Back in May, the jury heard from people who knew the women, and learned more about their last movements in the Downtown Eastside before they vanished.

In recent weeks, the women’s families packed the courthouse to watch the final days of the trial, sharing stories of their loved ones as they anxiously awaited the verdict.

Marnie Frey

Ten years ago, Campbell River’s Marnie Frey was the first of the six women to go missing.

A friendly, “good kid” growing up, she was generous to a fault and loved animals. She got hooked on drugs as a teen. She left Vancouver Island to live in the Downtown Eastside, but she always called home.

She’d been to rehab but the drugs lured her back.

When she called home on her 24th birthday, her father Rick and step-mom Lynn promised to send her a package — food and other items.

But she never called to say the package had arrived.

“The next day we were frantic,” Frey said.

Marnie was reported missing Dec. 29, 1997.

Looking back, Rick Frey says they got the “bum’s rush” from police. He’s convinced nothing has changed and the streets are as dangerous as ever — or worse.

Like many of the women, Marnie was a mother. Her daughter Brittney is now 15.

Brenda Wolfe

Brenda Wolfe’s friend Mary-Lou Wasacase testified they met outside Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings in the 1990s. Wolfe was from Alberta and grew up in Calgary.

She was a strong woman who could take care of herself but was battling an addiction to crack and heroin. She kept an apartment in Richmond.

“When I knew her, she supplemented her welfare with working on the street — for her baby,” Wasacase said.

Records read in court show Dec. 29, 1998, she asked welfare for another cheque because “she had spent all her money on Christmas and needed bread and milk.” She was last seen two months later.

The last time Wasacase saw her, Wolfe had lost a lot of weight, and her hands and fingernails were dirty from using a crack pipe. It was a drastic change.

“In the beginning, she was always dressed up.”

She was 30 when she was last seen in February 1999, the same month she was evicted from her apartment and her children were living with their father in Toronto.

Georgina Papin

Georgina Papin was last seen in March 1999, when she suffered a drug overdose and was treated for pneumonia at St. Paul’s Hospital. She was 35.

In 1997, she’d been living in Mission with her children, making aboriginal crafts and attending pow-wows. Two years later, she was back in the thrall of drug addiction, and would disappear for days, her friend Evelyn Youngchief recalled for jurors.

She loved jewellery and the colour red. The last time Youngchief saw her friend, she was wearing three silver rings she’d given her and a pair of black, size-five heels. Three years later, some bones from her hand were discovered on the Pickton property.

Papin was born in Hobbema, south of Edmonton. She grew up in foster homes, separated from her eight siblings.

Andrea Joesbury

Andrea Joesbury, from Victoria, had regular contact with front-line community workers in the Downtown Eastside. She was a familiar face at WISH, a drop-in centre for sex trade workers, where former staffer Elaine Allan remembered her as quiet and polite.

A local health clinic nurse reported her missing June 8, 2001 after the 22-year-old failed to show up to have a dressing changed on a wound.

Her Pharmanet, MSP and social services records show she filled hundreds of prescriptions between 1995 and June 2001, and her Ministry of Human Resources file dated back to 1995. She was on a methadone program.

During their initial search of Robert Pickton’s bedroom, police found a jacket with an address book in the pocket listing Andrea’s address: room 201 at the Roosevelt Hotel on East Hastings Street.

Sereena Abotsway

Surrey’s Sereena Abotsway grew up in a foster home.

Yolanda Dyck, who met Abotsway at a treatment centre in Vancouver, described her as a “bubbly, very kind-hearted woman” with two missing front teeth and light brown hair she often tucked behind her ears.

A prostitute who battled an addiction to alcohol and other drugs, Abotsway was also a community activist who took part in several marches for the missing women — “She was always looking out for them” — only to vanish herself.

Another trial witness, Tracy Anne Northey, who ran a focus group at a student-run clinic on the Downtown Eastside in summer 2001, portrayed Abotsway as someone who easily made an impression. She last saw her on July 19 of that year.

“She was very opinionated. She had a lot to share,” Northey said, recalling how difficult it was to contain the boisterous woman in the group setting.

Abotsway, 29, was reported missing Aug. 22, 2001.

Mona Wilson

Mona Wilson, 26, a member of the O’Chiese First Nation in Alberta, spent most of her childhood living with her foster family in Langley. They lost touch after she was sent to a different foster home in Vancouver. She wound up on the streets, an addict.

She was a regular drop in to the WISH centre. Her welfare cheques were sent to a society that managed her finances.

She was the last of the six women to go missing. She had been evicted from her apartment a month before.

Her boyfriend reported her missing Nov. 30, 2001, the day after picking up her last prescription. She’d been on a methadone program.

Her silver rosary necklace was found in the office of Pickton’s trailer a few months later.

The 58-year-old Port Coquitlam man, convicted by jury Dec. 9 on six counts of second-degree murder, will have no chance of leaving prison before he’s 83.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice James Williams handed down the sentence Tuesday afternoon after the emotionally wrenching readings of victim impact statements.

“What happened to these women was senseless and despicable,” the judge told the court.

“Mr. Pickton there is really nothing I can say to adequately express the revulsion the community feels about these killings.”

