More than a decade ago, Cara King went missing in Edmonton. The impulsive 22-yearold “liked to live on the edge,” her mother, Kathy, remembered last month, and “struggled with many, many things.” In her teens, she lost interest in school and got involved with a social circle of older men, eventually getting addicted to cocaine. Sometimes, the drug caused psychosis, which landed Ms. King in and out of psychiatric hospitals. By the time of her disappearance in 1997, she had dropped regular contact with her middle-class family and was on the street, prostituting herself.

When Ms. King’s mother reported her missing that August and then attempted to follow up, she says police gave her the runaround, until one day an officer told her she should “wait for a body.”

Three weeks later, Cara King’s corpse was found in a canola field. Today, the case remains unsolved.

Disturbingly, elements of Ms. King’s story are playing out in scores of cases across the country as young women continue disappearing, their bodies dumped in remote back country, farmers’ fields, industrial lots and along desolate stretches of highway.

Until the spectre of Robert Pickton, their stories went largely unnoticed by the Canadian public. In many instances, the womens’ families have been their only campaigners. Until recently, their cases were also mostly ignored by police and treated as unrelated, unsolved homicides.

Across the country, 67 bodies have surfaced. In all but five cases, their killers remain unknown. In British Columbia, 37 women other than those connected to the Pickton investigation remain missing, although families say that number is closer to 80, with women vanishing mostly from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and the notorious Highway of Tears in the north of the province. In Edmonton, 31 women remain unaccounted for, with some cases dating back to the 1930s. In St. Catharines, the deaths of six prostitutes are the focus of a Niagara Regional Police task force. Since 1996, their bodies have turned up in ditches in Vineland and Welland, a school parking lot and the brush in Niagara Falls. Two men have been charged with three of their murders, but three cases remain unsolved.

In all of the cases, police face staggering challenges: huge and often remote search areas, decades worth of victims, many of them leading precarious lives.

“We face a lot of the same challenges as they did in the Pickton case. These victims, it’s part of their lifestyle to get into vehicles with strangers at odd hours of the night and to do it away from others seeing it,” said RCMP Constable Tamara Bellamy, who is part of Project Kare, a joint task force in Edmonton looking into unsolved murders and cases of “high-risk” missing persons.

“These are women who are addicted or involved in the drug world. It compromises their ability to help us with timelines. That’s a real difficulty for us, trying to find witnesses who are able to tell us the last time someone was seen and who they were seen with.”

In northern British Columbia, the bodies of 14 women have turned up since 1969 along the Highway of Tears, an isolated 724-kilo-metre stretch of Yellowhead Highway 16 West running between Prince George and Prince Rupert. Some of the women were prostitutes; nearly all were Aboriginal and hitchhiking. They include 26-year-old tree-planter Nicole Hoar and Tamara Chipman, 22, another hitchhiker whose father, Tom Chipman, walked the highway for months, looking in culverts for his daughter.

In Winnipeg, the bodies of 19 prostitutes — 17 women and two transgendered men — have turned up north and west of the city in the past 25 years.

The number is escalating: Three women have been murdered since April, the last being Fonessa Lynn Bruyere, 17, whose body was found in a field in August. In Edmonton, the bodies of 23 women have been found in hotel rooms, industrial areas, farmers’ fields and along rural roads since 1983.

Last May, RCMP charged Thomas Svekla with murdering Theresa Innes, a 36-year-old prostitute found stuffed in a hockey bag. Earlier this year, Mr. Svekla was also charged in the

death of a second prostitute, 19-year-old Rachel Quinney.

As in other similar investigations, Edmonton police deny that a serial killer is at work, arguing that assumption would jeopardize their work.

In British Columbia this October, RCMP doubled the number of files being probed from nine to 18, and expanded the investigation as far back as 1969 and as far south as Merritt and Kamloops. The investigation consists of 43 officers culled from several units.

“We didn’t do a great job talking to our communities and to the victims’ families way back when. In the last few years, we’ve picked up our socks on that,” said RCMP Staff Sgt. John Ward.

But aboriginal groups and some family members have criticized the investigation, specifically its expansion beyond the Highway of Tears just as it excludes some 40 missing women they believe vanished along the route. Police are also battling local rumours that a serial killer is prowling the stretch.

