Pickton, clean-shaven with a bald crown and shoulder-length hair, sat emotionless in a specially built defendant's box surrounded by bulletproof glass.
During pretrial hearings, he occasionally chuckled to himself or scribbled in a notebook.
If found guilty of more than 14 charges, Pickton would become the worst convicted killer in Canadian history, after Marc Lepine, who gunned down 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnic in Montreal in 1989 before shooting himself.
Among the women Pickton is accused of killing is Sarah de Vries, a prostitute who disappeared in 1998 when she was 28. A 1995 entry in her diary revealed she feared for her life after women began disappearing in downtown Vancouver.
"Am I next?" she wrote. "Is he watching me now? Is he stalking me like a predator and his prey? Waiting, waiting for some perfect spot, time or my stupid mistake."
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Vancouver Police Department have faced intense criticism by community activists and advocates for sex-trade workers, who claim authorities were slow to search for dozens of women who have disappeared in the area over the years.
They counter that police resources were limited and that the magnitude of the case was overwhelming.
The task force says 102 women once believed to be missing have been found alive. More than 60 women remain on the list, as well as three unidentified DNA profiles from the Pickton farm.
Frey's mother, Lynn, was lined up with other relatives outside the courthouse early on Monday, hoping to get one of the 35 seats reserved for family members of the victims.
"It's been a long haul," she said. Her daughter was 25 when she disappeared in August 1997.
"I need answers, then hopefully I can carry on with my journey and my life, and let Marnie be at rest," she said.
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