Williams said Pickton showed no remorse and that was one of the factors he took into account.

Sisters of victim Georgina Papin clasped each other’s hands and closed their eyes as the judge read the sentence.

Screams of joy erupted in the courtroom when Williams said Pickton must serve the harshest penalty possible.

Pickton stood motionless and without reaction, with his head bowed, as the sentence was read.

Second-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence but allows for the possibility of parole after as little as 10 years.

However, the judge agreed with the Crown that the maximum sentence is required because of the uniqueness of the case.

Defence lawyer Peter Ritchie had called for parole eligibility in 15 to 20 years.

“We are all aware that for a person convicted of six murders under these circumstances the chances of parole are extremely remote,” Ritchie said.

He also referred to the jury’s finding that Pickton didn’t plan the murders as was required for a finding of first-degree murder.

“The degree of indirect involvement perhaps leaves a mystery in this case.” Ritchie said.

The defence lawyer also cited Pickton’s history of kindness to others, as recounted by several defence witnesses.

The judge offered Pickton a chance to speak on his own behalf, but Ritchie said Pickton cannot in light of the 20 remaining murder charges against him.

“He wishes to speak but he’s accepted advice not to,” Ritchie said, while his client – normally motionless in court – leaned forward and nodded.

Earlier in the day, Crown prosecutor Mike Petrie told the court the women were not “disposable people” because they were drug addicts and prostitutes living in the Downtown Eastside.

“For them to have been murdered in the circumstances of this case makes their already tragic lives more tragic.”

Tears flowed freely and some family members broke down as victim impact statements were read in court.

The defence team has not yet indicated whether it will appeal Pickton’s conviction.

However Crown prosecutors have maintained they plan to proceed with 20 more murder charges against Pickton relating to other victims.

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“If the teardrops I shed made a pathway to heaven, I would walk all the way,” she wrote in her victim impact statement.

Crown prosecutor Mike Petrie paused after he read those words in New Westminister Supreme Court today.

Seconds passed while Petrie collected his emotions, then resumed, “and bring you home again and hold you in my arms again Brenda and never let you go.”

In 2002, part of Wolfe’s jaw was found at the Pickton property. “I really want to know what happened to my daughter in the final hour of her life,” her mother said. Now that the trial is over, her relatives want to bring her remains home.

Petrie read 13 statements from family members.

Five relatives chose to deliver their victim impact statements in person.

Georgina Papin’s brother George was tormented by losing his sister in a grotesque and violent way.

“I dream of Georgina crying for help,” he said in a statement read by Petrie. “My sister is gone and I could never forgive you, Willie Pickton.”

“She was energetic – a ball of fire with a heart of gold,” wrote Randall Knight, an adopted brother who only reunited with Papin and his other siblings as an adult.

Brother Ricky Papin said not a day goes by that he doesn’t contemplate suicide because he “was not there to protect her.”

Three of Papin’s sisters chose to speak in person, each taking turns addressing the court from the witness stand.

Papin’s little sister Bonnie Fowler couldn’t look at Pickton, who was seated a few metres away in the prisoner’s box.

“I can’t believe it’s happened to so many people.”

Cynthia Cardinal sat down in the witness stand, took a deep breath and prayed.

“God give me the strength,” she said, describing how the pain of losing her sister has torn the family apart. “I see pain in their eyes every time we mention ‘Georgina’,” Cardinal said, looking directly at Pickton.

“All we have is bone fragments,” Elana Papin said.

“I will never forget the damage you did to our family, and all your evil deeds,” she said looking squarely at Pickton, who appeared to have no response.

A woman in the public gallery began to sob when Petrie read a statement from one of Brenda Wolfe’s daughters, known to the court only as “A.”

She never got a chance to know her mother, except through unflattering media reports.

“She does not want her mother’s story to be that of a drug addict and prostitute,” Petrie read.

“I need to give my daughter a burial, to put her soul to rest,” Ray Wolfe’s statement read.

For the families of the six women Pickton killed, today was their only chance to describe in court just how profoundly their lives have been altered by the brutal murders of their loved ones.

Justice James Williams is expected to decide later today how many years Pickton will serve before he’s eligible to apply for parole. He can impose a period of 10 to 25 years.

Pickton, 58, was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder on Dec. 9.

The conviction carries an automatic life sentence.

Crown prosecutors have asked Williams to impose the maximum of 25 years. The judge can impose a minimum jail term of 10 years before Pickton is allowed to apply for parole.

The women were not disposable people because they were drug addicts and prostitutes living in the Downtown Eastside, prosecutor Mike Petrie said. “For them to have been murdered in the circumstances of this case makes their already tragic lives more tragic.”

The brother of slain Surrey woman Sereena Abotsway said he will never know what she endured at the hands of Pickton.

Jay Draayers said he will be haunted by what happened for the rest of his life.

“Sereena did not deserve to be dishonoured, disrespected the way she was,” Draayers said.

“Nobody should meet death the way she did.”

Foster parent Antoinette Zanda, who cared for Mona Wilson when the girl was five, searched for years after her 2001 disappearance. “Having someone you care about deeply cut into pieces is still a fact that I have trouble coming to terms with,” she said in a statement read by Petrie.

