Pig producer on trial in large murder case
Jurors in Canada will today begin hearing evidence against a pig producer accused of serial killings at his 7-hectare farm near Vancouver.
The man, 56, is charged with the murders of 26 women, most of whom were prostitutes and drug addicts who disappeared from the city’s impoverished Eastside neighbourhood in the 1990s.
The pig farmer has pleaded not guilty to six first-degree murder charges in his first trial, which is expected to last at least one year.
Grim
Only few of the details of the evidence have been made public in Canada, due to a strict publication ban. What has come to light is grim: body parts discovered in a freezer; a woodchipper, where the women’s bodies were believed to have been disposed of; and the public health warning that the pigs believed to have been fed on human remains were then slaughtered and put into the human food chain — along with, perhaps, human meat itself.
If convicted on more than 14 charges, the man would become the worst serial killer in Canadian history.
Largest-ever
The trial will be Canada’s largest-ever murder trial by jury. Over 240 witnesses are expected to be heard and more than 300 reporters are accredited to cover the case.
The man was arrested in February 2002 and has been in custody since then.
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