NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. - Prejudiced. Dismantling. Referred. Presumed.
All words that Robert Pickton knew how to use, and properly, a Crown prosecutor at his trial on six counts of first-degree murder said Thursday.
The word list was thrown at defence witness Sandra Humeny, who was back on the stand for a second day, this time under cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Mike Petrie.
She testified she wasn't surprised to know Pickton could use words like referred and presumed, but did doubt he could use them in context.
Petrie was challenging Humeny's testimony from Wednesday when she said Pickton had trouble following conversations or getting the punch- lines of jokes. The testimony had painted the former pig farmer as a moron, Petrie said.
"I wouldn't use those words,'' she replied, going on to agree that she and Pickton held conversations on many subjects, ranging from animals to job sites to the cars Pickton would pick up at auction.
She said she watched Pickton miss the punch-line of jokes several times, not laughing or acknowledging the humour.
"Maybe he just didn't like the joke or joke teller,'' Petrie suggested.
Humeny's reply was curt.
"He didn't understand the jokes.''
In their opening statement to the jury, Pickton's defence lawyers had suggested they'd be calling evidence that would speak to Pickton's level of intelligence as it related to statements he gave police after his arrest.
The statement contained apparent admissions that Pickton had killed as many as 48 women and planned to kill as many as 75, but were also peppered with childhood stories and non-sequitor comments that didn't relate to the questions at hand.
A later witness Thursday characterized Pickton's speech as being repetitive.
"He's backward,'' Audrey Stebanuk told defence lawyer Frieda Tromans,
"Kind of a hilly-billy type, half backward and not as intelligent as most of us think we are at least,'' she said.
Stebanuk and her husband Gordon, who was Thursday's final witness, ran a mobile welding and mechanic company. The company fixed things on the Pickton property.
The pair are also vintage car buffs and testified they knew Robert liked to toy around with salvaged cars.
Gordon Stebanuk said though Pickton was an amateur when it came to restoring vehicles, he was capable of fixing them and had also run heavy machinery on the farm on occasion.
Jurors had heard through Humeny that Pickton and his younger brother Dave were on the board of directors of three company's.
But Audrey Stebanuk said Dave was the one in control.
"Willie was the worker or the slave kind of thing, and Dave the boss,'' she said.
Stebanuk testified she last spoke to Pickton three days before his arrest in February of 2002.
It wasn't until after that that Humeny, who once had a common-law relationship with Pickton's brother, said she learned that he associated with prostitutes and she didn't know that Pickton visited Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
He's been charged with killing 26 women, many of them prostitutes, who worked in that neighbourhood. He is currently on trial for six of the charges and a trial on the remaining 20 is expected to follow.
Humeny testified she had heard that people staying at Pickton's trailer had serious drug problems.
"He brought it up to me that some of them had a problem with drugs and he was trying to help them get off,'' Humeny testified.
Humeny said she didn't know anything about the women whose names have floated throughout the trial, like Dinah Taylor who was once arrested in connection with the case but never charged and lived with Pickton for months.
Humeny said she'd met Gina Houston, who testified earlier in the trial that Pickton told her there were bodies buried on the farm.
But she said Houston sat quietly in her office and never said much to her.
She also never discussed with Pickton his instant millionaire status after he and Dave sold off parcels of land to developers.
"As for the millionaire thing, there were bills that needed to be paid. What's a millionaire when he's in debt?''
The 51-year-old lived with the Picktons from 1973 to around 1978 and she had two children with Dave.
After leaving the farm, she worked on and off with Dave several times, most recently taking a job mainly as a bookkeeper with his salvage company in 1996.
She works there to this day.
Jurors had earlier heard Robert had signing authority on cheques for one of the companies. Petrie asked Humeny whether this implied that Dave had faith in the abilities of his brother.
"I really don't know what to say to that,'' Humeny answered.
She didn't give a statement to police after his arrest, jurors heard, because the first time they asked she offered to talk to them in the driveway of her home and they declined.
The second time, Humeny said, she wanted to give a statement in the presence of colleague Bill Malone, but police said no.
Jurors also heard she refused to give a DNA sample to police because she didn't think it would be helpful.
Thursday marked the end of the third week of the defence's case.
Pickton is on trial for the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe, Mona Wilson and Georgina Papin.
