An accused serial killer allegedly confessed to killing 49 women and intended to murder one more to make it an even 50, a prosecutor told jurors today during opening arguments of his trial. Robert William Pickton, 56, has been charged with 26 counts of first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty to the first six counts in what is expected to be the most macabre and lengthy murder trial in Canadian history.
Hundreds of people began lining up before dawn outside the small courthouse in the Vancouver suburb of New Westminster, vying for the 50 seats in the courtroom to hear opening statements.
A judge warned jurors to expect testimony "as bad as a horror movie" during the trial. Pickton is charged with murdering the women, most of whom vanished from Vancouver's impoverished Downtown Eastside neighborhood in the 1990s.
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