The Trial

While Pickton was waiting for the trial, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer had gone undercover and pretended to be a cellmate. Pickton confessed to 49 murders. He expressed annoyance not to have rounded up to a 50 and regretted only that he become sloppy which had lead to his arrest.

During the trial, Pickton sat expressionless behind a bulletproof screen as relatives of more than 60 women looked to him for answers.

Fearing a mistrial due to contempt or prejudice, the judge had banned any reporting of the case details of Canada’s most prolific serial killer. The sheer volume of DNA evidence meant that the judge divided the trial into two. The first part would deal with just six of the charges with the remaining 20 to be heard at a later date.

After 130 witnesses and 10 months of trial, it took the jury of seven men and five women ten days to reach their verdict and on a Sunday, Pickton was convicted of second degree murder of the six women whose remains were found on his Vancouver farm. On the following Tuesday, Robert William Pickton was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years, the longest sentence possible under Canadian law. Justice James Williams said "Mr. Pickton there is really nothing that I can say to adequately express the revulsion the community feels about these killings".

As the verdict was read, two female jurors wiped away tears while Pickton finally showed some emotion. He smirked.