NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. - A Vancouver cop says Robert Pickton's brother is not a suspect in connection with the disappearance of women from Vancouver.
Under questioning by a Crown prosecutor Monday afternoon, Det. Const. Mike McDonald said there is no evidence linking Dave Pickton to crimes relating to the missing women.
McDonald testified under cross-examination last week that police were continuing to investigate whether Dave was involved in the more than 60 cases of women missing from the Downtown Eastside. However, Monday he said on the stand that Dave Pickton is not a suspect in the murders.
Robert Pickton, 57, has been charged with the deaths of 26 women and is currently on trial on six charges.
Remains of a number of the women were found on the Pickton farm in suburban Port Coquitlam, where both brothers had lived.
Earlier Monday, McDonald testified that police investigating the missing women went as far as trying to get information out of Robert Pickton's clergy.
He said he reached out to chaplains at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre where Pickton was awaiting the start of his trial.
Defence lawyer Richard Brooks asked McDonald about the nature of his conversations with the two chaplains, one of whom was Harold Krahn.
"You asked Mr. Krahn if Mr. Pickton had talked to him about anything to do with this case?'' Brooks asked.
"I'm not sure if I asked that or if that's what was volunteered by Mr. Krahn,'' McDonald replied.
"So how did it work, you just phoned Mr. Krahn and you just held the phone while he just talked away, you didn't ask him any questions about his conversations with Mr. Pickton?'' Brooks said.
McDonald said he may have asked the chaplain questions that prompted him to talk for a period of time.
Jurors also heard that Krahn told McDonald that Robert Pickton's spirits were good in the days leading up to the preliminary hearing in the case.
McDonald also learned that Pickton had put an agricultural course he was taking into hiatus for the start of the proceedings.
The last time McDonald spoke to Krahn, jurors heard, was April 2006.
Other names
A number of names surfaced Monday as Pickton's defence team continued to raise the issue of other people being examined by police in connection with missing women.
In addition to Pickton, his brother Dave, Pat Casanova and Scott Chubb were also included in photo lineups being shown to people brought in for questioning in the case.
Jurors earlier heard that Casanova was arrested, though never charged, in connection with the investigation.
McDonald also testified that he went to Casanova's home to get a DNA sample, which he ended up taking from his son.
Chubb was the police informant whose information about guns on the Pickton property led to the initial search that culminated in the trial now underway.
Another associate of Pickton's, Andrew Bellwood, was also placed under surveillance, McDonald testified.
Jurors have heard portions of an interview that Bellwood gave police, in which he described how Pickton once told him he killed women from behind, bled them and fed them to his pigs.
Bellwood was among the six other persons of interest in the case whose names the defence tossed out in court on Monday.
There were others, the defence suggested, but McDonald couldn't tell the court who they were.
Jurors heard that many of the notes he took while investigating the case remained silent on specific names and details or in some cases blacked out by police.
Twice on Monday, Justice James Williams interrupted the defence's cross-examination to ascertain where Brooks' line of questioning was headed.
At one point, Williams sent the jury out of the room to clarify the matter with counsel.
In the second instance he reminded Brooks that it is often difficult for the men and women of the jury to stay abreast of testimony in the case.
Monday marked the start of the seventh week of the Pickton trial.
