NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. - Warning: Some readers may find the following content disturbing
A snapped sow's joint found in a freezer on Robert Pickton's farm was butchered the same way as the hands and feet of one of Vancouver's missing women, a jury heard Tuesday.
"I recognized the significance of the injury and nature of the injury to this animal,'' Staff Sgt. Ross Spenard said as he recounted how he opened the freezer on Pickton's farm in 2002.
The pig's hock, which corresponds anatomically to a human ankle, had been snapped, with the ligaments and tendons left to hold it together.
Spenard testified that because he'd been present at the autopsy on Sereena Abotsway's remains, he recognized that her wrists and ankles had been broken in the same way.
They were found severed from her torso and placed inside her skull.
Angela Joesbury's injuries were similar.
Spenard was also responsible for clearing off the top of the freezer that held Abotsway's and Joesbury's remains in white plastic buckets.
He testified that it took about a day to clear a path to the freezers, including removing more than 27 kilograms of items like tools, a TV monitor and a hydraulic pump for later examination.
Before the freezer had been cleared off, it was Sgt. Fred Nicks who'd helped Sgt. Tim Sleigh look inside.
Nicks had held up the freezer door, the jury heard, while Sleigh searched the freezer.
He then asked Nicks to confirm what he'd seen.
"In response to his question I answered it looks like a human head, Tim,'' Nicks told the jury.
Sleigh's testimony also wrapped up on Tuesday, with jurors hearing how the massive search of the property in 2002 wasn't the first time the veteran crime scene investigator had heard of the Pickton family.
Sleigh had been involved in an investigation in the 1980s connected to them and their land.
When the accused was initially brought in for questioning following a search for firearms on his farm, Sleigh told the court Staff Sgt. Jim Hunter, who took part in the interview, quizzed him about what he knew of the brothers.
"You described Willie as shy, hardly ever blinked and seemed mentally diminished,'' defence lawyer Adrian Brooks said.
Sleigh agreed that's what he had told the officer.
Many people who know Pickton refer to him as Willie. His middle name is William.
Sleigh also confirmed he'd told Hunter that Pickton seemed to be submissive and when asked questions he'd defer to Dave.
"You told him Dave was the brains of the two of them, correct?'' Brooks asked.
"That may be correct, yes,'' Sleigh answered.
Pickton's younger brother Dave lived on an adjacent property known as Burns Road that also became part of the massive investigation into the disappearances of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
The defence has repeatedly questioned crime scene experts about what they have found on the land where Dave and his family lived.
Jurors heard from Spenard that condom packages with yellow dots on them were found in cars on the Burns Road site as well as in a motorhome on Dominion Road, where most of the investigation was centred.
The cars also contained women's clothing and items like makeup and shoes.
The Burns Road property was notorious for a social club called Piggy's Palace that hosted raucous parties and fundraisers.
Spenard testified that women's undergarments were found in a can outside the club's front door.
Also on Burns Road, jurors heard Tuesday, was a house under construction that police nicknamed "Willie's house'' as it was apparently being built for the accused to live in.
Nicks testified that police searched every nook and cranny of the house, using radar machines to scan the walls, and Luminol spray to test for trace blood transfer on the walls.
"The objective was to search it very thoroughly so there were no hidden compartments where evidence could be lost,'' Nicks said.
Police went so far as to demolish the building to look underneath the concrete foundation.
It was for naught.
"When all was said and done I am not aware of any forensically significant evidence arising from this examination,'' Nicks said.
Pickton is on trial for the murders of Abotsway and Joesbury, as well as those of Mona Wilson, Georgina Papin, Marnie Frey and Brenda Wolfe.
For the first time Tuesday, jurors heard exactly how Wolfe's remains were found on Pickton's property.
Nicks testified how he was raking through manure in a pig trough.
"During one of our shovelfuls, as I scraped through material, this jumped out from being embedded in manure type material in the trough,'' he said.
Nicks said he plucked the bone out of the manure and brought it to a sterile evidence staging area for further identification.
Sleigh brushed off the dirt to reveal a tooth with a filling still intact.
A later autopsy confirmed the jaw belonged to Wolfe.
Pickton is charged with killing 26 women in total. A trial on the remaining 20 counts is expected later.
