PORT COQUITLAM, B.C. - Robert William Pickton has been known as goofy, a "good-natured little bastard" and a workaholic.
With 26 alleged victims, he's also accused of being Canada's worst serial killer.
The name Pickton has a long history in Port Coquitlam, B.C., a working class town east of Vancouver where many generations of the same family stay put.
The Picktons were no exception.
Great-grandfather William Pickton settled Port Coquitlam in the early 1900s, establishing the family as landowners and hog farmers.
He died in 1927 and his son Leonard and Leonard's wife Louise worked the farm.
They had three children - first came Linda, two years later Robert William, and two years after that, Dave.
"The mom, Louise, she was a character," says a 60-year-old construction worker who knew the family but didn't want his name used.
"She'd stand on the porch wearing a big dress. You didn't cross her. Dave's her spitting image."
It was Dave who first made the Pickton name famous in Port Coquitlam, just east of Vancouver and known as PoCo by locals.
"I'd see Willie but it was Dave everybody knew," said Dave Sheppard, 41, who has lived in this town most of his life.
"Everyone used to party with Dave."
The parties throughout the 1990s were famous, hosted at a converted barn known as Piggy's Palace on a property near the farm Leonard had bought in the 1960s.
The original farm had been sold to the government for highway construction.
Dave Pickton bought the Piggy's Palace property after selling off chunks of the second family homestead to developers eager to build homes, parks and schools.
Flush with cash, the brothers set up The Good Times society, an organization run in part to raise funds for local charities.
The parties were a who's who of local celebrity, attended by politicians, musicians, reporters and locals.
The guests were a far cry from the 26 women, many of whom were drug addicts and prostitutes, that Robert Pickton, 57, is alleged to have killed.
He was arrested in February of 2002 and his trial on six of those charges is set to begin on Monday.
Rumour and speculation course through Port Coquitlam as to what fate might befall Pickton during the trial. Some say they've heard he is gravely ill with liver and kidney problems and might not live through the proceedings.
Most of the public's exposure to Pickton has been limited to his court appearances at preliminary hearings, usually by video link, and what went on in the hearings has been banned from publication.
During the proceedings, Pickton sits motionless, slumped in a chair, looking downwards at the screen on which the saga of his alleged crimes is told to the court.
His stringy hair and pointed features have become more defined with time.
His voice is barely a whisper when he says "yes, m'lord" to questions from a judge.
Though he's given no interviews since being arrested in 2002, last fall letters surfaced in a local newspaper, The Vancouver Sun, allegedly written by him from his cell at the North Fraser pretrial centre.
The Picktons weren't known as a church-going family, but the letters contained two Bible passages, including one from the books of Acts, saying it was necessary to "suffer many hard things to get into the holy nation of God."
Dave Pickton has said his brother was often the target of losers who took advantage of his simple nature and generosity with money.
"Willie's goofy, Dave's smart," Sheppard said.
"It's not fair what's been done to him and that family by all of this."
Sheppard was referring to the plummeting value of the land that has been pillaged by investigators who have spent years sifting through the soil.
Before becoming the centre of a massive police investigation, Pickton worked the family's land and tinkered with cars bought for scrap. He helped Dave out with his gravel and demolition business and scoured a nearby golf course for balls he gave away to neighbours.
A blueberry farmer whose property abuts old Pickton land once referred to Robert Pickton as "a good-natured little bastard," adding the family worked 16 to 18 hours a day.
Though consistently referred to as a pig farm, the Picktons' land had ceased functioning as a full-working farm some years back, neighbours have said.
Robert Pickton bought and sold hogs at auction, then resold them to friends.
He was known to be a teetotaller, never touching alcohol or drugs, and didn't have time to make friends.
A neighbour once said she would tease Pickton about not having a girlfriend, but he'd retort that he didn't want to be "tied down."
Eldest sister Linda, who was sent away to school when she was 12, has said her family was devastated by the investigation and subsequent arrest.
"Our name has been tarnished," she said in a 2002 interview. "It has a humbling affect on us. Any good you've ever done in your life has been destroyed."
On Monday, Pickton will begin trial for the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey.
A second trial is to be held for the murders of Cara Ellis, Andrea Borhaven, Kerry Koski, Wendy Crawford, Debra Lynne Jones, Tiffany Drew, Sarah de Vries, Cynthia Feliks, Angela Jardine, Diana Melnick, Jacqueline McDonell, Diane Rock, Heather Bottomley, Jennifer Furminger, Helen Hallmark, Patricia Johnson, Heather Chinnock, Tanya Holyk, Sherry Irving and Inga Hall.
