Robert ”Willie” Pickton never fidgets in his seat. His hands betray a lifetime of toil and he is almost bald, with long strands of greying hair that seem slicked down with some sort of oil.
He is an unremarkable man, thin and of average height, except that he is charged with murdering 26 women, butchering their bodies and disposing of the remains.
In more than four years of observing Pickton at court hearings, I have often wondered why a man accused of being Canada’s biggest serial killer does not at least scratch his nose or rub his eyes from time to time.
He rarely shows emotion, instead sitting still with his head slightly tilted in the dock of the courtroom in New Westminster, British Columbia, where his trial for six of the 26 murders began on January 22.
Pickton (57) does not look from side to side or turn his head to glance back to where relatives of some of the women he is accused of killing sit following proceedings.
Some of them have had to leave the room to get their emotions under control after hearing some of the testimony.
Pickton has pleaded not guilty to the killings, which are being dealt with at two trials to make it easier for the jury.
Police say he lured drug addicts and prostitutes to his pig farm in Port Coquitlam, 30km east of Vancouver, had sex with them, murdered them and disposed of their butchered remains on the property and at a rendering plant.
The victims were among more than 60 women who disappeared from the poor, crime-infested Downtown Eastside area of Vancouver between the late 1980s and the end of 2001.
Pickton rarely, if ever, looked at the prosecutor who outlined the case to the jury of seven men and five women.
Nor did he seem to look at his own attorney.
What was he writing?
At the early preliminary hearings, when the court had to decide if there was enough evidence for Pickton to stand trial, he wrote a lot on a pad of paper. Reporters wondered what he was writing. We still do not know.
At sessions when he appeared in court via a video link from jail, he looked to be almost asleep. Mind you, following pre-trial legal arguments, even in a murder case of this magnitude, can be as exciting as watching paint dry.
In one of the early hearings he appeared to laugh as one witness gave particularly graphic evidence, which is sealed by court order until she testifies later in this trial.
Was he laughing in disbelief at the accusations or reliving the experience? No one could tell.
Pickton has been in detention since his arrest in February 2002 and his physical appearance has not changed much since.
His farm is a 20-minute drive from the court, though calling it a farm was always a bit generous.
It was mostly used to store junked cars and construction debris. Pickton, his brother and sister had been slowly selling the land to suburban housing developers before it was raided.
The property looks very different now from the day of Pickton’s arrest. Police demolished the farm’s ramshackle buildings during an 18-month search that left behind large mounts of dirt.
I can remember wondering on the day of the raid what the farm’s owner looked like.
I know that now, along with details like the fact that Pickton dislikes vegetables and his favourite meat is pork. But, like his demeanour, it doesn’t tell me what he’s thinking. – Reuters