As the trial ended its third week, the Crown's case moved beyond an initial search of Pickton's property for guns into the phase of the investigation that would ultimately lead to the 26 murder charges the farmer now faces.
Pickton is currently on trial for the murders of six women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Police first descended on Pickton's Port Coquitlam property Feb. 5, 2002, with a warrant to search for firearms.
The information had come from a paid police source and Cpl. James Petrovich testified the first place he looked when he entered the trailer was on top of a furnace.
"We had information that that would be one place where we would find a firearm," Petrovich told the jury.
"Curiousity got the best of me and I went in there to have a look."
Petrovich found a gun in a soft case, but left it there briefly to search his assigned area, a bedroom.
In the headboard of the bed, he found a set of handcuffs with fake gold tiger fur and jewelry.
He also saw papers with the name Dinah Taylor.
Jurors heard earlier that Taylor was among three other people arrested in connection with the disappearances of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, but she was never charged.
Observing the firearms search that night were members of the Missing Women's Task Force who were co-ordinating the investigation into the disappearances called Project Evenhanded.
Petrovich testified that he'd been told any female names he came across during the search had to be relayed to the task force.
He radioed Taylor's name in and continued searching.
He found another pair of handcuffs, this time with red fur, and a blue box with a flare gun and barrel adapters that would allow the gun to accept shotgun cartridges.
He also found a sheaf of papers that had another women's name on them, though the name did not come out in court.
He radioed that name in too.
Petrovich said he then went back to the furnace to get the gun he'd found earlier.
As he was looking at it, Sgt. John Cater from the RCMP's Project Evenhanded was outside the trailer.
When he testified later Thursday he said that when he arrived at the property, he hadn't intended to get involved with the search.
He told the jury how, while standing on the porch of the trailer, he and an officer from Vancouver police heard investigators discussing they'd found a gun.
"Det. Little and I were not surprised by that seeing what the warrant was for," he said.
"Then we heard other information about that firearm that caused us initial concern."
A photo of what he found was entered as evidence and Petrovich described what he saw.
"It's a stainless steel Smith and Wesson .22-calibre revolver and a black hand grip and what I describe as a d***o over the barrel," he said.
Clear plastic like cellophane, Petrovich said, was wrapped around the barrel.
Jurors heard in the early days of the trial that a gun fitted with a d***o found in the trailer was covered with Mona Wilson's DNA, though at that point in the investigation, police wouldn't have known it was there.
As Petrovich continued his search, Cater was also moving on.
Under the cover of darkness, he came across a grey trailer. He shone his flashlight inside and saw live pigs, he told the jury.
Moving on, he entered a workshop, where he saw a group of officers standing around.
News came over the radio - police in the trailer had found items belonging to two other women.
One of them was an asthma inhaler belonging to Sereena Abotsway.
Jurors had heard about its discovery on Wednesday.
Cater testified that the officer read her name off the label the pharmacy had stuck on the device and then read the date it had been prescribed - July 9, 2001.
Cater told the jury that because of his work with Project Evenhanded he knew Abotsway had been last seen on Aug. 1 of that same year.
He called the project's file co-ordinator at home to tell him the news.
The firearms search was called off.
Wilson and Abotsway are among the six women Pickton is accused of killing.
Under cross-examination, the defence focused on how thorough the officers searching for firearms had been as they scoured the trailer.
Lawyer Adrian Brooks made much of how Cpl. Howard Lew and then Petrovich picked up and moved around all the items they found, while wearing the same pair of gloves.
When it came to cross-examining Cater, Brooks grilled him on wiretaps he'd obtained for the Pickton property and the extent of the tasks he'd been involved in with the investigation.
After the firearms search ended, the investigation into the farm was turned over to Project Evenhanded and a team of forenic investigators.
Blood stain analyst Jack Mellis said he and his forensic team went to the Pickton property Feb. 7, 2002, with a trailer full of supplies.
Ten days later, he testified, they entered a white motorhome with a grey stripe, that had a sleeping compartment for two in the back.
The jury heard blood was everywhere.
"I found primarily that the majority of staining occurred in the sleeping area," Mellis testified, saying he found blood spatter on the bed area, on the walls, on the area between the beds and on cabinets both next to and above the sleeping area.
"There were also running shoes in the closet with blood on them," he testified.
Mellis was the ninth of an estimated 240 witnesses the Crown has suggested will be called to testify.
His testimony will continue when court resumes Monday.
By STEPHANIE LEVITZ
Canoe News
Canoe News
