The defense attorney for a Canadian pig farmer accused of being the nation's worst serial killer opened final arguments Monday by denying the man ever confessed to killing six women.
Robert "Willie" Pickton went on trial last January on the first six of 26 first-degree murder charges filed against him in the deaths of women, most of them prostitutes and drug addicts from a run-down Vancouver, British Columbia, neighborhood.
Prosecutors claimed early in the trial the 57-year-old Pickton admitted to an undercover officer he killed 49 women and was caught before he could reach his goal of 50.
Lawyer Adrian Brooks urged jurors to keep an open mind and reject the prosecution's interpretation of what Pickton said.
"This is nothing like a confession. It is not a confession at all," Brooks said.
The defense has acknowledged the remains of the six women Pickton is accused of killing were found on his farm outside Vancouver, but it denies the farmer was responsible. Brooks also noted that many of the prosecution's witnesses had criminal convictions and drug addictions.
"Some people can tell a lie and it just doesn't bother them at all," he said.
The key witness, who acknowledged a long history of drug abuse, testified she walked in on a blood-covered Pickton as he cut up a woman's body hanging from a chain in the farm's slaughterhouse. Lynn Ellingsen testified Pickton warned that if she told anyone she would end up "right beside her."
Source: Xinhua
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