NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. - A key Crown witness at the Robert Pickton trial said Wednesday he was interrogated in connection with the ongoing investigation into sex-trade workers missing from Edmonton.
Andrew Bellwood was under cross-examination for the third consecutive day after telling the court earlier this week that Pickton once told him how he murdered and butchered prostitutes.
Defence lawyer Adrian Brooks noted that Edmonton police asked Bellwood in September 2004 whether he had talked to Edmonton prostitutes and purchased drugs from them.
Bellwood at first said he didn't recall using the services of a hooker at that time, then said he may have.
He told the Pickton jury the questioning about the investigation in the Edmonton area about missing and murdered sex-trade workers made him angry.
Bellwood said he believed the only reason he was questioned about those disappearances was because of his involvement as a witness in the Pickton case.
"When I gave that statement I was pissed off,'' said Bellwood, who was expected to be the last of the major Crown witnesses in the case against Pickton.
An arrest was eventually made in the Edmonton killings.
Brooks spent the day pecking away at Bellwood's credibility, bringing up his use of drugs, his altercations with his common-law wife and statements made by Bellwood during his own court appearances that Brooks suggested were lies.
In 2004 he got a job driving a truck in Alberta and used the credit card provided by his boss to buy $1,200 worth of cigarettes, which he then sold.
He said he felt "justified'' at the time and still does because the employer owned him money.
In November 2004, while in Nanaimo, he asked his brother-in-law for money to buy drugs. He smoked crack and began to drive with another woman when they met Bellwood's partner coming to pick him up.
His partner and he had "heated argument'' and she ended up getting run over and suffered a broken pelvis, he said.
He told the court he couldn't recall if the other woman was a prostitute, although he admitted he bought drugs from her.
Brooks also reminded the witness of an appearance he made in court in Edson, Alta., on an assault charge involving his partner, but Bellwood said "there was no assault . . . it was a heated argument.'' He agreed to terms under a peace bond.
Brooks turned his attention to Bellwood's time on the Pickton property, where Bellwood has testified that Pickton told him one night how he lured, murdered and dismembered sex-trade workers.
Bellwood testified he saw Pickton pull handcuffs from beneath his mattress and demonstrate how he would cuff the women from behind.
Brooks suggested that what Bellwood saw were toy handcuffs and he wouldn't know the difference between real ones and toy cuffs.
Bellwood agreed but added that he was "110 per cent he pulled handcuffs from underneath the mattress.''
He also said he believed them to be real cuffs because of their "shiny consistency.''
The witness also agreed with a suggestion from Brooks that the total "benefits'' he had received from the RCMP since 2002 amounted to $16,635, including money to take a drug treatment program, pay rent, have dinners with RCMP officers to discuss the case, and a drug treatment program for his wife.
Pickton is charged with the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Georgina Papin, Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe and Andrea Joesbury. He will face a further 20 murder charges at a later date.
On at least three occasions during his cross-examination, Bellwood has had testy exchanges with Brooks over what Bellwood appeared to regard as irrelevant questions not connected to his crucial testimony.
At one point, he mockingly suggested the questions were as if Brooks was asking him to recall the number of rocks on the driveway at the Pickton farm.
"I know what I know and I heard what I heard,'' Bellwood said to Brooks.
