Monday, July 16, 2007
Witness says accused Pickton surprised at how much prostitutes bled
NEW WESTMINSTER (CP) - A key Crown witness told a hushed courtroom Monday that Robert Pickton was surprised at how much the women he murdered bled and how much of their remains his pigs ate.
Andrew Bellwood told court he and Pickton were watching television in Pickton's residence in his trailer in March 1999 when Pickton described how he killed prostitutes by having sex with them from behind, handcuffing them and strangling them before taking them to his slaughterhouse.
There they were bled, gutted and fed to the pigs, Bellwood testified, recounting how Pickton told him he couldn't believe how much the women bled.
He told court that as Pickton talked, he acted out some of the gestures, such as making a stroking motion as if he were caressing a woman's hair.
Bellwood, who has testified to being a crack cocaine addict, going on "binges," and having had relapses since 1999, said Pickton showed him how he would reach around and take the woman's arm and handcuff her before using a leather belt or wire to kill her.
"He had mentioned to me, 'You know what I do with these prostitutes?"' Bellwood said as the jury listened transfixed and the gallery was silent.
"From there he reached underneath his mattress. He pulled out a set of handcuffs that looked like a set of police handcuffs. He pulled out a belt and he pulled out a piece of wire.
"The wire had looped ends on it that looked like it had been spliced. The wire was the same consistency as piano wire.
"He had motioned to me that he would put them what we call doggy style on the bed, having intercourse with them. As he was telling me this story it was as if there was a woman on the bed. It was pretty much like telling me he'd reach behind their back for their hand and slid it behind their back and put on the handcuffs, stroking their hair, telling them that it's going to be OK. Everything's all over now.
"After he got the handcuffs on them he would strangle them either with the belt or the piece of wire."
Bellwood told Crown prosecutor Geoff Baragar that the conversation occurred after Pickton suggested the two of them hire a prostitute, but Bellwood said he wasn't interested.
Baragar asked Bellwood what was his state of mind was at the time.
"I was coherent," he said, adding that he had not been smoking crack cocaine or drinking alcohol.
Bellwood continued with his testimony.
"From there he would take them to the barn, bleed them and gut them. He commented on how much they bled. He kept telling me, 'Oh, you know how much they bleed, you wouldn't believe how much blood comes out of a person.'
"He proceeded to tell me, after he gutted them, hung them in the slaughterhouse, how much pigs ate of the carcass and whatever the pigs didn't eat, would end up in the 45-gallon drums of entrails he put the pigs in, you know, the pig guts into."
Bellwood is expected to be one of the last major Crown witnesses in the case and Baragar indicated the Crown's case is nearing an end "subject to other matters."
Bellwood began his testimony by explaining he started using drugs when he was 15 and moved up to crack cocaine by his mid-20s.
He told court he had a criminal record and there were occasions when he could spend as much as $5,000 on crack binges that could last as long as four days.
But he testified he never hallucinated while he was taking the drug and had never seen anyone hallucinate while on crack.
He explained he was introduced to Pickton in February 1999 and later lived for a time on Pickton's Port Coquitlam property.
Bellwood said he met Pickton through a man named Ross Contois, who was attending the same drug treatment facility as Bellwood on Vancouver Island.
Contois was married to Gina Houston, a good friend of Pickton's who has already testified at the trial.
Bellwood, 37, who now works in the oil industry in Alberta, said he first met Pickton when he and Contois went to the farm to buy hay for Houston's horses.
On subsequent visits, Bellwood testified he got to know Pickton better and eventually spent some time living on the property.
Bellwood recalled another woman named Lynn also lived there at the time.
The jury has heard from a witness named Lynn Ellingsen, who testified she lived in a spare bedroom at Pickton's trailer residence.
Ellingsen said that while high on crack one night, she walked into the pig slaughterhouse and saw Pickton butchering a woman who was hanging from a hook.
Bellwood said Lynn and Pickton appeared to be good friends and that he helped her a lot.
"He basically supported her," said Bellwood. "He was a sugar daddy of some sort."
In its cross-examination of Ellingsen, the defence suggested numerous times that she was hallucinating about the incident in the slaughterhouse and saw a farm animal and not a woman.
On Monday, Baragar asked Bellwood to describe Lynn when she was high on crack and whether he noticed any hallucinations.
"No, I've never seen anybody on crack experience hallucinations," Bellwood testified.
He said for him, crack use caused depression and remorse, but it did not affect his memory or induce hallucinations.
Pickton, who appeared to listen to the witnesses, did not look at Bellwood as he testified but he wrote several notes and passed them to his lawyers.
An RCMP officer also testified earlier in the trial that he met with Bellwood in September 2004 and paid for his dinner as they discussed the case as part of a "witness maintenance program."
The RCMP agreed to pay Bellwood's $925 monthly rent for three months while he attended a drug program at the Edgewood Treatment Centre, which the police also paid for.
In January 2005, the officer again met with Bellwood and his common-law wife and agreed to pay for the woman to take a course at the same treatment centre for $1,000.
Pickton is charged with the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Georgina Papin, Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe and Andrea Joesbury. He will face a further 20 murder charges at a later date.
Bellwood told the jury of beating he received by two men who came to the property after the alleged conversation with Pickton and accused him of stealing tools from Pickton. He said at the urging of "Lynn," the men punched him twice in the nose and head.
He told the jury he never stole anything from Pickton and left the farm after the beating.
He testified he never returned to the farm and didn't tell police of the conversation until he was questioned by officers in early 2002.
© The Canadian Press, 2007
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