Pickton spoke ‘like a hillbilly’

Sept. 23, 2007 – ACCUSED KILLER Robert (Willie) Pickton was too dim to laugh at a punchline and had a “limited” vocabulary, but he wasn’t exactly a moron, his former sister-in-law testified last week in B.C. Supreme Court.

Sandy Humeny, 51, the closest relative to testify at Pickton’s eight-month-long trial, said she used plain, clear words when they talked – nothing “too elaborate.” She noticed Pickton had trouble understanding jokes but wouldn’t let on, changing the subject instead.

The testimony prompted prosecutor Mike Petrie to wonder if she meant Pickton was “a little bit of a moron.”

“I wouldn’t use those words,” Humeny replied.

“I would suggest he wasn’t a moron at all,” Petrie continued, before asking her how often Humeny, as office administrator for the brothers’ Surrey-based salvage company, saw Pickton on the Port Coquitlam farm. She agreed it was infrequently.

But a business woman who dealt with the Picktons on a regular basis offered a much harsher assessment of Pickton’s language skills.

“He spoke like a hillbilly,” Langley resident Audrey Stebanuk testified in New Westminster Thursday, calling Pickton “backward” and “not as intelligent as most of us.”

She saw blood, but not much else

Sept. 5, 2007 – A KEY WITNESS for Robert “Willie” Pickton’s defence team testified she once saw a lot of blood inside his trailer.
But otherwise, she never noticed anything out of the ordinary at his Port Coquitlam residence, Ingrid Fehlauer testified at his multiple murder trial Tuesday, day two of the defence’s case.
The statement contradicted earlier testimony in which Fehlauer had answered questions about what she’d seen in Pickton’s trailer.
When asked if anything had struck her as unusual, she’d replied, “The amount of dirt on the carpet.”
Later, under cross-examination, Fehlauer agreed when Crown prosecutor Michael Petrie asked, “In fact, on one occasion you saw lots of blood everywhere.”
“Yes,” she said.
Fehlauer said two defence lawyers had told her that “this [issue] would not be brought up.”
Justice James Williams then told the jury the defence had not done anything improper.
In addition to being Pickton’s former neighbour – Fehlauer originally said she lived across the street from 1994 to 1998 but later changed her story and her address – she was once his sister-in-law, a fact only revealed under cross-examination. Her sister is Dave Pickton’s ex-common law wife.

Defence lays out its strategy

Sept. 4, 2007 – LAWYERS FOR accused serial killer Robert “Willie” Pickton will seize on his simple intelligence, and continue to attack the credibility of key Crown witnesses, as they attempt to dismantle the prosecution’s case in the coming weeks.
Lawyer Adrian Brooks opened the defence’s case Tuesday, providing jurors with a broad, 25-minute outline of which witnesses will be called and what “areas of evidence” the jury will be asked to consider.
It’s not known how many witnesses Pickton’s defence plans to call – or if Pickton himself will take the stand – but his lawyers have indicated their case will take about three weeks to unfold.
After weeks of frustrating delays due to legal arguments the jury has not heard, proceedings got off to an efficient start Tuesday, with the defence calling its seventh witness by the end of the day.