Pickton's brother trailed by police long after murder charges

The brother of accused killer Robert William Pickton was under intense surveillance as recently as March 2005, three years after the B.C. farmer's arrest in the Vancouver missing women's case, a jury was told Monday.

RCMP Const. Doug Forsyth testified in the B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster on Monday that he and up to five other officers were watching Dave Pickton almost round the clock forseven days.

Dave Pickton has never been arrested or charged in connection with the police investigation into the slayings of women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Another officer at the trial testified that Dave Pickton is not considered a suspect.

Robert Pickton is currently being tried on first-degree murder charges for six women. He faces 20 other murder charges that will be dealt with at another trial later. Arrested on Feb. 6, 2002, he has pleaded not guilty to all 26 charges.

The two brothers and their sister own a pig farm in Port Coquitlam, where the remains of the women in the current trial have been found.

Police paid for detox of witness

On Monday, when the trial resumed after a week-long recess, jurors also heard that the RCMP paid for detox treatment and three months of rent for one of the witnesses the Crown is expected to call to the stand later in the trial.

Forsyth testified he maintained contact with the witness, Andy Bellwood, while he was in the Edgewood Treatment Centre in Nanaimo. He said he did so knowing Bellwood may be testifying.

Bellwood's common-law spouse also had an eight-day stint at the treatment centre, which was paid for by the RCMP at a cost of $1,000.

Earlier in the trial, jurors heard portions of a recorded interview that Bellwood gave police soon after Robert Pickton's arrest. Bellwood described how Pickton once told him he killed women from behind, bled them and fed them to his pigs.

Also on Monday, Vancouver police Const. Joanne Wendell told the court about three guns recovered from the Pickton property: a .44-calibre Magnum, a .357-calibre Colt and a gun she called a "black, Chinese assault rifle."

According to Wendell, Pickton's fingerprint was found on two spots on the Colt.

She and another police officer, Gordon Meisner, a retired RCMP corporal, also testified about the fingerprints and palm prints they found on the Pickton property.

Meisner also talked about items seized from Dave Pickton's house, including a tube of K-Y lubricant and a white bucket similar to one seized from a freezer containing human remains.

This trial, which began the third week of January and is expected to last a year, is focusing on the murders of Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey.