B.C. farmer claimed he killed 49 women, prosecutor says

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. — Years after their loved ones vanished from the seedy streets of Vancouver's red-light district, families learned some gruesome details of how the women died.

Some relatives fled the courtroom. Others sat in tears as prosecutors Monday detailed the case against 56-year-old Robert Pickton.

The pig farmer showed no emotion. Clean-shaven with a bald crown and shoulder-length hair, he sat in a specially built defendant's box surrounded by bulletproof glass.

Arrested five years ago, Pickton has been charged with killing 26 women. He has pleaded not guilty to the six counts covered in the first trial. The other 20 will be heard at a later trial.

Prosecutor Derrill Prevett stunned the courtroom by saying Pickton told investigators, including an undercover officer planted in his jail cell, that he had slain 49 women.

"I was going to do one more and make it an even 50," Prevett quoted Pickton as telling investigators.

"I made my own grave by being sloppy."

Defense lawyer Peter Ritchie told jurors that Pickton did not kill or participate in the slayings of the six women covered in the first trial.

If convicted, Pickton faces life in prison. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976.

Ritchie asked the jury to pay close attention to Pickton's demeanor in the videotapes with his interrogators, in particular to his level of sophistication.

He asked the jury to listen closely to details regarding Pickton's relationship with his brother, David.

The brothers reared pigs on the family's 17-acre farm outside Vancouver, where investigators say the Picktons threw drunken raves where there were prostitutes and drugs.

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.

Before opening statements, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice James Williams warned the seven men and five women on the jury that some of the evidence and witness testimony presented during the trial would be horrific.

"Some of the evidence to which you will be exposed to during the trial will be shocking and is likely to be upsetting. I must ask each of you to deal with that the best you can," he said.

As prosecutors described initial details described later, some relatives of the victims cried and left the courtroom.

Some family members of victim Marnie Frey fled when prosecutors said the jawbone and several teeth later identified as hers were discovered on the farm.

Prevett said the government would prove Pickton had murdered six women, butchered their remains then disposed of them.

The prosecution is expected to call about 240 witnesses, including relatives of the victims.

If found guilty of more than 14 charges, Pickton would become the worst convicted killer in Canadian history.