In Winnipeg, too, some experts say “a cluster dump” in a field outside the city likely points to a serial killer. In July, the body of 36-yearold Aynsley Kinch was found on the outskirts of Winnipeg. One month later, the most recent victim, Ms. Bruyere, was found a short distance east. Her body lay metres from the spot where Therena Silva’s remains were found almost five years earlier.

The field is likely a place where a serial killer feels comfortable discarding victims’ bodies, says Kim Rossmo. The former Vancouver police officer warned a serial killer might be stalking prostitutes in the Downtown Eastside, but had his theory dismissed by authorities. Now a professor in the department of criminal justice at Texas State University, Mr. Rossmo says a lack of resources and experience are often behind the categorical resistance of police to label any of the cases as the work of a serial killer.

“I think one of the issues is that it creates the expectation of a certain investigative process. Some agencies don’t want to deal with that. If you have a serial murder case, you have to investigate it. That can mean a pretty big demand on limited resources,” Mr. Rossmo said.

Along the Highway of Tears, it appears most efforts now focus on preventing new victims. Working with the RCMP and victims’ families, First Nations consultant Don Sabo prepared a list of recommendations to stop abductions along the notorious belt. Last March, his report was presented in Prince George at the highly publicized Highway of Tears symposium, which saw victims’ families tearfully demanding answers from the province.

His first recommendation is a shuttle bus service that might reduce the need for hitchhiking. Currently, the only public transportation between Prince George and Prince Rupert is a daily Greyhound bus. Isolated on reserves, local women often hitchhike into town for basic services, from groceries to doctors’ appointments. Few have drivers’ licences and fewer still have cars.

“The reason why there are so many young aborginal women going missing is poverty and geography. These reserves have little or no infrastructure. Poverty is the big thing for young women being on the highway,” Mr. Sabo said.

Today, Cara King’s mother heads the Prostitution Action and Awareness Foundation of Edmonton, which helps local women get out of the sex trade. The offices sit on a drug-infested stretch of 118th Avenue, “the stroll” from which many prostitutes in Edmonton have been disappearing.

She concedes that, “people who are legitimately high-risk are taken seriously now when they’re missing,” in Edmonton, but she remains bitter watching the Pickton case as her daughter’s murder remains unsolved.

“All of a sudden, there’s millions of dollars to sift six feet of topsoil at the Pickton farm and there’s no money for basic services that are going to prevent that carnage,” Ms. King said. “We’re fighting an uphill battle.”

On the line was the special guest lecturer for the forensic investigation class. He had mesmerized the mostly female class by answering their questions about killings and crime scenes, motives and modus operandi, crime and punishment.

Consistently responsive, often humorous, always respectful, Keith Hunter Jesperson spoke of his extensive experience in what the students were studying.

When women angered him, for example, “I got out the only way I knew, which was killing them.”

Mr. Jesperson, the imprisoned serial killer of at least eight women in six states between 1990 and 1995, was matter-of-fact as he spoke from the Oregon State Penitentiary, providing details about his murders and his mind.

The college seniors were transfixed as they learned from the kind of person they will seek to imprison in their careers as crime-scene investigators, crime-lab scientists and forensic analysts.

The conference call Nov. 5 wasn’t the students’ first interaction with the murderer known as the “Happy Face Killer” — a result of the smiley face on a handwritten letter he sent to an Oregon newspaper in the midst of his killing rampage. For the entire fall semester, Mr. Jesperson, 52, who is serving three life sentences, was the focus of a student-run project in which more than a dozen letters were exchanged.

Mr. Jesperson wrote at length about the prelude and aftermath of his murders, the evidence he destroyed or left behind, and the role forensics played in his capture.

This was one unusual college project, but by touching evil, the students leveraged lessons that no professor or textbook could provide.

Keith Hunter Jesperson was one of five children born in Chilliwack, British Columbia, to an alcoholic, abusive, work- and money-obsessed engineer father and an emotionally cold mother.