Wilson’s sister, Lisa Bigjohn, described living in a dark world of grief filled with horrifying reminders. When she hears a scream now, “I hear her screaming and begging for her life.”

Karin Joesbury’s family is “living in an ongoing nightmare.” She is tormented by the gruesome details surrounding her “baby girl” Andrea’s death in a “place of horror” – Pickton’s Port Coquitlam farm.

Rick Frey, father of Marnie, who disappeared in 1997, has been a self-assured spokesman for the families of the missing women.

But as he faced his daughter’s killer in court, he suddenly lost his nerve. He sat for a long time before speaking, his face reddening with emotion.

Frey recalled feeling brushed aside and ignored by officials as he searched for his daughter, who he felt had been written off by authorities as a drug addict and prostitute.

His voice grew stronger when he described how painful it’s been for his granddaughter, Brittney, to grow up with the details surrounding the case.

“Our family will be forever tormented,” he said.

As he slowly walked out of the courtroom, he glared at Pickton.

Lynn Frey also looked directly at Pickton when she read a letter written by from Marnie’s 15-year-old daughter, Brittney:

“Mr. Pickton, why did you hurt my real mother and those other women?” she read.

Marnie also wrote about her mom.

“I still feel your touch in my dreams.”

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Jay Draayers said he will be haunted by what happened for the rest of his life.
“Sereena did not deserve to be dishonoured, disrespected the way she was,” Draayers said in a victim impact statement read for him at Pickton’s sentencing hearing Tuesday. “Nobody should meet death the way she did.”

For the families of the six women Pickton killed, it was their only chance to describe just how profoundly their lives have been altered by the brutal murders of their loved ones.

Justice James Williams is expected to decide later today how many years Pickton will serve before he’s eligible to apply for parole. He can impose a period of 10 to 25 years. The Crown urged the judge to impose the maximum penalty.

The women were not disposable people because they were drug addicts and prostitutes living in the Downtown Eastside, prosecutor Mike Petrie said. “For them to have been murdered in the circumstances of this case makes their already tragic lives more tragic.”

Foster parent Antoinette Zanda, who cared for Mona Wilson when the girl was five, searched for years after her 2001 disappearance. “Having someone you care about deeply cut into pieces is still a fact that I have trouble coming to terms with,” she said in a statement read by Petrie.

Wilson’s sister, Lisa Bigjohn, described living in a dark world of grief filled with horrifying reminders. When she hears a scream now, “I hear her screaming and begging for her life.”

Karin Joesbury’s family is “living in an ongoing nightmare”. She is tormented by the gruesome details surrounding her “baby girl” Andrea’s death in a “place of horror” – Pickton’s Port Coquitlam farm.
Petrie read 13 statements from family members. Five relatives chose to deliver their victim-impact statements in person.

A woman in the public gallery began to sob when Petrie read a statement from one of Brenda Wolfe’s daughters, known to the court only as “A”.

She never got a chance to know her mother, except through unflattering media reports. “She does not want her mother’s story to be that of a drug addict and prostitute,” Petrie read.

Brenda Wolfe’s mother Brenda Belanger wrote it is impossible to forgive Pickton for what he’s done.
“If the teardrops I shed made a pathway to heaven, I would walk all the way,” Petrie paused. Seconds passed while he collected his emotions. Then he cleared his throat before continuing. “I would walk all the way.”
She added: “I really want to know what happened to my daughter in the final hour of her life.”
In 2002, part of Wolfe’s jaw was found at the Pickton property. Now that the trial is over, her relatives want to bring her remains home.
“I need to give my daughter a burial, to put her soul to rest,” Ray Wolfe’s statement read.

Georgina Papin’s brother George was tormented by losing his sister in a grotesque and violent way. “I dream of Georgina crying for help,” he said in a statement read by Petrie. “My sister is gone and I could never forgive you, Willie Pickton.”

“She was energetic – a ball of fire with a heart of gold,” wrote Randal Knight, an adopted brother who only reunited with Papin and his other siblings as an adult.

Brother Ricky Papin said not a day goes by that he doesn’t contemplate suicide because he “was not there to protect her.”

Three of Papin’s sisters chose to speak in person, each taking turns addressing the court from the witness stand. Papin’s little sister Bonnie Fowler couldn’t look at Pickton, seated a few metres away in the prisoner’s box. “I can’t believe it’s happened to so many people.”

Cynthia Cardinal sat down in the witness stand, took a deep breath and prayed. “God give me the strength,” she said, describing how the pain of losing her sister has torn the family apart. “I see pain in their eyes every time we mention ‘Georgina’,” Cardinal said, looking directly at Pickton.

“All we have is bone fragments,” Elena Papin said. “I will never forget the damage you did to our family, and all your evil deeds,”she said looking squarely at Pickton, who appeared to have no response.
Rick Frey, father of Marnie, who disappeared in 1997, has been a self-assured spokesman for the families of the missing women. But as he faced his daughter’s killer in court, he suddenly lost his nerve. He sat for a long time before speaking, his face reddening with emotion.

