Pig Farmers Kill

'Arrested five years ago, Pickton has been charged with killing 26 women and has pleaded not guilty to the six counts covered in the first trial. The other 20 counts will be heard at a later trial.

Prosecutor Derrill Prevett stunned the courtroom by saying Pickton told investigators, including an undercover officer planted in his jail cell, that he had slain 49 women.

"I was going to do one more and make it an even 50," Prevett quoted Pickton as telling investigators. "I made my own grave by being sloppy."

Pickton told one officer that he would be "nailed to the cross" and went on to describe himself as a mass murderer who deserved to be on death row, Prevett said.

Defense lawyer Peter Ritchie told jurors that Pickton did not kill or participate in the murders of the six women covered in the first trial. If convicted, Pickton faces life in prison. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976.

Ritchie asked the jury to pay close attention to Pickton's demeanor in the videotapes with his interrogators, in particular his level of sophistication. He asked the jury to listen closely to details regarding Pickton's relationship with his brother, David.

The brothers reared pigs on the family's 17-acre farm outside Vancouver, where investigators say the Picktons threw drunken raves with prostitutes and drugs. After Robert Pickton's arrest in February 2002, health officials issued a tainted meat advisory to neighbors who may have bought pork from his farm, concerned that it may have contained human remains.'

Pig farmer accused of killing 26 goes to trial