NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. - A man who learned how to kill and butcher pigs from accused serial-killer Robert Pickton says he never murdered anyone at Pickton's farm nor saw anyone harmed there.
Pat Casanova was once arrested but never charged in many of the murders Pickton is accused of committing.
He testified Monday he never saw any human remains at the farm where police found bones and body parts from six missing women.
Pickton is charged with killing Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe, Mona Wilson, Georgina Papin, Sereena Abotsway and Andrea Joesbury. He has acknowledged the remains of six women were found on his Port Coquitlam property.
But Casanova answered "no, sir'' when asked if he ever saw anyone harmed or killed.
"Did you kill any women?'' prosecutor Darrill Prevett asked.
"No sir,'' he said.
Casanova said he also never saw any human remains nor did he help dispose of remains.
He said he once saw some plastic handcuffs at the Pickton farm.
"It was in the slaughterhouse one time,'' he said. "I think he showed them to me.''
Pickton is on trial on six counts of first-degree murder but faces 26 murder charges in all related to women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Casanova, 67, was arrested on 15 counts -- including five of the six currently before the court -- but no charges were ever laid.
Prevett asked Casanova why he was arrested in the missing women case, then rephrased the question to ask him if he was arrested.
Casanova said he spent five or six hours in custody and never answered the question of why.
Casanova testified he met Pickton 18 or 20 years ago after setting up a business sideline selling small roasting pigs and pork cuts. He would go to the farm weekends to help slaughter and cut up the animals.
He said he initially knew nothing about butchering but learned by watching Pickton.
Casanova said he paid for oral sex from women at Pickton's farm but admitted he could not have intercourse.
He said the women included Lynn Ellingsen, who was also arrested in the murders, and two others named Roxanne and Angel.
Like Casanova, neither Ellingsen nor Dinah Taylor, the other person arrested, were charged.
Casanova, who came to Canada from the Philippines in 1974, testified in a raspy, quiet voice because throat cancer forced removal of his vocal cords.
He spoke by holding his thumb over a tracheotomy hole in his throat, saliva sometimes causing a gurgling sound on his longer answers.
Pickton, as he usually does, rarely glanced at the witness, instead hunching down to write notes to pass to his lawyers.
Casanova described himself as more of a business acquaintance than a social friend of Pickton.
Except for two years beginning in 1997, the pair butchered pigs together Saturday and Sunday evenings and on Monday morning, handling 20 to 25 on a weekend.
The two-year break happened when Casanova arrived at the slaughterhouse on Pickton's farm to find him angry for no apparent reason.
"He was furious going inside and said `I don't want you no more here,' '' Casanova told prosecutor Derrill Prevett.
He said he didn't know why Pickton was angry and didn't ask.
"He don't want no pigs no more and get out.''
Defence lawyers have repeatedly made reference to Casanova and the two others arrested in an effort to raise reasonable doubt among jurors that Pickton is guilty.
Casanova testified Pickton usually used a nail gun to kill pigs but used a .22-calibre rifle to kill cows he got from an auction on three occasions.
It was Casanova's job to heat water in a tank where the pigs would be put after they were killed, then he and Pickton would scrub off the hair before Pickton cut them up.
"After sorting out what's good he puts them in bucket and then bucket to a barrel,'' Casanova said, explaining that some of his customers would want the heart, liver and lungs.
"When barrel is full then he will take it to the rendering plant.''
Casanova also told court the Pickton farm and the buildings on it were "messy.''
The grounds were littered with "all kinds of vehicles there that's not running, mounds of dirt that came from their demolition and the refuse from demolition is there too.''
Prevett asked Casanova about the three freezers in the slaughterhouse.
He said they didn't work after a time and he used a freezer in the workshop.
Court has heard two plastic pails containing the heads, hands and feet of two women were found in a freezer in the workshop.
Casanova testified he bought a used bandsaw in 2000 or 2001 because he thought it would make it easier to cut up the pigs.
But he said the saw didn't work well -- it was designed to cut wood -- and he sold it after Pickton was arrested.
He said he kept the band saw at his own home in suburban Surrey, not at Pickton's farm.
A Crown witness testified earlier the saw had yellowish and granular material on it that was sent for DNA analysis but the results were not tabled in court.