Frey recalled feeling brushed aside and ignored by officials as he searched for his daughter, written off by authorities as a drug addict and prostitute.

His voice grew stronger when he described how painful it’s been for his granddaughter, Brittney, to grow up with the details surrounding the case.

“On hot dog day, she was asked what it’s like to eat her mother,” Frey said. The comment elicited gasps.
“Our family will be forever tormented,” he said. As he slowly walked out of the courtroom, he glared at the impassive Pickton.

Lynn Frey also looked directly at Pickton when she read a letter written by from Marnie’s 15-year-old daughter, Brittney:

“Mr. Pickton, why did you hurt my real mother and those other women?” she read.

Marnie also wrote about her mom. “I still feel your touch in my dreams.”

Pickton, 58, was convicted on six counts of second degree murder in the deaths of Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe and Marnie Frey Dec. 9.

The conviction carries an automatic life sentence.

Crown prosecutors have asked Williams to impose the maximum of 25 years. The judge can impose a minimum jail term of between 10 and 25 years before Pickton is allowed to apply for parole.

It was the news families of the other women Pickton is charged with killing had been waiting to hear.

Many relatives of the dead women in the remaining 20 counts had camped out at the New Westminster courthouse with other family members during 10 anxious days of jury deliberations.

Sunday, they stood arm in arm to share their reactions to the verdict, and the prospect of another trial to find the answers they’ve sought for so long.

Marilyn Kraft’s daughter Cindy Feliks is count number 19 in the outstanding murder indictment against Pickton. Cindy went missing 10 years ago, in 1997.

“During that 10 years a lot of girls could have been saved,” Kraft said.

Pickton is still to be tried for the deaths of Tiffany Drew, Sherry Irving, Diana Melnick, Wendy Crawford, Inga Hall, Tanya Holyk, Angela Jardine, Heather Bottomley, Jennifer Furminger, Patricia Johnson, Debra Jones, Diane Rock, Sarah de Vries, Cara Ellis, Kerry Koski, Jacqueline McDonell, Andrea Borhaven, Cynthia Feliks, Helen Hallmark and Heather Chinnock.

Police have been criticized for not taking reports of missing women seriously, and for not acting sooner in the search for a serial killer.

The Vancouver Police Department says once the pending legal proceedings against Robert Pickton are resolved, there will be a complete review of how police conducted themselves during the years when numbers of women were missing but a suspect had not been charged.

Kraft watched Pickton closely for his reaction as the verdict was read in courtroom 102.

Dressed in a grey sweater, his long lanky hair so greasy it looked wet, Pickton just stood there without any noticeable reaction, hands clasped together behind his back.

“Even through the pretrial and the trial, he hasn’t changed his expression,” Kraft said. “There’s no remorse. There’s nothing there.”

Pickton has been found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder, a lesser charge than first degree, which imposes an automatic life sentence without eligibility for parole.

Pickton will still be sentenced to life, but he could be paroled in 10 to 25 years, depending on what the judge imposes.

Victim impact statements of family members of the six women Pickton has been convicted of murdering will be read in court Tuesday.

Justice James Williams will then decide how long Pickton will be behind bars before he could be paroled.

Crown prosecutors will ask for the maximum of 25 years.

Families of the six women whose murders have resulted in a conviction greeted Sunday’s verdict with mix of joy and disappointment.

“Some of us have our answers,” Brenda Wolfe’s sister, Patricia Evans, said, surrounded by the other relatives whose journey to justice is now complete. “And we are praying for all of those who are still waiting.”

Evans, who wore a medicine pouch filled with healing stones around her neck, still mourns her family’s loss.

“I still don’t have my sister, but we have justice on her behalf,” she said.

“She was a beautiful person she was loved. She was a mother. She was a daughter. A friend and aunt and a relative.”

Reacting to the second-degree murder verdict, RCMP Insp. Bill Fordy said he felt society – and police officers – had let the missing women down in life, and now “in some level probably let them down in death now as well.”

Fordy was one of three officers who interrogated Pickton following his 2002 arrest in connection with the missing women case. At the time, the number of missing women had climbed from 31 in 1999 to 50.

“I would have felt more confident or comfort in the system recognizing there was an element of planning with respect to how these women passed away.”

“Oh no, none of them have let us down,” family member Lori-Ann Ellis said of investigators. “Second-degree, it doesn’t matter. He’s going away for life,” Ellis said. Her sister-in-law of Cara Ellis, is one of the remaining 20 women Pickton is accused of murdering.

“We got exactly what we wanted,” she said.

Elena Papin, sister of victim Georgina Papin, also had strong praise for now-retired RCMP Insp. Don Adam, the former head of the missing women investigation and who helped interrogate Pickton after his arrest.

“He’s a hero in my eyes,” she said.

Sisters of Georgina Papin now hope they will soon be able to take her remains back with them to be buried at a reserve in Alberta.

Ada Wilson, whose sister Mona was found dead at Pickton’s farm, had this to say to the man found responsible:

“He’s taken a lot away from me. He’s got no idea. But now he knows it.”

She was thankful for the verdict, but added it doesn’t seem fair that Pickton is alive and her sister is not.