Mr. Jesperson felt unloved by his father, who moved his family to the state of Washington in 1967 when Keith was 12. As a child and as an adult, he set fires and tortured and killed dogs, cats and other animals. He married young, had three children and divorced. Eventually he found his niche as a cross-country trucker, but he also found himself fantasizing about taking women by force.

He confessed to killing eight women, mostly truck stop prostitutes, over slights real or perceived. At one point, he told authorities he actually had killed 166 women, but later recanted and said eight was the right number. The murders, by strangulation, occurred in Nebraska, California, Florida, Washington, Oregon and Wyoming. Some of his victims have never been identified.

Ron Freeman needed an easy read last summer for his return flight home from Seattle, where he had visited his daughter. What caught his eye in the airport bookstore was ” ‘I’–The Creation of a Serial Killer.”

The choice made sense for Mr. Freeman, a retired Pittsburgh police officer with 371/2 years on the job, 34 as a homicide detective and commander.

The 2002 book by true-crime author Jack Olsen details Mr. Jesperson’s life, his five-year murder spree, his confessions and his imprisonment. It is replete with first-person passages by the serial killer himself.

Mr. Freeman, who since retirement has taught at four area colleges, was intrigued by Mr. Jesperson’s story, particularly by his knowledge of forensic evidence.

Mr. Freeman’s course, “Forensic Investigation I,” in which students study procedures employed by crime-scene investigators, was set for the fall semester at Duquesne. The students would work with DNA, fingerprints, blood-splatter patterns and other evidence just like that in the investigation of Mr. Jesperson’s killings.

Why not have the students interact with “someone from the other side of the equation?” he said.

“In school, they talk to professors, scientists, and I’m an ex-cop. They get our perspective on the criminal justice system. I thought, ‘Why not try to look at it from a different side?’ “

On Aug. 27, the first day of class, he asked whether the students would be interested in contacting a serial killer as a class project. Participation was voluntary, but no one opted out. Sensitive to the unorthodox nature of the project, he required the students to get their parents’ permission.

Next, Mr. Freeman got the approval of Dr. Frederick W. Fochtman , director of Forensic Science and Law, a five-year master’s degree program that Duquesne has offered since 2001. They went to Dr. David W. Seybert, dean of the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, for his OK.

“My first reaction was, ‘What?’ ” Dr. Seybert recalled with a laugh. “I was intrigued. It sounded just like a wonderful learning experience. Our students are really pretty mature and pretty professional. I didn’t see any jeopardy or danger to students.”

There was jeopardy and danger aplenty for women who encountered Mr. Jesperson in the 1990s. His first known victim was Taunja Bennett, 23, on Jan. 23, 1990, near Portland, Ore. Ms. Bennett, who was mildly retarded, met Mr. Jesperson at the B&I Tavern.

He told the woman that he wanted to buy her dinner but needed to stop home for money. There they had sex but Mr. Jesperson’s violent temper came to the fore when she said to him, “Why don’t you get it over with and take me to dinner!”

Mr. Jesperson beat her until her face was unrecognizable; blood splattered the floor and walls. And then he strangled her. He cut out the front of her pants, fearing his fingerprints were on the metal buttons.

He returned to the bar to establish an alibi and later dumped her body near the Columbia River Gorge. Eight hours later the body was discovered. It would be five more years before Mr. Jesperson’s killing spree was halted.

It didn’t take long for leaders to emerge in Mr. Freeman’s class.

Friends Cara Spencer, Natalie Sciulli and Lyndsie Schantz volunteered to write the initial letter to Mr. Jesperson.

Miss Schantz said her parents were fascinated by the project. Miss Spencer and Miss Sciulli laughed, recalling that their parents jokingly had one caveat about their involvement: Don’t end up marrying Mr. Jesperson.

Their friends haven’t been as understanding when the women tell them they’re corresponding with a serial killer.

“Their eyes get really big,” said Miss Spencer, 22, of Greensburg.

“They say, ‘You’re using your real name?’ ” said Miss Sciulli, 21, of Crafton.

“My roommates can’t believe it,” said Miss Schantz, 21, of Lower Burrell. “They don’t understand it and don’t see the value of it like we do.

