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Pig farmer says he was 'set up'
06/02/2007 07:25 - (SA)
New Westminster - A pig farmer accused of mass-murdering prostitutes and butchering their bodies told an undercover cop in a jail cell that he was "set up", a jury heard on Monday.
A videotape of the conversation was played at the trial of Robert "Willy" Pickton, on trial for six of 26 charges of murdering drug-addicted prostitutes in Vancouver.
The tape was made shortly after Pickton, 57, was arrested in February 2002 and charged with the first two murders. He has pleaded not guilty to all 26 charges.
Since the jury began sitting last month prosecutors have released an avalanche of gruesome information, including that police found two severed heads, hands and feet packed in a freezer at Pickton's suburban pig farm and a gun with a dildo over its barrel smeared with DNA from Pickton and one victim.
In the videotape screened for the jury on Monday, Pickton told his cell-mate: "They can set you up. They can set you up. They can set you up ... These are cops and they're dirty at that."
While Pickton seemed initially unaware that an overhead camera was videotaping his every action in the cell, several hours into the "cell plant" interview the pair of them talked about whether there was a camera in a plastic bubble on the ceiling of the jail cell.
"So, that's a camera," said Pickton in wonder. "I thought it was an ornament."
I'm just a plain old pig farmer'
Pickton seemed angry about the police investigation of his farm in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam. "They fenced my fucking property in. This is grotesque," he told the undercover cop, planted in the cell under the guise of a thug arrested for a violent crime.
The policeman cannot be named or described under a publication ban.
"I got a murder charge on me ... and 48 more, 48 more to come. Whoopee," said Pickton, raising a cup of juice, and adding, "I'm getting drunk on orange juice."
The videotaped conversation between the two rambled from Pickton complaining about the police investigation and insisting to his cell-mate, "I'm just a plain old pig farmer."
The jury is expected to spend the next year hearing six of the murder charges. The other 20 charges would be heard after the first trial is complete.
- AFP
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