A hog farmer accused of murdering 26 women told investigators he was "the head honcho" but "not the only guy" behind the gruesome deaths, in a videotaped interrogation played at his trial here on Thursday.
The trial of Robert "Willy" Pickton on charges in the deaths of six of the women, mostly drug-addicted prostitutes from a seedy Vancouver neighborhood, opened on Monday with a gush of horrifying details offered by prosecutors.
Pickton, 57, who pleaded innocent to the six murders, will stand trial for 20 others at a later date.
In a videotaped grilling, detective Don Adam told him police knew he was a killer and asked him if they could stop looking for another suspect in the murders.
"I'm not the only guy," Pickton responded in the February 2002 interrogation, a day after his arrest. But at another time in the 11-hour police interrogation, Pickton boasted: "I'm the head honcho, you know that."
Adam asked Pickton if he had used a gun covered by a dildo on Mona Wilson, one of his alleged victims whose blood was found in a trailer on Pickton's pig farm, and if Wilson had been alive or dead at the time.
"Alive," replied Pickton.
Later, Adam told Pickton they were finding the blood of other women in the trailer, and asked him how many they would find. "Probably two, maybe three," said Pickton, who also admitted he was "sloppy" in cleaning up their blood.
Later in the recording, Pickton refused to clearly confess.
"What's in it for me if you don't mind my asking," he said.
"What's going to happen if I say anything, what's going to happen, I don't want to admit to anything," he added.
At one point, Adam pleaded with Pickton to admit how many women he killed and where their bodies were, for the sake of their families.
"They're not my problem," replied Pickton.
Pickton tried repeatedly to make a deal with Adam, suggesting he would give information if police left the Pickton family farm alone, "to let everybody else's lives get back together again."
"I'm not going to negotiate," said Adam, adding later: "It bothers me to sit here and act as though this is a chess game ... there are people whose hearts are being broken."
"What can I say?" shrugged Pickton.
At another point, Adam told Pickton police knew that one of his friends, a woman, was blackmailing him "for coming in on you while you were skinning a girl."
Pickton jerked upright in his chair but did not respond.
At the time of his interrogation, Pickton was only charged with two murders, but police suspected him in the disappearances of some 65 women from the Vancouver neighborhood over a period of two decades.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry for living ... if I can, I'll take my life for any one of those people just to have them alive," Pickton said, pointing to the photos of the dead women and crying.
At another point, Pickton told Adam: "I made my own grave and I'm going to sleep with it for the rest of my life."
Jurors took a break yesterday and the trial resumes on Monday.
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