, Wilson, Wolfe, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey. A second trial on 20 charges is expected to be held later.

Pickton has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

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Accused serial killer Robert "Willie" Pickton was a shy, well-mannered boy who later took over the butchering duties at his family's pig farm, a close family friend said in a Canadian court on Wednesday.

Robert Korac, a butcher who befriended Pickton's parents shortly after he moved to Canada from Croatia in 1956, said he often visited the family to slaughter their pigs. He recalled meeting Pickton, now 57, when the accused was about seven years old.

"(He was) always polite, with everybody," Korac said in uneven and accented English.

Pickton, a pig farmer and auto salvager, is accused of killing 26 women, though the trial in this community near Vancouver is on only six of the murder charges.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Pickton, who if convicted would be Canada's worst serial killer, has been in detention since his arrest in February 2002.

The women Pickton is accused of killing were among more than 60 who disappeared from Vancouver's poor Downtown Eastside neighborhood from the late 1980s to 2001.

Police say Pickton lured drug addicts and prostitutes from Vancouver to his farm in nearby Port Coquitlam. There, the women were killed, their bodies cut up and disposed of on Pickton's property and at an animal waste rendering plant.

Police evidence presented in court has been that Pickton wanted to kill 50 victims or more.

On Tuesday, Korac testified that Pickton had the nickname "Robbie" as a child and was often bossed around by his brother David.

"He (David) put kind of a pressure all the time on him," Korac said.

"And Robbie wouldn't really even do anything unless David said okay?" asked defense lawyer Adrian Brooks.

"Right," Korac answered.

"That happened even when Robbie was a grown-up person?" Brooks asked.

"Right," Korac replied.

Korac testified that after he quit slaughtering pigs for the family, Robbie took over the task. He never saw David butcher pigs.

During the trial, the jury has heard that at least two female victims' heads were found in buckets, along with human feet, at Pickton's farm.

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One of the women Robert Pickton is accused of killing, a mother of two children, spent her welfare cheque on Christmas and had to ask for more money to live on.

The glimpse into the life of Brenda Wolfe came Thursday as the Crown detailed the distressing lives and last days of six women Pickton is accused of murdering.

The Crown read a series of submissions that outlined when the women were last seen or heard from.

Their requests for money and assistance suddenly just stopped, prosecutor John Ahern told a jury hearing evidence in the charges against Pickton.

In the case of Wolfe, provincial welfare workers gave her money for her and her two children on Nov. 25, 1998.

"On Dec. 29, 1998, the ministry issued a cheque to Miss Wolfe who had contacted her welfare worker to report that she had spent all of her money on Christmas and needed bread and milk."

Ahern read the entries, and hundreds of others involving Wolfe and the other five women, as the jury read along in a 24-page booklet.

Pickton sat in the prisoner's box with his copy, also reading along as Ahern recounted the last moments in a hushed courtroom, from official records, of the six women.

There was an entry regarding Georgina Papin, another woman named on the indictment against Pickton.

"Georgina Faith Papin was reported missing to the Vancouver Police Department by her sister on March 4, 2001. (The sister) was concerned because she had not heard from Miss Papin for about two years," Ahern read.

"On May 6, 1998, Miss Papin received money for milk and food. On May 19, 1998, Miss Papin requested but did not receive money to buy a washer and dryer."

"On May 28, the ministry received information Miss Papin had been away for a week and that her four children had been taken into care."

Other entries showed she was still alive, however, and records indicate she was out of the province for part of July 1998.

Nothing was heard of her again after Dec. 30, 1998 - a year that included seven "in-person" contacts with police.

The evidence read into the record Thursday is agreed admissions of fact in the case. They mean the accused is admitting what is read into the record and that witnesses do not have to be called.

The admissions, along with an expected witness later Thursday who is the first who had personal dealings with some of the dead women, began a new phase in a trial that began Jan. 22.

The admissions included long lists of the women's pharmacy and medical records, and their frequent contacts with police and social workers.

Pickton is charged with six counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Wolfe, Papin, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Marnie Frey and Mona Wilson. Remains of the six were discovered on the pig farm where Pickton lived in Port Coquitlam, B.C.

Another admission was made by Crown prosecutor Jay Fogel.

It concerned a huge quantity of animal bones initially located in an area near the slaughterhouse next to Pickton's trailer.

It was originally thought that they were all animal bones but when they were analyzed by a forensic anthropologist it was discovered that two human bones were among them.

It was admitted by the Crown and defence that one of the bones was an intact human toe bone and the other an incomplete human toe bone.