“It’s really hard around Christmas time,” she said. “That was our best time – for her and I. But it’s not fair because she’s not here and he still is.”

Rick Frey whose daughter Marnie went missing in 1997, said apologetic comments from police following Sunday’s verdict rang “a little hollow.”

A lot of women disappeared between 1997 and Pickton’s 2002 arrest, he said.

“It’s not going to stop here. We have six convictions,” Frey said. “We certainly want to go to the bottom of why our loved ones were allowed to wallow down in the east end and be forgotten when we reported them missing.”

Daphne Pierre went looking for her sister, Jackie Murdoch in 1998, a year after she went missing. Her DNA was eventually found at the Pickton farm, but charges have not been laid.

She criticized B.C.’s native communities for not taking a more active role in the case.

She’d like to see bands build drug and alcohol treatment centres to help prevent young people from winding up in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

The jury delivered the stunning verdict at 11:40 a.m. Sunday in New Westminster at Pickton’s sensational multiple murder trial.

Cries and groans rippled through a tense courtroom as families reacted with shock and disbelief as the six separate verdicts were read.

An anguished shout: “No!” rang through the courtroom, as the clerk read out the verdict “not guilty” for first-degree murder on count one, Sereena Abotsway. The same voice sounded surprised when the clerk read the verdict of “guilty” for second degree murder.

Pickton, accused of being Canada’s worst serial killer, awaits sentencing Tuesday on the six counts of second-degree murder.

Jurors deliberated Pickton’s fate for 10 days before deciding his guilt had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

But many family members are upset that Pickton, 58, has not been convicted on the charges of first-degree murder of six women who vanished from Vancouver’s drug and crime-ridden Downtown Eastside between 1997 and 2001.

Justice James Williams will hear from victims’ families on Tuesday before deciding the minimum jail term Pickton must serve – between 10 and 25 years – before he is eligible for parole.

“I’m really pleased that at least he’s not going to get out of jail for a while,” Gladys Radek, of Terrace said moments later. She is a friend of some of the missing women, and her niece vanished in northern B.C. along what has been dubbed the Highway of Tears.

“I think that he should have been convicted with first-degree murder,” she said. “He knew what he was doing. It’s pretty hurtful to the family members.”

Pickton still faces another 20 counts of first-degree murder in the case.

“It’s going to leave us with the $1-million question – is there going to be a second trial,” wondered Murray Watson, who grew up with one of the women who are missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and knew Sarah de Vries, one of the remaining alleged murder victims.

“I’m totally overwhelmed by this,” Watson said.

The verdict came down 90 minutes after families of the victims held a smudge ceremony outside the court house, holding hands and praying after a fresh snowfall.

“I think the ceremony did it,” one supporter said. “Whatever we did, we did it right.”

Crown prosecutors did not speak following the verdict, but will hold a press conference later today. Pickton faces another 20 outstanding murder charges. It’s not known if they will address the issue of the second trial.

In deliberating his fate, jurors weighed nearly 10 months of complex, often graphic testimony from 128 witnesses.

The jury also considered hours of police videotape taken after Pickton’s Feb. 22, 2002 arrest, in which he made seemingly incriminating remarks to interrogators and to an undercover officer posing as his cell mate.

The defence said an exhausted, dim-witted, and naive Pickton was merely parroting back to police or boasting when he said “I was sloppy,” that he had “one more planned,” and spoke of making it an “even 50″.

The Crown maintained the statements were admissions by the accused.

The trial got off to an explosive start Jan. 22, when prosecutor Darrill Prevett outlined the Crown’s case against Pickton, a bachelor and pig butcher who was also involved in the family-run topsoil and demolition businesses.

Prevett told the jury the partial physical remains of six missing women – Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey – were found on Pickton’s farm along with some personal effects, during a massive, 20-month police search of his Port Coquitlam property.

Pickton admitted women’s remains were at the farm but he denied killing them.

With the verdict for the first trial finally in, families of the other women Pickton is accused of killing are wondering if a second trial will go ahead. A date has not been set, pending the outcome of the first trial.

A life sentence without parole for 25 years is mandatory for murder.

Pickton has 30 days to appeal the verdict.

The Crown’s case relied on a mountain of complex forensic evidence and expert testimony, incriminating statements to police, and gruesome allegations from people who knew the Port Coquitlam man.

Prosecutors’ theory was chilling: Pickton lured women with the promise of drugs to the dark, isolated farm, where he killed them, butchered them and disposed of their remains.

Much of the Crown’s closing argument was devoted to salvaging the credibility of witnesses Lynn Ellingsen and Andrew Bellwood, characterized by defence lawyer Adrian Brooks as drug addicts, liars and criminals whose testimony was worthless.

Ellingsen testified she saw a blood-covered Pickton with the body of a woman hanging in his slaughterhouse late one evening after she smoked crack cocaine. Bellwood said Pickton once told him how he killed women and disposed of their remains.

The defence said the Crown also failed to prove a link between Pickton and the forensic evidence.

Three women were shot in the head, but the .22 guns found at Pickton’s farm couldn’t be conclusively linked to the bullets found in two of the women’s skulls.

