NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. - Robert Pickton's defence lawyer and the lead police investigator in the serial murder case sparred incessantly Tuesday, arguing over whether investigators were biased and lied and badgered Pickton into exhaustion during an interview.
RCMP Insp. Don Adam, head of the missing women's joint task force when Pickton was arrested in February 2002, spent his sixth day on the witness stand Tuesday, facing a barrage of questions from defence lawyer Peter Ritchie.
Ritchie focused on sections of the 11-hour-long interview that took place the day after Pickton was arrested, suggesting Pickton was clearly fatigued during the interrogation.
Adam disagreed.
However, the officer agreed that sometimes, investigators lied to Pickton.
Ritchie also suggested RCMP tried to negotiate with Pickton during the interview even while telling him they couldn't because any deal would then be inadmissible in court.
"Throughout the interview I wanted the truth,'' Adam said to Ritchie, who will continue his questions Wednesday. "I didn't want him to tell me a bunch of stories.''
"You didn't want him just claiming to have killed girls that he didn't kill,'' said Ritchie.
"That's correct,'' said Adam.
Ritchie suggested it would be odd for Adam to tell Pickton not to confess to something he didn't do.
Responded Adam: "I don't know that I had talked to a serial killer before this, so it just seemed like the right thing to say,'' said Adam.
"You've got him convicted already,'' Ritchie said. "In my mind I believed he was guilty,'' Adam said. Pickton was eventually charged in the deaths of 26 women from Vancouver's gritty Downtown Eastside and is currently standing trial in B.C. Supreme Court in the deaths of six of them.
In exchanges that often got testy, Ritchie painstakingly questioned Adam about his techniques during the interview, a key piece of Crown evidence that the Crown maintains incriminates Pickton.
Jurors spent most of last week watching a videotape of the interview and hearing the explosive allegations contained in it.
Adam repeatedly disputed suggestions Pickton was badly treated, saying he didn't think Pickton was fatigued and disagreeing that Pickton fell asleep during the interview.
But as Adam thumbed through portions of the interrogation transcript Monday, he agreed with Ritchie's suggestion Pickton yawned 14 times.
"I would describe it as resting,'' said Adam.
Ritchie, sounding slightly sarcastic, reminded Adam the officer slept in his own bed the night before while Pickton slept in a cell.
"Do you know if he slept?'' asked Ritchie. "If he had a good sleep?''
Adam said he didn't know.
Ritchie leaned on a podium with briefing notes spread out around him and suggested Pickton showed signs of fatigue, but Adam dismissed it.
"I think he was trying to find a comfortable way to sit,'' the officer said.
At one point in the interrogation Ritchie suggested Pickton was asleep, but again, Adam disagreed.
Ritchie, who often leaned on the jury box and looked across at Adam seated in the witness box diagonally across the room, demanded to know if Adam was overbearing.
"I don't think we ever overbore Mr. Pickton,'' responded the officer.
At the end of the interview, Pickton told Adam that he had gotten "sloppy'' in cleaning up human blood and that he planned "one more.''
Adam conceded the interrogation was probably tough on Pickton.
"There's got to be internal stress,'' he said. "It has to be tiring.''
Ritchie took Adam through parts of the interview where Pickton suggested he'd be more forthcoming with information if the police left his property.
Adam denied they were negotiating and agreed with Ritchie's suggestion that offering inducements or promises could render an interrogation inadmissible in court.
Ritchie noted a part of the interview in which Adam left the interrogation room, spoke to another officer, then returned.
At that point, Adam told Pickton he can't negotiate, but the other officer told Adam that if Pickton explained what he did and how he did it, that might change the way the police investigate the farm, Ritchie said.
But Adam maintained his comments were not negotiations.
"We could be off the farm sooner,'' said Adam. "That's all I'm trying to convey.''
Adam admitted to misleading Pickton when he said a friend of Pickton's, Dinah Taylor, was co-operating in the investigation.
"My understanding at that time is that her parents wanted her to co-operate with the investigation,'' he said.
"But I'm being misleading with him when I'm indicating that things are quite rosy and that she's going to get on board. She never got on board at all. So that is misleading.''
"It's called a lie,'' Ritchie said.
"Well, maybe wildly optimistic at the time,'' Adam said. "I thought we could get her on board. We worked very hard to try.''
