Jurors in one of the most anticipated trials in Canadian history will begin hearing evidence against accused serial killer Robert William Pickton today, having been warned by the judge to expect testimony "as bad as a horror movie."
Pickton, 56, is charged with the murders of 26 women, most of whom were prostitutes and drug addicts who vanished from Vancouver's impoverished Downtown Eastside neighborhood in the 1990s.
The pig farmer has pleaded not guilty to six first-degree murder charges in his first trial, which is expected to last at least one year. British Columbia Supreme Court Justice James Williams, who is presiding over the case, has ruled that the other charges will be heard in a later trial so as not to overburden the jury.
Evidence presented in more than a year of preliminary hearings, which has been under a publication ban, has been so gruesome that some reporters have sought psychological counseling.
Under the ban, those details have remained off limits to the print and broadcast media for publication. Williams ruled earlier this week, however, that the ban on courtroom testimony would be lifted today since neither the defense nor the prosecution has expressed any objection.
If convicted on more than 14 charges, "Willie" Pickton would become the worst serial killer in Canadian history, after Clifford Robert Olson, convicted in the sex slayings of 11 children in the Vancouver area in the early 1980s, and Marc Lepine, who gunned down 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnic in Montreal in 1989 before shooting himself.
The trial will be Canada's largest-ever murder trial by jury, and more than 300 reporters are accredited to cover the case.
Pickton was arrested in February 2002 and has been in custody since then.
It is alleged that Pickton lured women to his family's 7-hectare pig farm outside Vancouver.
Sarah de Vries is among the women in the second set of murder charges against Pickton. A 1995 entry in her diary revealed the prostitute was aware of the dangers she faced working the streets.
"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."
After Pickton was arrested and the first traces of DNA of some missing women were allegedly found on the farm, the buildings were razed and the province spent an estimated US$61 million to sift through acres of soil at the farm.
Health officials then issued a tainted-meat advisory to neighbors who may have bought pork from the Pickton farm, concerned the meat may have contained human remains.
The case will be heard in a cramped, 35-seat courtroom in a Vancouver suburb. A special spillover media room has been constructed with closed circuit TV into the courtroom for the dozens of reporters who will not be able to get seats.
Pickton has sat day after day for pretrial hearings in a specially built defendant's box surrounded by bulletproof glass.
Clean-shaven with a bald crown and shoulder-length hair, he has barely moved, though occasionally he chuckles to himself or scribbles in a notebook.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Vancouver Police Department have come under intense criticism by community activists and advocates for sex-trade workers, who claim authorities were slow to search for the missing women because they were outcasts of society.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Joint Task Force says it has located at least 102 women believed to be missing. Another 62 women remained on the list as of December, as well as three unidentified DNA profiles from the Pickton farm.
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