Court to take up B.C. serial killings

PORT COQUITLAM, B.C. — The curious, the compelled and the personally involved have converged on this small Vancouver suburb where a preliminary hearing begins today in the case of a backwoods pig farmer accused of being Canada's most prolific serial killer.

Prosecutors planned to deliver their opening statements this morning, summing up their evidence against Robert William "Willy" Pickton, 53, who has been charged with killing 15 of 63 women, mostly prostitutes and addicts, who have disappeared from Vancouver's rough East Side over the past 20 years.

The case has attracted international attention, drawing journalists from at least seven countries, in part because of the number of victims but also because of gruesome speculation about tiny pieces of bodies that were discovered on Pickton's 10-acre pig farm after his arrest last February.

Fueling further interest, Pickton's arrest closely followed arrests in two other serial killings in the Pacific Northwest: those of Gary Leon Ridgway in connection with four of 49 slayings attributed to the Green River killer, and Robert Yates Jr. in connection with a string of slayings across the state.

At the time of his arrest, Pickton said he was shocked by the allegations. He has not yet entered pleas to the murder charges in the deaths of Heather Chinnock, Tanya Holyk, Sherry Irving, Inga Hall, Georgina Papin, Patricia Johnson, Helen Hallmark, Jennifer Furminger, Mona Wilson, Diane Rock, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Heather Bottomley, Brenda Wolfe and Jacqueline McDonell.

In Canada, a preliminary hearing in a murder case is essentially a nonjury dry run of the trial. It's similar to a grand-jury proceeding in the United States, except that it's open to the public. Canadian prosecutors will present their evidence, and Provincial Court Judge David Stone will decide if it's enough to warrant a jury trial, which in Pickton's case would likely begin next year.

Pickton's pig farm was initially searched last February on a warrant for firearms violations, but when police found ID cards, purses and clothes from a number of the missing women, the case was taken over by a missing-women task force formed jointly by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Vancouver Police Department.

It quickly became Canada's largest and most extensive murder investigation, so far generating more than 35,000 pages of evidence and 11,500 exhibits. The preliminary hearing alone could last as long as three months.

The investigative team included forensic dentists and forensic pathologists as well as more than 100 police officers who sifted through some 500,000 cubic feet of dirt. Among the pieces of evidence: torn clothing, fingernails and fragments of human remains.

Defense attorney Peter Ritchie tried to get the hearing closed, arguing that evidence prosecutors planned to reveal was so graphic and explosive that making it public could jeopardize his client's right to a fair trial.

He said he was particularly concerned about U.S. and other foreign news outlets not restricted by publication bans imposed by Canadian courts.

Canadian law prohibits journalists from publishing information revealed during preliminary hearings. Some U.S. journalists said they plan to publish information under the protection of the U.S. First Amendment. Several television stations said they would block satellite transmissions of their coverage to Canadian viewers.

Stone, the judge, opted to keep the hearing open but said he would reconsider if problems arose.

Considering the scope and length of the investigation, few details have come out. Speculation has flourished, fueled by isolated facts that have become known: a blood-splatter expert will testify; a slaughterhouse was the subject of great scrutiny during the investigation; a woodchipper was removed from the grounds.

As gruesome as it might be, relatives of the slain women said they are ready to face the truth.

Joyce LaChance, the aunt of Marnie Lee Frey, 25, who's been missing since 1997, stood at a makeshift shrine yesterday across the road from the pig farm. Photos of the missing and the slain hang there.

"All we're hoping right now is that they all went easy. We hope none of them suffered," she said. "Not knowing is worse than knowing."

The Pickton name is well-known in Port Coquitlam, a city of 53,000, where the family was among the earliest settlers and largest landowners.

"When you mention the Picktons, you know the pig farm right away," said 62-year-old Gordon Stidolph, a lifelong resident. "I think in Port Coquitlam it was probably the biggest pig farm there ever was." Locals say it once had 600 or 700 pigs and was several times its current size.

Over and over, people who knew the Picktons say they were hard-working, especially back when Willy Pickton's parents were alive. His mother was said to be out in the fields all the time with her three kids, especially Willy.

With his brother David Francis Pickton and sister Linda Wright, Willy Pickton inherited the farm. The siblings cashed in on the town's growth, selling off parcels of their land for condos, a school and a city park as the community became a sprawling suburb.

The last 10 acres of the farm, where the two brothers lived until Willy Pickton's arrest, were recently assessed at more than $3 million in Canadian dollars.

The sister is said to have distanced herself from her brothers even before the arrest, moving into a nice neighborhood in Vancouver. She has not spoken publicly about her brother.

Some have likened the Pickton brothers to "The Beverly Hillbillies," swaggering around in unwashed farm clothes with big wads of money in their pockets.

Though both were considered coarse and uneducated, David Francis, the older, was viewed as the more socially competent of the two. He lived in the farm's main house while Willy took the trailer out back. The trailer has been a major focus in the yearlong investigation.

The brothers partied at a makeshift nightclub called Piggy's Palace on another of their properties around the corner from the farm. And apparently Willy Pickton had impromptu parties at his trailer as well, according to witnesses.

The pig farm was known among the street crowd as a place where a woman could get high and have a shower for free. But there were suspicions about the place, and many who visited the pig farm said they did so only when there was nowhere else to go.

Suzanne Jay, who helps run a shelter for abused women, told The Guardian of London that people had warned the police for years to look at the pig farm and a man named Willy.

"We had information about the location of that farm. People called us to say that they had called the police and told them there was something bad going on there," she told The Guardian.

Pickton himself had come to the attention of police in 1997 after a prostitute who was found by the side of the road, handcuffed and bleeding, claimed he had stabbed her with a kitchen knife. Pickton claimed it was self-defense. He was charged with attempted murder, but the charges eventually were dropped.

Some families of the slain and missing women have filed lawsuits against police, saying authorities ignored tips they received on Pickton and the pig farm for years because the women were in a high-risk lifestyle. Others say the investigation was hurt by rivalries between Vancouver police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Seattle Times staff reporter Janet Burkitt contributed to this report. Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com.