Jury deliberates fate of accused serial killer

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. – The jury in the gruesome case of a pig farmer accused of being Canada’s worst serial killer began its deliberations Friday night after hearing final instructions from the judge.

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

Pickton, 58, is accused of murdering Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe, Andrea Joesbury and Georgina Papin. The defense has acknowledged that their remains were found on Pickton’s farm outside Vancouver, but denies he was responsible for their deaths.

Judge James Williams reviewed the transcript of a videotape in which Pickton is heard telling an undercover police officer that he had planned to kill one more woman before stopping at 50, taking a break and then killing another 25 women.

“I was going to do one more; make it an even 50,” Pickton told the officer, who had been planted in the accused killer’s cell and gained his trust.

A day earlier, Georgina Papin’s three sisters cried and clutched each other’s hands in court while the judge reviewed the testimony of witness Lynn Ellingson, who said she walked in on a blood-covered Pickton as Papin’s body dangled from a chain in the farm’s slaughterhouse.

The judge also reviewed testimony of prosecution witness Andrew Bellwood, who said Pickton told him how he strangled his alleged victims and fed their remains to his pigs.

“There is no question that Mr. Bellwood’s testimony is significant in this case,” Williams told jurors.

During its closing arguments, the defense tried to discredit the testimony of Bellwood and Ellingson. The defense emphasized the witnesses’ drug addictions and criminal backgrounds as reasons for the jury to question their testimony.

Williams told the jury to be careful in accepting their testimony.

“You should be very cautious in accepting the testimony of Mr. Bellwood and Ms. Ellingson and that it would be unsafe for you to rely on their evidence alone,” Williams said. “They admitted to criminal convictions and generally have unsavory reputations because of other discreditable or bad conduct.”