Investigators seized numerous saw blades from the farm, but none were conclusively matched to cuts on victims’ remains.

The defence also managed to raise the possibility that other people could have committed the crimes, including Pickton’s butchering associate Pat Casanova and friend Dinah Taylor, whose DNA links to the victims were stronger than Pickton’s, Brooks argued.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Mike Petrie said the defence’s theory that someone else snuck onto the farm with women’s remains and belongings was “bizarre.”

Petrie urged jurors to consider the “constellation of evidence” pointing to PIckton as the logical killer.

“The accused is the unluckiest man alive, if in fact he is not the one responsible, because he has the remains of not one, not two, but six women on his property within metres of his home,” he said.

Petrie also argued Pickton owned guns and had experience with saws consistent with the way the women’s remains were treated.

Jury deliberations began late Nov. 30, after a four-day charge from Justice James Williams.

He told jurors to deliver a verdict on each of the six counts, and noted they could reach one of four possible verdicts in each — guilty of first- or second-degree murder, guilty of manslaughter, or not guilty.

He also said it wasn’t necessary to conclude Pickton acted alone in order to find him guilty.

In the end, the jury decided the Crown had proved its case against Pickton beyond any reasonable doubt.

“I was in error,” Justice Williams said in court Thursday. “I regret that I misinformed you. It was inadvertent.”

Jurors resumed their deliberations this afternoon after an unusual suspension that came after the jury asked a question of the judge.

The jury’s query Thursday morning referred to one of the five elements that must be proven to deliver a conviction—whether or not Pickton was the person who killed the women.

“When considering Element 3, are we able to say ‘yes’ if we infer that the accused acted indirectly?” the question said.

In his charge to the jury last week, Justice Williams said for each of the six counts, five elements must all be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to convict on first-degree murder:

1. The woman was killed by an unlawful act.

2. She was killed when and where the indictment states.

3. It was Pickton who killed the victim.

4. He meant to cause her death.

5. The murder was planned and deliberate.

If the jury finds only the first four elements apply they can convict on second-degree murder, and if only the first three elements are proven they can convict on manslaughter.

Justice Williams first responded to the question Thursday by re-reading key passages of his charge.

He told jurors they can still find Pickton guilty of murder even if they decide he didn’t act alone, but in concert with someone else.

However, the judge also said Pickton’s mere presence or a minor role in the murders wasn’t enough to convict.

Williams has now issued fresh instructions on the issue for three counts applying to the killings of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson and Andrea Joesbury—all three were shot in the head with a .22-calibre gun.

“If you find that Mr. Pickton shot Ms. Abotsway or was otherwise an active participant in her killing you should find the Crown has proven this element,” the judge said. “On the other hand, if you have a reasonable doubt that he was not an active participant you must return a verdict of not guilty.”

He repeated that instruction for the counts involving Wilson and Joesbury.

“You are free to continue your deliberations,” Williams added.

The seven men and five women are in their seventh day of deliberating on the six charges of first-degree murder against the Port Coquitlam man.

Pickton, 58, is on trial for the first-degree murder of six women who vanished from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside between 1997 and 2001.

The partial physical remains of Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Brenda Wolfe and Marnie Frey were found on Pickton’s farm along with some personal effects, during a massive police search of his Port Coquitlam farm.

Pickton admitted to police the women’s remains were at the farm but he denied killing them.

Pickton faces another 20 outstanding murder charges in the missing women case that are slated to be dealt with in a separate trial

Crown lawyer Mike Petrie urged jurors not to be fooled. Pickton, now 58, was able to murder women “repeatedly, yet invisibly” without detection at his Port Coquitlam property because nobody suspected “a poor old farm boy” with low intelligence – a hillbilly.

But “he got sloppy, and he got caught,” Petrie said, speaking slowly and deliberately as he wrapped up his closing argument to the jury.

“He wants to put one over on you,” he said. “You shouldn’t let him.”

Pickton is on trial for six counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Marnie Frey, Georgina Papin, Mona Wilson and Brenda Wolfe, women who disappeared from Vancouver’s seedy Downtown Eastside in the late 1990s to 2001.

Petrie said the evidence points to Pickton’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on “each and every one of these six counts.”

The Crown says Pickton brought women back to his farm, killed them, butchered them and disposed of their remains.