“I feel this is a way to get inside the mind of someone so evil to see how they think and how they were able to commit these crimes and basically have no remorse and to see the things they did to cover it up,” added Miss Schantz, whose chief interest is the psychological aspects of criminality.

Said Miss Spencer, who wants to be a coroner’s investigator: “Sometimes I feel sort of twisted about it, like this is entirely not normal. But then I realize I’m also in forensic science and most people consider that abnormal, to work with dead people in the first place. So, all in all, it sort of makes sense.”

Miss Sciulli, who plans to pursue a career processing crime scenes and working in a crime laboratory, viewed the interaction with a serial killer as invaluable.

“We already have the perspective of the good guys … but to have one of the bad guys tell us his mindset and how he went about making sure he didn’t get caught and how he knew what he knew is extremely helpful,” she said.

When news reports about the discovery of Miss Bennett’s body appeared, Laverne Pavlinac, 57, saw a way to get out of a 10-year abusive relationship with her boyfriend, John Sosnovske, 43. She told police that her boyfriend was the killer and she participated. Despite the fact neither had anything to do with the killing, Ms. Pavlinac was convicted and Mr. Sosnovske accepted a plea bargain.

Mr. Jesperson complained in anonymous messages on bathroom walls in Oregon and Montana and in letters to an Oregon County courthouse and to The Oregonian newspaper that police had the wrong people in jail. In the letter to The Oregonian, he drew a “Happy Face” at the top of the first page, giving birth to the infamous nickname.

He provided details about the crime that only the killer would know. Nevertheless, the couple ended up serving four years in prison until Mr. Jesperson was arrested in 1995 and showed authorities where he had scattered the contents of Miss Bennett’s purse.

The stranger-than-fiction tale was the subject of a 1999 Showtime movie titled “Happy Face Murders,” with Ann-Margret playing a character based on Ms. Pavlinac.

On Sept. 17, Miss Spencer, Miss Schantz, and Miss Sciulli composed their first correspondence to Inmate #11620304 at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem.

“We feel you could teach us a great deal about the legal system and forensic science from your standpoint,” they wrote. “For example, what knowledge of forensic science did you have at the time of your crimes?”

Some of the students were skeptical that they would ever hear back from the serial killer.

About a week later, Miss Spencer and Miss Sciulli walked into their adviser’s office on the third floor of Fisher Hall and learned they had mail: two letters from Mr. Jesperson addressed to “Duquesne University Forensic Science and Law Program — Cara-Lyndsie-Natalie.”

Miss Schantz hurried to the office. They phoned Mr. Freeman.

“Can we open them?” No, Mr. Freeman said, the contents should be revealed before the entire class.

The five days until the next class took forever. Finally, the three young women stood before their classmates, Mr. Freeman and Dr. Fochtman. The two envelopes were torn open, revealing nine handwritten pages.

“Dear Cara, Lyndsie and Natalie,” the Happy Face Killer wrote. “So you are seniors — forensic science majors. … Do you want the real truth?”

A Boca Raton, Fla., shopping center security guard discovered the victims, 47-year-old Nancy Bochicchio and her daughter Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, in the mall parking lot Thursday, sprawled in her idling SUV, apparently tied up then shot at point-blank range, The Palm Beach Post reported Sunday.

Local authorities sought the assistance of the special FBI unit, which has played a critical role in tracking down serial killers such as the BTK killer in Kansas, the newspaper said. The unit has begun gathering details of the crime in an effort to create a profile of the likely killer.

While an FBI spokeswoman warned the unit’s involvement does not necessarily mean authorities suspect a serial killer is at work, authorities believe the killing may be linked to an Aug. 7 carjacking during which a man captured a 30-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son, tied them up and held a gun to the child’s head. In that case, the attacker let the pair go after the woman withdrew money for him from an ATM.

Tayside Police were already trying to track down the killer of teenage prostitute Carol Lannen when two rabbit hunters stumbled on the remains of trainee nursery nurse Elizabeth McCabe, covered only by debris from the trees and a blue jumper draped over her shoulders. It was the eve of her 21st birthday.

For a time detectives thought both girls had died at the hands of a serial killer – and they had been told that Ms Lannen was last seen talking to a taxi driver. But the trail soon went cold.

