Man arrested and charged in missing women case

A man has been arrested and charged in the cases of two of more than 50 women missing from Vancouver in Canada.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police say Robert William Pickton has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Pickton is one of two brothers who own a pig farm in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam that police have been searching since February 6.

The police search at the 10-acre farm could continue for "many months", police spokeswoman Constable Cate Galliford told a news conference.

"We do have hundreds of potential suspects," she said, adding the farm search is the only one the task force is involved with now "but as the investigation unfolds and we continue to follow up on tips, we may start focusing on other potential suspects".

Members of the joint RCMP-Vancouver police task force on the missing women briefed victims' relatives after the arrest.

Most of the 50 women who disappeared between 1983 and late last year worked as prostitutes in central Vancouver.

The task force's first big break came on February 5, as police executed a search warrant on the farm 22 miles east of Vancouver.

After that search, they charged Pickton with unlawful possession of a .22-calibre rifle and .22-calibre pistol. They also found enough evidence to prompt additional searching.

Since then, as many as 85 investigators have swarmed over the farm, a complex of rundown buildings, junk cars and huge mounds of earth bordered on two sides by new housing developments.