'Beast' ... Robert Pickton is feared to have murdered at least 60 women Picture: REUTERS

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Pig farmer is swiller killer

By EMILY SMITH
US Editor
January 22, 2007

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A PIG farmer who is feared to have butchered at least 60 women goes on trial today — accused of feeding victims’ remains to his hogs.

Prostitutes slaughtered by evil Robert Pickton were minced in a wood-chipper and used as swill, a horrified court will be told.

The pork — together with left-over human flesh — was later made into SAUSAGES and sold to an unsuspecting public, detectives fear.

Pickton, 57 — arrested by cops in Canada who found severed heads, hands and feet in his freezer — will appear in the dock in New Westminster, British Columbia, behind bullet-proof glass.

The alleged serial killer is accused of preying on skid row hookers in Vancouver for almost 20 years — luring them to their doom on his farm 20 miles away.

Jurors in a case that has shocked Canada have been warned the evidence will be “like a horror movie”.

Bachelor Pickton — known locally as “Uncle Willie” — spit-roasted some of the pigs at wild parties he regularly held at his farm in Port Coquitlam. Hordes of Hell’s Angels and hookers would flock to rowdy knees-ups in a barn dubbed the “Piggy Palace”.

But some of the barbecues were CHARITY events.

Despite his straggly hair and beard Pickton was a multi-millionaire after flogging chunks of his land to developers. Local dignitaries were only too happy to attend his fundraising bashes — as over the years 67 women went missing.

Victims ... top - Angela Joesbury, Patricia Johnson and Debra Jones. Bottom - Leigh Miner, Georgina Papin and Brenda Wolfe

Police finally made the gruesome discovery in his freezer after going to his farm with a warrant to search for an unlicensed gun. The remains of 30 women were unearthed as forensic experts spent two years scouring the farm.

More than 378,000 cubic metres of mud were sifted and 200,000 DNA samples analysed.

A woodchipper used to make pig feed showed traces of ground-up human flesh and bones. Bags and clothes belonging to missing women were discovered.

Four victims remain unidentified. Pickton — accused of being Canada’s most prolific serial killer ever — was charged with the murders of the 26 others. He today goes on trial on the first six counts — which he denies.

A judge ruled there were so many murdered women the jury would be too confused unless the case was split into two trials. Victims in trial No1 include Andrea Joesbury, 22, Georgina Papin, 34, and Brenda Wolfe, 30.

The 20 others Pickton is accused of slaughtering include Patricia Johnson, 25, Debra Jones, 43, Laura Mah, 41, Leigh Miner, 34, and Francis Young, 36.

Death farm ... where remains were found near Vancouver

One alleged victim, Sarah de Vries, even wrote in her diary before she disappeared in April 1998: “Am I next? Is he watching me now?”

Cops have been blasted for ignoring the huge numbers of hookers who were going missing and refusing to believe a serial killer was on the loose.

Serena Abbotsway — whose remains were found at the farm — had led a protest march against the police’s reluctance to investigate the killings.

The stepmother of Marnie Frey, 24 — who disappeared in 1997 — was so furious she launched her OWN investigation, quizzing terrified streetwalkers.

She said: “The girls told me, ‘There’s this guy who picks up girls in vans and takes them to a farm and they don’t come back. He’s got a woodchipper’.