I've said many a time that this country needs harsher penalties. Less focused on rehab, and the rights of the criminal, unlike the way they are now. Maybe now that the Liberals are out of power, we'll see some results. I'm not holding my breath though.

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. (CP) - A man who discovered a partial human skull along a creek told the Robert Pickton murder trial Tuesday he didn't get around to telling police about it until the next day.

In 1995, a woodworker named Bill Wilson was living in a cabin next to his parents' trailer in nearby Ruskin, B.C.

CAUTION TO READERS: the details of this case may sometimes be raw. Some content may offend.
The tall, mellow-voiced man who came to court in cowboy boots built wooden birdfeeders and whirligigs to sell at a roadside stand off Highway 7, along the Fraser River.

He recounted for the jury how on that grey February day, he decided to run across the highway with a soda bottle to scoop up some water from a slough to wash his car.

"When I turned around, about 40 to 50 feet away from me, was this object on the ground. I thought it looked like it was an old bowl because of the colour and I thought it looked like it maybe could have been an Indian artifact," he said. "Then I walked over to it and realized what it was. It looked to me like a half a skull."

A skull, jurors had heard earlier in the trial, that had similar cut markings on it to the remains of Andrea Joesbury and Sereena Abotsway, both found on Pickton's Port Coquitlam farm.

Pickton is on trial for their murders and for the murders of four other women.

Pickton leafed casually through a transcript of his interview with police rather than watch retired Vancouver police constable Fred Strikwerda testify.

But he closed up the papers of the interrogation in February 2002 to listen to Wilson.

Wilson left the skull and went back to the business of hawking crafts to passing motorists, telling the jury that he figured if a police car happened by, he'd flag it down and tell the officer of his find.

But it wasn't until the next day he packed up his things and drove the 10 minutes into Mission to tell the RCMP what was sitting on the grass.

Wilson said the delay was because he had other things to do that day, but defence lawyer Peter Ritchie wondered if Wilson's prior convictions kept him from contacting police.

Under cross-examination, Wilson admitted to having been convicted for indecent assault, sexual assault, driving while impaired and obstructing a peace officer.

But Wilson was adamant his record had nothing to do with his reluctance to go to police.

He said he just didn't want to get involved.

"It didn't have anything to do with me," he said. "I just came upon the bad luck of finding it."

The delay he said, was simply because he had a doctor's appointment and some shopping to do that afternoon.

He couldn't have called police after coming home from bingo that night, jurors heard, because he didn't have a phone.

Wasn't he concerned about finding human remains? Ritchie asked.

"Of course it concerned me but I'd hoped it had floated away or however it got there, it would have left the same way," Wilson said.

The woodworker remembered the skull as having pieces of flesh still attached around the eye cavity, and later testimony from police officers concurred that white material was found on the skull.

Despite the substance, police could never identify who the remains belonged to and the skull was classified a Jane Doe.

Its existence was all but forgotten by police until the remains of Abotsway and Joesbury were found on the Pickton farm.

The police officer who seized the skull testified Tuesday he hadn't known of the connection until he was notified that he was a witness at Pickton's trial.

Staff Sgt. Brad Zalys was one of two officers who testified about how the skull was seized and brought back to the Mission RCMP detachment.

Zalys told the jury the skull rested on a rocky area of the slough prone to flooding, though water levels were normal that February.

When the skull was taken back to the detachment, it was placed in a regular cardboard box before the coroner came to examine it.

Eventually it would become one of the thousands of pieces of evidence entered in Pickton's trial.

The 57-year-old's defence team attacked the collection method of that evidence Tuesday, charging that in their search police were making it a priority to find items that could convict their client.

Jurors heard that Strikwerda was involved in processing thousands of pieces of evidence.

It was at a briefing meeting on evidence collection in December 2003, that the defence charged that police were given specific instructions about how to handle evidence.

"Do you recall being told the priority would be to close doors against defence focusing on exhibits to convict Pickton?" defence lawyer Patrick McGowan asked.

Strikwerda said he didn't.

Among the items the former officer was involved in seizing was a tattered set of blinds from which a cigarette butt was taken in a slaughterhouse on the Pickton property.

The items were seized near the same area where a partial jaw was found, jurors heard.

Earlier in the trial they'd been told Brenda Wolfe's jaw was found in the same area.

Male DNA on the cigarette butt didn't match any samples already obtained by police.

Jurors in the trial have now heard from 32 of the estimated 240 Crown witnesses in the case.

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Robert Pickton jury hears about items seized from abandoned cars 1 hour, 26 minutes ago



NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. (CP) - About 700 items were seized from two vehicles at a site owned by Dave Pickton near the main property searched in the missing women investigation, an RCMP officer said Monday.

RCMP Sgt. Peter Morris was testifying as the Robert Pickton murder trial entered its ninth week.

He told defence lawyer Patrick McGowan that he was responsible primarily for searching two abandoned vehicles on the property, which was the location of the well-known Port Coquitlam, B.C., party site Piggy's Palace.