“The accused is the unluckiest man alive, if in fact he is not the one responsible, because he has the remains of not one, not two, but six women on his property within metres of his home.”
Petrie said jurors will agree Pickton was familiar with Downtown Eastside and associated with drug-addicted sex trade workers – the same profile as the women whose partial remains were discovered at his farm, along with their clothing, drug paraphernalia, and documentation – by offering drugs and money: “adult candy.”
Two people came forward to say he told them he killed women. “Again, if he’s an unlucky man, that’s an unfortunate coincidence.”
Petrie said Pickton also told police he killed 49 women.
“All of that evidence ties together perfectly,” Petrie said, arguing as a butcher, Pickton had the means, skill and opportunity to carry out his crimes.
He lived in “relative isolation” at the north end of the property – where all of the physical evidence related to the case was located by investigators.
He owned guns and had experience with hand and reciprocating saws which are consistent with the way the women’s remains were treated.
Pickton, Petrie said, was known to work well into the night, and his clothes were sometimes covered in blood.
“So he’s not going to raise any alarms by wearing bloody clothes,” Petrie said.
He also had the means to dispose of the remains without detection inside barrels he used to transport pig offal to a rendering plant.
He could also operate without fear of being reported to police because his associates needed him as a source of income, and wouldn’t be believed because of their own criminal activity.
“That’s the kind of person who could do all of these things repeatedly yet invisibly,” Petrie said.
The trial began Jan. 22.
Since then, jurors have also seen hundreds of photographs and evidence documents.
The five-women, seven-man jury has also heard testimony from nearly 130 witnesses, including police, forensic experts, and people who were friends and former employees. The latter group includes three “star” witnesses whose testimony is crucial to proving a link between Pickton and his alleged crimes.
The defence savaged their credibility under cross-examination and again in closing arguments, branding the trio as liars and criminals whose testimony is worthless.
Much of the Crown’s closing argument was spent salvaging the testimony of those three witnesses, pointing out that they told police key bits of evidence that were later confirmed during the massive search of the farm.
Jurors also watched clips from two police videos where Pickton made incriminating remarks. The defence said Pickton was merely parroting back to police or boasting when he said “I was sloppy” and that he had “one more planned.”
The Crown said the statements are admissions by the accused.
After Petrie’s concluding remarks, several jurors breathed deeply.
“It’s been a long time,” he told them, stepping away from the podium after thanking them for their patience.
Relief that the final phase of the marathon trial is finally in sight was also evident outside the courtroom.
After it was over, Lynn Frey hugged Petrie in the corridor. Her stepdaughter, Marnie, is one of six women Pickton is charged with killing.
The Freys, along with a number of other family members of the missing women, packed the New Westminster law courts to hear closing arguments from both sides.
The defence, which took three and a half days and featured a Powerpoint presentation, “were strong,” Frey said.
“My feeling,” she’d said late last week, “is the Crown is stronger.”
Pickton’s fate now rests in the hands of the jurors, who will begin deliberations as soon as Friday.
Justice James Williams expects to take three days to instruct the jury about the evidence they are to consider.
Once their deliberations begin, jurors will be sequestered seven days a week until they reach a verdict.

In the five years since the arrest of Robert “Willie” Pickton, the pig butcher who stands accused of being Canada’s worst serial killer, Frey has grown used to bad jokes and hurtful comments.

Have you heard about the punk band that put a picture of Pickton on their CD cover? he asks. A bow-tied Pickton is shown sitting down to dinner with U.S. President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Some of the family members of the missing women are upset.

Frey’s daughter Marnie went missing in 1997. Five years ago, a small piece of her jawbone was found at the Pickton farm in Port Coquitlam – not far from the location of the Supreme Court murder trial that began Jan. 22 of this year and is finally in the home stretch after nearly 11 months.

The Freys, including Marnie’s 15-year-old daughter, Brittney, have travelled from Campbell River to hear the closing arguments in the marathon trial.

Pickton is accused of killing 26 women who vanished from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He’s currently on trial for six murders, including Marnie’s.

Once closing arguments wrap up, Supreme Court Justice James Williams will deliver instructions to the jury. Deliberations are expected to begin next week.

A guilty verdict would be welcome, but not necessary, Frey said.

“I know what happened.”

On Nov. 20, Frey was one of about 17 relatives who watched the day’s proceedings on a large video screen set up in overflow courtroom 101.

“It’s been interesting,” Frey said.

Across the secure waiting room in the main, smaller courtroom, the accused sits in the prisoner’s box, shielded from the 50-seat public gallery by a wall of protective glass.

This week, after months of complex and at times disturbing testimony that played out to an often nearly-empty courtroom, relatives of the women have begun attending the trial in droves.

Family members watch intently, heads up, shoulders straight, arms crossed in front of their chests. Occasionally one will look at the courtroom door, to see who’s coming or going. Their heads are grey, and some of their faces look resigned.

Some stick it out all day. Others rise and exit the room to deal with younger family members, such as teenage daughters who have become fast friends and are hanging out at the trial.

Or they leave because it’s too much. To be confronted with the facts and details surrounding the tragic fates of their loved ones is to see the last glimmers of hope quashed for good.

Frey, speaking during a break in the defence’s summation, said the trial has been difficult, but he thinks some good has come out of it.

The high-profile case has helped change public attitude towards the victims.

“There’s a lot of very sympathetic people out there, that probably weren’t there before,” he said. “The Downtown Eastside women were portrayed as being prostitutes, hookers, whatever, you know, drug addicts. But they weren’t. They were our daughters, sisters, mothers. They’re very human.”

He hopes more people will get that message.

Lori-Ann Ellis’s sister-in-law, Cara, is one of 20 women Pickton is also charged with murdering. Those charges are expected to be dealt with at a separate trial.

She and other members of the Ellis family have travelled to New Westminster for the last days of this trial, to hear lawyers present their final arguments to the jury.

At times Ellis found it difficult to watch the proceedings, particularly when the defence showed the jury photographs.

