‘Serial killer’ trial nears end

AFTER almost a year of testimony, lawyers for the Crown and the defence in the trial of accused serial killer Robert Pickton are beginning what is sure to be one of the most complex and crucial final arguments of their careers.

Pickton, aged 57, is charged with the murders of 26 women. The current trial is dealing with just six of those cases.

Pickton defence lawyer Peter Ritchie will try to remind jurors his client is a simple pig farmer, a bit too dim to get jokes, and living on a farm with all manner of friends and strangers coming and going, including some that had connections to the women Pickton is accused of killing.

Crown lawyer Mike Petrie will attempt to knit together the gruesome findings of police who combed Pickton’s farm, the 22 hours of taped conversations in which Pickton appeared to confess to the killings, the macabre testimony of a woman who said she saw Pickton with one of the dead women and days of dry scientific evidence.

They will each get a day and a half to sum up their view of one of the longest criminal trials in Canadian history. Seven men and five women began hearing evidence last January.

They listened to the sworn testimony of 128 witnesses. The defence has to prove nothing; they must only convince the jury that there is a reasonable doubt in order to get an acquittal.