He said in one vehicle, a grey Cadillac, he seized about 200 items, including women's clothing, condoms, syringes and documents belonging to Dinah Taylor.

Most of the items seemed to belong to women, including a frilly dress, pink clothing, many condoms in packages, perfume, an earring, keys, crackpipes and an immigration and naturalization document belonging to Taylor.

Also seized were some cigarettes, an orange garbage bag in which a hemastix test for blood was positive and a syringe containing window washer fluid.

McGowan asked Morris if it was fair to say about 200 items were seized and he said there were "a lot of items seized."

McGowan suggested of these approximately 200 items only 12 had been processed so far.

But Morris wasn't sure.

He agreed with McGowan's suggestion that most of these items were still in the item warehouse, where they were taken after they were collected in 2002 and 2003.

In an old Cutlass police also found clothing, condoms, makeup, syringes and "items related to Dinah Taylor."

McGowan suggested that about 500 exhibits were seized from that vehicle.

The jury has already heard that Taylor was arrested in the initial stages of the missing women investigation five years ago but was never charged.

Pickton is on trial on six counts of first-degree murder. He faces trial on an additional 20 counts later.




Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press

Robert Pickton jury told seized band saw had fatty materials on it 43 minutes ago



NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. (CP) - The Robert Pickton jury has been told a band saw belonging to a man initially arrested but not charged in connection with the missing women's task force had fatty materials that appeared yellowish on it.

Tanya Dare, a search technologist involved in examining exhibits seized from Pickton's property starting in February 2002, told the jury she spent a lot of time examining the band saw that had been seized from the residence of Pat Casanova.

He was arrested along with two others - Dinah Taylor and Lynn Ellingsen - after Pickton was arrested in early February 2002. None of them were ever charged.

Dare told the jury that she took many swabs of portions of the saw which were sent for DNA analysis, as well as "protein" analysis.

She told defence lawyer Richard Brooks under cross-examination that what caught her eye during her examination of the saw was some areas of "yellowish, granular, waxy material."

Pickton is charged with killing Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe, Mona Wilson, Georgina Papin, Sereena Abotsway and Andrea Joesbury.

Pickton murder trial resumes with jury told about clumps of hair found GREG JOYCE
1 hour, 26 minutes ago



NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. (CP) - Clumps of hair were found near a slaughterhouse on Robert Pickton's farm, a search technologist testified Wednesday as Pickton's murder trial resumed after a two-day adjournment.

Tara Nicholls was another in a long line of search technicians who have testified about items seized on the Pickton property during a massive investigation that began in February 2002 and lasted almost two years.

The trial, which began Jan. 22 and is now in its 10th week, did not sit Monday and Tuesday due to the illness of one juror.

Nicholls told the jury under cross-examination by defence lawyer Joe Saulnier that the clumps of hair were found in a destroyed portion of the slaughterhouse referred to as a "concrete foundation."

The slaughterhouse building was adjacent to Pickton's trailer and was used by him to butcher pigs - one of the ways he made a living.

Nicholls said she examined about 50 blonde-brownish hairs that were found in one clump, of which 14 had roots and one was a scalp hair about 38 centimetres long.

She testified about another clump of "loose hair" including some that were determined to be human.

The exhibits were sent to the lab for DNA analysis and future witnesses were expected to provide the jury with more information about any findings.

Another witness, search co-ordinator Angela Butler, told Crown prosecutor Derrill Prevett that she examined a "dirty and brittle condom" that had been tied at the open end.

As the jury looked at the photograph in a thick exhibit book, Butler testified that she "removed numerous animal hairs" from the condom, which were sent to the lab for DNA analysis.

Butler told the jury about an extensive examination she conducted on a watch found in the slaughterhouse. She took the watch apart and tested it with hemastix, which is a presumptive but not confirmatory test for blood.

She found some positive test areas and the parts of the watch were sent for further analysis.

Pickton, who has been in custody since February 2002, is charged with six counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Marnie Frey, Sereena Abotsway, Georgina Papin and Mona Wilson.

He faces another 20 first-degree murder counts at a trial scheduled for later.

Nicholls earlier told Crown prosecutor Satinder Sidhu that she examined and removed two small reddish stains from a receipt that was found on the site. They were sent for DNA analysis.

Under cross-examination, Saulnier took Nicholls through a long list of items that she examined and which were sent for DNA analysis, including a blanket, a jean shirt and numerous exhibits from a blue garment bag.

They included many gloves with the fingertips cut away, a compact case with two powder puffs and several loose hairs.

Exhibits taken from the slaughterhouse and examined and sent for DNA analysis included almost 900 swabs taken from an apron and more than 600 from an umbrella.

Nicholls said a nylon braided orange rope had areas of "dark, reddish staining" and was cut into four-centimetre pieces and sent for analysis.



Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press

What grossed me out early in this case was when they reported human DNA in the sausages that he had given to friends and neighbours. Yuck!! He's quite the piece of work.