NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. - A dramatic night-time weapons raid screeched to a halt when police found a different kind of smoking gun on Robert Pickton's farm.
An asthma inhaler, with Sereena Abotsway's name on it, tucked in a sports bag amid novels and a pair of small running shoes.
Pickton is on trial for her death and that of five other women.
His trial heard Wednesday that when RCMP first decided to search the Pickton farm, they had no idea he was even a suspect in their deaths.
Const. Nathan Wells told the court that he'd cultivated a source that he'd hoped would share information about drugs.
Dwayne Scott Chubb gave up details about guns instead, leaving Wells to get a search warrant for the Pickton property.
Wells testified under cross-examination that Chubb was paid for information he'd given police, though it was unclear if the $1,450 paid out over three weeks in February 2002 was all linked to the Pickton case.
When he went to get the warrant, Wells plugged Pickton's name into a police database and a note to call Vancouver police popped up.
Two officers from the Missing Women's Task Force would later join the team heading to the Pickton farm for a firearms search, Wells testified.
"My understanding was that they were not participating in the search but standing by in case anything showed up that would be of interest to them," he said.
Wells recounted how he and three other officers moved onto the farm across a muddy path on the night of Feb. 5, 2002.
"We walked towards the trailer, rounded the bend and heard the sound of a truck and saw headlights," he told the court.
"We stopped in our tracks."
The officers heard a truck door open and close, followed by the sound of a trailer door opening and closing.
"Once we reached the trailer, there was a heightened sense of risk," he said.
A police vehicle with sirens blaring and lights flashing arrived on the scene and with a yell of "police, warrant," the police used a battering ram to barge into Pickton's trailer.
Cpl. Howard Lew told the jury that when he entered the trailer he saw Pickton and told him to get down on the ground.
He was searched and taken to the Coquitlam detachment, to provide a safe search site for police.
Wells took him to the station while Lew started a search.
The first room, a bathroom, yielded nothing.
The second, a bedroom, also came up bare.
But in the third room, Lew found a .22 round of ammunition -- Pickton had told police he kept a .22 in the barn.
And he found the grey Solomon sports bag and searched it.
"I found some novels, a small pair of running shoes, a respirator with the name Sereena Abotsway on it," Yew testified.
During its opening statement, the Crown said an asthma inhaler with Abotsway's name on it had been found.
The name meant nothing to Lew, he said, but he shared his discovery with Cpl. William Mulcahy, who was in charge of the search.
News of the find was spread by radio to other police at the scene.
The firearms search was immediately suspended.
Meanwhile, back at the detachment, Wells had put Pickton in a cell.
Wells encountered RCMP Insp. Don Adam, who was leading the Missing Women's Task Force.
"I was instructed by Insp. Adam not to deal with Mr. Pickton, not to speak to him, not to obtain his fingerprints," Wells testified.
"My feeling at the time was that this investigation now belonged to Insp. Don Adam."
Wells had cultivated Chubb as a source about a year after joining the RCMP in 2000.
Up until Jan. 25, 2002, Wells had met with him three times but Chubb had never mentioned Pickton before.
But after spilling out information about guns that led to the search warrant, Chubb kept talking.
In the early days of the trial, the jury heard how Chubb gave a taped interview to police saying Pickton had told him the best way to kill a prostitute was by using a syringe filled with windshield washer fluid.
Defence lawyer Adrian Brooks said in court Wednesday that the first time Chubb ever mentioned a syringe was on Feb. 7.
By then he'd already been paid $750 for information he gave police, and over the next three weeks would amass a bounty of $1,450.
He also asked Wells about the $100,000 in reward money police were offering for information in the case of the missing women.
Lew and Wells' testimony came as the Crown attempted to take the jury back to the early days of their investigation into the 57-year-old pig farmer.
Jurors have already watched two lengthy police interrogations of Pickton -- both done after his arrest on murder charges on Feb. 22, 2002.
One was with a trio of officers; the other via an undercover officer in Pickton's cell.
Defence lawyer Peter Ritchie wrapped up his cross-examination of the officer earlier Wednesday.
Ritchie alleged that Pickton's supposed confession to killing 50 people was actually just a reference to the charges police had told him were pending.
He also accused the officer of trying to encourage Pickton to make incriminating statements.
Yew was expected to remain on the stand Thursday for further cross-examination.
Pickton is facing 26 counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of women who vanished from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Many of the victims were drug-addicted sex-trade workers.
The current trial is for the deaths of six women -- Mona Wilson, Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Marnie Frey and Georgina Papin.
Pickton will face the remaining charges at a later trial.
