[DIV class=storyheader] [H2][A href="vny!://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=6bba45e0-9a55-43c2-a70e-3ac69ee0843a&k=27288"]vny!://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=6bba45e0-9a55-43c2-a70e-3ac69ee0843a&k=27288[/A][/H2] [H2] [/H2] [H2]Pickton tells officer he was 'sloppy'[/H2] [H4]Left blood at his farm[/H4]
[DIV class=feed_details] [H4]Lori Culbert and Neal Hall, CanWest News Service[/H4][SPAN]Published: Friday, January 26, 2007[/SPAN]
[A href="vny!://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=6bba45e0-9a55-43c2-a70e-3ac69ee0843a&k=27288"][/A]
NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. - Robert (Willie) Pickton admitted he became sloppy and that police would find human blood on his property - but stopped short of making a confession during an intense 11-hour police interrogation videotape, which the jury in his first-degree murder trial finished watching Thursday.
Insp. Don Adam, then head of the Missing Women's Task Force, asked Pickton near the end of the interrogation in 2002 how many "different women's blood" searchers could find in the motorhome on his property.
"I'd say two, probably two, maybe three," Pickton said in a calm voice.
Later, when Adam complained that Pickton hadn't given him any information during the interrogation, a confident Pickton said: "...I already told you how many's in the trailer. Probably maybe up to as high as three in that, in the motorhome."
"All right," Adam said.
"That was as far as we got," Pickton said.
"Right," Adam said.
"Possibly," Pickton added.
The interrogation took place one day after Pickton's Feb. 22, 2002 arrest for killing missing women Sereena Abotsway and Mona Wilson. The jury started watching the videotape on Tuesday and it concluded Thursday.
Pickton is being tried for the deaths of six women who disappeared from the Downtown Eastside. He has pleaded not guilty.
When the interrogation began just after 10 a.m. on Feb. 23, 2002, Pickton was largely non-responsive and avoided answering questions; but near the end he laughed loudly, put his feet on the desk in the interview room and spoke confidently with police.
Adam asked Pickton whether it was fantasy or anger that drove him to kill, and asked Pickton whether he "no longer sort of really viewed these girls as being worth anything?"
"But, uh, no, no. That's not. I had one more planned, but that was - that was the end of it. That was the last. I was gonna shut it down," Pickton said. "I was just sloppy, just the last one."
"You were gonna do one more?" Adam asked.
"...That was the end of it. That's why I got sloppy....," Pickton said.
Adam, who was a staff sergeant at the time of the interview, asked Pickton why he didn't get rid of the evidence - clean up the blood, burn a blood-soaked mattress in the motorhome and throw out women's identification found on his property.
"Willie, you didn't do a good job of cleaning up the girls' blood. Like, you got to agree with me. I mean - ," said Adam.
"That's right. I was sloppy," Pickton said.
Later, Adam said: "Like, why didn't you just drag that mattress that you, where killed, ah, Mona? Why didn't you just drag it out and burn it? I mean, that would have been - ,"
"I don't - " Pickton said.
"Did you not realize there was blood underneath it? Like, you know what I'm saying, eh? Like if you'd a burnt it, Willie. Just sloppy," Adam asked.
"Sloppy, like I just told you," Pickton said, lounging in his chair and looking at Adam.
"Let me ask you a question: They talk about people keeping trophies - ," Adam said.
"No."
"So when you kept the women's ID in your place, that was just - ," Adam said.
"No."
" - again, sloppy?"
"Yeah," Pickton said.
"Jesus, Willie, you must be kicking yourself, like - ," Adam said.
"I know," Pickton said.
Justice James Williams has told the jury that it is Pickton's answers, not the questions of the police officers, that should be considered evidence during the interrogation. Williams said it was also up to the jurors to determine whether Pickton was telling the truth on the tape.
In his brief opening statement Monday, Pickton's defence lawyer Peter Ritchie urged jurors to watch for Pickton's intelligence and sophistication while being questioned by the trained police officers.
The interrogation was conducted long before police found human remains on the Port Coquitlam, B.C., pig farm. Therefore, Pickton was not questioned about those gruesome discoveries.
Pickton appeared wily near the end of the interrogation, trying to negotiate with Adam: If police stopped searching his beloved 15-acre farm, he said he would "admitted to everything."
Adam said he wouldn't negotiate with the accused, but wanted to know what he was prepared to admit. However, Pickton would not be specific.
"I'm talking about everything on my behalf," an elusive Pickton said, adding he wouldn't say any more because he didn't have a lawyer with him.
A cocky Pickton interrupted Adam several times during the interview, telling him to "think it over" and get back to him on his offer. When Adam declined, Pickton asked to speak to his boss.
A flustered Adam said he was the boss.
Pickton told Adam that there were others involved in the killings, but then insisted he was the "head honcho." He would not elaborate on either point, prompting Adam to complain:
"You're having fun playing cat and mouse with me here, Willie."
Adam asked Pickton, "When did you get her (Wilson) out there?" and tried to guess the date of her disappearance. Pickton just toyed with the seasoned interrogator, telling Adam he was "close."
Then in response to a question from Adam, Pickton said Wilson was still alive when he used a dildo attached to a .22 handgun on her - but he adamantly denied killing her. (The dildo and gun were found in Pickton's trailer, bearing his and her DNA.)
Several family members in the courtroom looked pained as they watched Pickton belt out several guttural laughs and refuse to give police any information that could answer questions about the missing women's whereabouts.
"...The families of these people, the families of these girls - ," Adam said.
"That's not my comment, that's not my problem," Pickton said.
"But they're not - ," Adam said.
"Shit happens," Pickton said.
Adam asked Pickton how he would feel if his niece or nephew were missing.
"They're at the wrong place at the right time, what else can I say?" Pickton answered bluntly.
Earlier in the interrogation, Adam said he could tie 12 victims to Pickton by the evidence that police had found so far on the farm and asked him how many women he recognized on a large poster bearing photos of 48 missing women.
"How many could you reach out and touch?" Adam asked.
"I can touch them all," Pickton said, pointing at the poster.
"No, but I mean that, that you killed?" Adam asked.
"You make me more of a mass murderer than I am," Pickton said.
Adam tried to appeal to Pickton's ego, telling him he completely stumped police for years, making them look like fools.
"And they're going to take a lot of heat for that, Willie, for why they didn't catch Willie Pickton quicker. You led them on a merry chase for years," Adam said. "You made the police look stupid. There you sat right under their noses, every few months killing a girl, and they didn't have a clue... You may well be the most successful serial killer in the North American continent."
Pickton did not respond.
The trial won't sit today in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster but will resume Monday.
Pickton, 57, is charged with 26 murder charges. His first trial will focus on the deaths of six women: Abotsway, Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Ann Wolfe, Georgina Faith Papin and Marnie Frey.
A second trial on 20 charges is expected to be held next year.
He has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
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[H6 class=copyright]© CanWest News Service 2007[/H6]
