RCMP Sgt. Bill Fordy plunked a poster in front of the murder suspect. It contained the faces of 48 women who had vanished from Vancouver's streets.
"Have any of these women been to your place?" Sgt. Fordy asked.
Mr. Pickton replied that so many women come and go from his house that he can't keep track. He tells his interrogator that he's good with numbers but bad with faces.
"I do not remember faces," he says. "Which ones am I supposed to [be] charged for, for murder, if you don't mind me asking?" The officer says he doesn't mind at all and points to one of the women. Mr. Pickton asks: "That one? Who the hell is she?"
He is told other witnesses say some of the women were at his place. "No way," says Mr. Pickton. "I don't know any of these women."
The evidence was played in videotapes for the jurors at Mr. Pickton's first-degree murder trial Tuesday. The lengthy police interrogation with the accused lasted 11 hours and involved several officers from the joint RCMP-Vancouver Police task force probing the missing women.
"Have you even had sex with any of those girls?" court heard the police officer continue. "Not that I'm aware of," Mr. Pickton said.
The exchange came during the 11-hour police interrogation of Mr. Pickton after his arrest on Feb. 22, 2002. At this point in the investigation, he was charged with just two murders and police had not yet found body parts on his Port Coquitlam farm. He is in court now facing six murder charges.
Throughout the opening hours of the interview, Mr. Pickton responds to police questions without hostility or aggression. He appears comfortable with long silences. He shows no emotion.
For most of the time, Mr. Pickton sits with his hands resting on his chest, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He yawns repeatedly throughout the early hours of the interview, as if he can barely stay awake.
The officer points to each face on the poster, one by one, and asks Mr. Pickton if he knows them or brought them to his house.
Mr. Pickton says "No" to each woman, although from time to time he remarks on how pretty some of them are.
He tells the officer he hasn't had sex for about a year; and it was with a former girlfriend named Roxanne who moved out.
Sgt. Fordy turns the subject to sex with prostitutes and asks about Mr. Pickton's first experience with "a working girl."
Mr. Pickton said it was with the women who stabbed him in 1997.
The seven men and five women in the jury saw Mr. Pickton on videotape Tuesday, his lanky frame slumped in a chair in a suburban Vancouver police station. He appeared bored as he deflected questions from a police interrogator after his arrest.
"I'm just a pig man, that's all I got to say" Mr. Pickton told Sgt. Fordy seated across from him in an interrogation cell.
At one point the police officer describes the extensive police investigation that had been launched on the Pickton farm. Mr. Pickton asks what they are looking for. He is told they are looking for any evidence clarifying his involvement. As Sgt. Fordy continues to talk about the investigation, Mr. Pickton yawns and asks, "What's that got to do with me?"
Court heard Mr. Pickton, in a tinny, high-pitched voice, describe the accusations against him as "hogwash," saying he was being set up.
"You are being investigated for upwards of 50 other disappearances and or murders," Sgt. Fordy said.
"In your own words, Rob, can you explain to me what that means to you?"
"What it means to me. Hogwash," Mr. Pickton answered.
