NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. - A veteran police officer who spent almost two years searching the property of accused murderer Robert Pickton says the bisected head of Mona Wilson, her feet and hands and other decomposing body parts, were found in the slaughterhouse used by Pickton.
Const. Daryl Hetherington of the Vancouver city police department testified Tuesday that she was one of dozens of police officers searching in several buildings on the property belonging to Pickton, starting in February 2002.
In June, she was asked to seize evidence that had been initially discovered by two other investigators in the slaughterhouse.
Hetherington saw two garbage pails, one inside the other.
"My Lord, I'm about to turn to a graphic photo so I just wanted to relay that for everyone's edification,'' Crown prosecutor Mike Petrie told Justice James Williams.
He turned the jury's attention to "photograph 89'' and asked the witness if the picture depicted what she saw in the bucket after the bucket on top had been removed.
"We can see from this . . . these appear to be decaying human remains?'' asked Petrie.
Hetherington agreed.
"What we can see, there are clearly two halves of a human skull,'' he said and she agreed.
"I think we can see some digits . . . but it's my understanding that you discovered in that garbage pail the two halves of a human skull, correct?''
She agreed.
"A right and left foot?''
"Correct.''
"Right and left hand?''
"Correct.''
"There were a number of other decomposing bits of human tissue, there were teeth and things of that nature?'' asked Petrie.
"Yes, that's correct.'
The remains were removed, each part was given an exhibit number and they were taken for an autopsy, which determined they were those of Wilson.
She is among six women named on an indictment charging Pickton with first-degree murder.
Pickton is facing 26 counts of first-degree murder in connection with women who disappeared from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
He is on trial for six counts, including Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Georgina Papin, Andrea Joesbury and Brenda Wolfe.
On Monday, Hetherington told the court that she had come upon some livestock that was in obvious distress.
She was in tears and her voice choked with emotion when she described seeing a sow that appeared to have aborted a litter, and another sow that seemed to have a rotting foot.
Under cross-examination, defence lawyer Adrian Brooks asked Hetherington if she was aware that Pickton had expressed concern about his livestock and tried to get back on the property after he was released following the initial arrest on a gun warrant.
Pickton was arrested the night of Feb. 5, 2002 after police went onto his property with a search warrant, looking for illegal firearms.
He was released the next day, but police had got another search warrant in connection with the missing women's investigation and prohibited anyone from entering the site.
Brooks asked her if she was aware that another officer had told Pickton that the property was under police seizure and no one was allowed on the property.
"I don't recall that, no,'' said Hetherington.
"Certainly, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that Mr. Pickton would not be permitted to attend on the property?'' asked Brooks.
"Yes, that wouldn't surprise me,'' she answered.
Brooks also asked Hetherington, who had become part of the joint missing women's task force in 2001, about the dress protocols that required searchers to wear white suits, gloves and booties on the various search sites.
He asked if they wore hoods and she said "not all the time.''
She used the hood in confined spaces, she said, including the slaughterhouse and trailer where Pickton lived.
She also she didn't wear a mask until the third day of the search.
"I knew that the people leading the investigation at 953 Dominion (the address of Pickton's property) called in for health personnel because there was a number of us who were feeling ill,'' said the witness. "And at some point health people came in and recommended that we wear masks.''
She told the jury on Monday that inside the slaughterhouse searchers found several hand bones near the pigpen. The Crown told the jury last month in its opening statement that they would prove that the hand bones belonged to Papin, one of the women named in the six-count murder indictment against Pickton.
She said police also found in a workshop building a duffel bag that contained two handguns, ammunition, jewelry, condom packages, a wallet, leg restraints and four sets of handcuff keys.
