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Pig farmer 'mentally deficient'
01/02/2007 07:25 - (SA)
New Westminster, Canada - The man accused in a gruesome case of prostitute serial murders in western Canada was so "slow" that he reportedly failed second grade in school, a jury heard on Wednesday.
Robert "Willy" Pickton, on trial for six of 26 murder charges, was portrayed as mentally deficient in a long exchange between his defence lawyer, Peter Ritchie, and one of the policeman who interrogated Pickton after his arrest in 2002.
The videotape of the 11-hour interrogation was screened for the jury last week. The trial opened on January 22 with a prosecutor's opening statement predicting grisly evidence, including that police found two women's heads, hands and feet in a freezer on Pickton's pig farm.
On Wednesday, Ritchie went over the transcript of the police interrogation line by line, portraying Pickton as too slow to comprehend words like "DNA" and "forensic anthropologist".
Ritchie pointed out bizarre comments by Pickton, such as an exchange about his favourite fruit pie.
Quit school
"Did you ask Mr Pickton if he flunked grade two and was put in a special class?" Ritchie asked Royal Canadian Mounted Police staff sergeant Bill Fordy on the witness stand.
Fordy replied: "My recollection is that he quit school before he was 16, I don't know if he flunked grade two or not."
A little later, Ritchie asked Fordy: "Weren't you told ... that people were saying he is slow?"
"Yes," said Fordy, "My recollection is his brother took care of him."
Ritchie said a will for the pig farm Pickton owned with his siblings gave control of Pickton's share to his brother and sister, and asked Fordy if he'd been told "his brother and sister don't consult Willy, they control him".
Fordy denied being told "that he was controlled".
Fordy also admitted that he lied to Pickton during the interrogation when he told Pickton kids had gone missing and asked him if he killed kids. Fordy repeatedly asked Pickton about what kind of a reputation he would have when he went to jail.
Confessed to undercover cop
Ritchie dwelled on that theme for much of Wednesday's cross examination, and seemed to suggest that police were priming the accused. Pickton later suggested to an undercover cop planted in his jail cell, posing as a violent criminal, that he killed 49 women, according to earlier testimony.
The jury is expected to view an 11-hour videotape of that jail cell meeting.
Earlier on Wednesday, Ritchie finished cross-examining inspector Don Adam, the commander of the police task force that nabbed Pickton in 2002 while investigating the disappearances of dozens of prostitutes from the streets of Vancouver.
Adam had also said he lied to Pickton during the investigation. Police are legally allowed to lie while questioning a suspect in Canada.
In a trial expected to last one year, a jury is hearing six of the charges against Pickton. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts. The remaining 20 charges will be heard later by a different jury.
- AFP
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