“It kind of hit home,” she said. “When the trial does come out with Cara, and it’s someone that we knew and loved, it’s going to be a lot more difficult.”

Ellis had been warned that some of the evidence relating to the remains of the six women would be graphic.

“It needs to be,” she said, adding she thinks the jury needs to understand the full extent of what happened to the women.

“Don’t sugar-coat it. It wasn’t a pleasant thing. These girls were human beings with feelings.”

The experience of attending the final days of the Pickton trial has drawn the families closer together. Many of the out-of-town relatives are staying in the same hotel.

“We eat together. We talk together,” Ellis said.

It helps to know they’re not alone.

The families are placing their faith in the strength of the Crown’s case against Pickton.

When asked if she’s worried that the defence’s case was strong enough to convince the jury there’s a reasonable doubt in this case, Ellis said: “Ultimately, whether this man is found guilty or not, he’s going to have to answer to a higher power.”

The facts fit together like pieces of a puzzle, forming a clear picture of the man responsible for the deaths of six women whose remains were found on the Port Coquitlam farm – Pickton’s “backyard,” Petrie said.

Despite what the defence has said this week, the Crown’s case against Pickton is “very strong,” Petrie said, facing the jury of seven and five women.

Pickton, a pig butcher who lived in a remote, isolated part of the property, had the means and ability necessary to carry out the crimes, Petrie said.

The alleged victims each fit a similar profile.

“They all had connections to the Downtown Eastside. They were all drug-addicted prostitutes,” he said. Their lives were such “that they would do anything to better their situation money-wise, security-wise, that they would take chances that many of us could barely understand.”

It’s the Crown’s theory that one man – Pickton – brought women from the Downtown Eastside back to his property, killed them, then butchered and disposed of their remains.

“Whatever else we might think of these women’s lifestyles, they ended up dead in Port Coquitlam in the accused’s back yard,” he said.

Among the facts not in dispute, Petrie said, is that Pickton had a connection to the Downtown Eastside, according to a number of Crown witnesses who testified about his dealings there, including sex-trade workers, police officers, and rendering plant employees.

In addition to physical remains, clothing, jewellery and make-up belonging to the women were found on the property and inside Pickton’s trailer, including his bedroom, Petrie said. Weapons and restraining devices were also discovered.

Petrie began to pick apart what he called the defence’s “bizarre theory” that someone else sneaked onto the remote, sprawling suburban property and dumped bones and other pieces of evidence there.

“This was Willie Pickton’s domain, this was his territory,” Petrie said, addressing attempts by the defence to portray the farm as a busy hive of activity with people coming and going, and who roamed the property freely.

Pickton, 58, who stands accused of 26 counts of first degree murder, is currently standing trial on six of those charges in the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Brenda Wolfe and Marnie Frey.

Petrie, who addressed jurors from a podium about one metre away, occasionally cracked jokes to lighten the mood, and relied on analogies to simplify portions of his argument.

His approach contrasted with the demeanour of defence lawyer Adrian Brooks, who spent three and a half days raising numerous doubts about the Crown’s case using a slick PowerPoint presentation.

Brooks savaged the credibility of three star witnesses he portrayed as manipulative drug addicts and criminals with histories of lying to police. He told the jury to ignore everything Scott Chubb, Andrew Bellwood and Lynn Ellingsen said on the stand, calling their testimony “worthless.”

As well, Brooks said Pickton was merely parroting back to police or boasting when he said “I was sloppy,” or that he had “one more planned” and spoke of “making it an even 50” on two videotapes shown to jurors at the start of the trial.

Pickton’s lawyer also said the Crown’s forensic evidence linking the pig butcherer to his crimes is weak, and points to other people instead, including Pat Casanova, who helped Pickton with his pig-butchering business.

Testimony from other witnesses also casts suspicion on a woman named Dinah Taylor, who lived with Pickton for a time. Like Casanova, she was once arrested in connection with the missing women case but never charged. “This is a case filled with reasonable doubt,” Brooks concluded. “The evidence tells you clearly and loudly you have a reasonable doubt.”

It was another emotional day for the relatives. When Brooks went over the evidence for each of the six murder counts separately, some were overcome.

Marnie Frey’s daughter, Brittney, 15, fled from the courtroom in tears as Brooks said “there is absolutely no connection” linking Pickton with Frey, whose jawbone was found at the Port Coquitlam farm.

The New Westminster courthouse was heavy with the hopes of relatives of the missing women, who have packed the courtroom this week to hear the final summations.

One family member admitted she found the defence’s closing argument persuasive at times, and was anxious to hear the Crown’s side. “Because I’ve never heard the testimony before, I was getting convinced,” Lori-Ann Ellis said after the defence wrapped up its arguments. Ellis, sister-in-law of Cara Ellis, one of the other 20 women Pickton is accused of killing, travelled to New West for the trial’s final days. “We’re just hoping that this afternoon the Crown comes on like gangbusters, that’s what all the families are hoping for,” she said.

Petrie expects to wrap up the Crown’s final argument Monday.

Jury deliberations could begin later on in the week, after hearing instructions from Mr. Justice James Williams. The jury will be sequestered until a verdict is reached.