NEW WESTMINSTER - She readily concedes that her memory is a hazy fog, blurred by years of cocaine and alcohol abuse, and a seemingly endless legion of glaring inconsistencies were brought to the jury's attention Tuesday.
But key Crown witness Lynn Ellingsen remained adamant in the face of a fourth day of tough cross-examination -- she walked into Robert Pickton's pig slaughterhouse one night and saw him with a woman who was hanging from a hook over a table.
"It was a body,'' Ellingsen insisted as defence lawyer Richard Brooks took her through statements she made to police in February 2002 -- the month that Pickton was arrested in connection with the dozens of women missing from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
"I know it was a body.''
Brooks, who has been cross-examining Ellingsen since June 26, spent much of the day taking Ellingsen through statements she made to police after the Pickton case broke in early 2002. He also took her through statements she made under oath at Pickton's preliminary hearing in 2003.
Ellingsen has testified that she lived briefly on the Pickton property, in a separate room in Pickton's trailer, although she is unsure of exactly when and how long.
Brooks showed her one statement she made in February 2002 when she told an officer that what she alleges she saw was "like a body'' and later that she didn't look at all but still saw a "naked body.''
"Can I explain?'' she asked. "I couldn't see her face. Her head is way up but I can see the body.''
He reminded her that she told the police that she said she saw legs but in a police statement in February 2002 she also told the police she opened the door to the slaughterhouse and "ran away,'' then later in the same statement says she went in.
Brooks said she also told the police that she couldn't see a woman and couldn't see anything.
Ellingsen again tried to explain, attributing the inconsistency to a fear of Pickton.
"Today if I focus on something I try to bring it back. It's been several years. At the preliminary hearing I was afraid. What if he is not convicted? He's going to come and get me.''
Ellingsen has consistently linked the night she said she saw Pickton butchering a woman with a series of events she said occurred on the same night, including Pickton and her being stopped by police in New Westminster, proceeding to Vancouver to pick up a prostitute then returning to Pickton's Port Coquitlam, B.C., farm.
She has said she saw Pickton in the slaughterhouse with a woman hanging from a hook that night.
Ellingsen has always maintained she left the property after that incident.
Brooks suggested that the New Westminster stop was March 20, 1999, and Ellingsen said that because of her drug addiction the dates don't mean anything to her.
Brooks produced an ambulance service report that indicated an ambulance call for Ellingsen on Pickton's property on March 29, 1999, and another May 30, 1999.
Ellingsen told the jury the "series of events'' might not have been the same night.
"As I mentioned before, dates and times I don't recall. It's possible that it could be and possible it wasn't. There is a little bit of doubt.''
Brooks asked Ellingsen about her changing statements about the light in the slaughterhouse, how bright it was, whether it shone on the figure hanging and where it was located.
She had different versions in her various statements to police and at the preliminary.
"I'm trying to remember back to this incident,'' she protested. "It's not something everybody would experience. Today I'm not in my addiction.''
Ellingsen testified last week that he has had some slipups in her battle against addiction, including using crack cocaine two weeks before she began testifying.
"You say the light was not on her, then right on her?'' said Brooks, asking her to explain.
"I'm not paying attention to the light. All I know is I seen this body hanging.''
Ellingsen has admitted she was smoking crack cocaine that night and had been drinking, but has also testified that the drug does not make her hallucinate.
Pickton is on trial on six counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Georgina Papin, Brenda Wolfe, Mona Wilson and Andrea Joesbury. He faces another 20 counts at a later date.