Almost a quarter of a century later, new life was breathed into the inquiry when three Scottish police forces jointly set up Operation Trinity to investigate unsolved murders.

Tayside CID took over the investigation in June 2004. Files revealed that less than a week after Ms McCabe’s body was found, Vincent Simpson was questioned. A taxi matching the description of his beige Ford Cortina had been seen driving away from Templeton Woods on the night she disappeared.

Mr Simpson was a petty thief who appeared to have gone straight with the assistance of his in-laws who helped set him up in a private hire taxi business in Newtyle, a few miles from Dundee.

Back then, present rules which govern the way police can treat suspects and which limit questioning had not come into force.

Day after day, for hours at a time, Mr Simpson faced a grilling which would be impossible now. The man responsible, Detective Chief Inspector David Fotheringham – who has since died – was compared during the trial to the bullying cop Gene Hunt from the Life on Mars television series.

The detectives squeezed information from him, which did not show Mr Simpson in a good light.

During questioning, the suspect confessed to being a Peeping Tom who used walking his golden labrador as cover to spy on couples in Templeton Woods. But the hoped-for confession to murdering Elizabeth McCabe never came. It was another 25 years before Vincent Simpson, by then resettled in Surrey, was arrested and charged.

Tayside CID were hoping that advances in DNA testing would give them the evidence they needed for a conviction. So much so, that according to figures suggested during the trial they were prepared to spend £1m on lab tests.

But a jury decided Mr Simpson did not murder Ms McCabe. That given, this means that the nursery nurse’s killer – and, indeed, that of Carol Lannen – is still at large.

Goudeau, suspected of being the Baseline Killer, is also facing trial in connection with the murder of eight other women and a man in 2005-06.

If convicted, he could face a death sentence. He has pleaded not guilty.

Goudeau, 43, was sentenced by the Maricopa County Superior Court, following his conviction in September on charges of raping one woman and sexually attacking another.

During the two-month trial, both sisters identified the former construction worker as their attacker. DNA evidence also linked him to rape.

Goudeau had argued that he was innocent, saying that he “had nothing to do” with the assaults.

He is one of three men arrested last year in Phoenix suspected by the authorities of being the serial killers behind a spate of murders that caused serious concern among the city’s residents.

Goudeau is suspected of being a serial killer dubbed the Baseline Killer, named after a street in south Phoenix where several of the attacks took place.

It answers the question of who and why. When you don’t know, you don’t know if you’re passing that person on the street, if they’re local. >> Reporter David Rupp says he’s wondered for 28 years who killed his aunt, Mrytle Rupp. She was found naked and strangled to death inside her home, in Temple in 1979. Leads have been scarce since then, but DNA evidence from the scene was tested within the last year, and cross-referenced with a national database, and now police say there’s a match. >> Det. Pollock, Jr. We got a presumptive positive DNA result on the suspect Timothy Kracjir who is currently incarcerated in Illinois for several rapes and homicides in that area as well.

Police say Kracjir used to live in the Lehigh Valley and admits to killing 9 people in the 70’s and 80’s, including 5 women in Missouri. State Police from Reading went to Illinois Sunday to talk to Krajcir and get a new DNA sample before possibly charging him with murder. >> David Rupp Just relief, that all the rumors that circulated at the time of her death were unfounded, that it wasn’t someone local, it wasn’t somebody she knew.

Kracjir was incarcerated in Lehigh County prison in the mid 80’s for sexual assault, and he was already in prison in Missouri when he admitted to the murders there. David Rupp says more prison time is not the answer.

>> David Rupp I do feel a lot of contempt for the killer, I know people don’t believe in the death penalty, but I think any life he has left should be taken from him, like he took my aunt’s. The only thing he’s done with his life is kill people. >> Reporter State Police investigators are expected back Friday with more details of their interview with Kracjir…. including possible charges.

Timothy Krajcir is accused of committing those murders between 1977 and 1982. Cape Girardeau officials announced the new charges just hours after Krajcir was sentenced for the murder of Deborah Sheppard.

Police say he’s responsible for the deaths of Mary and Brenda Parsh, Sheila Cole, Margie Call, and Mildred Wallace.

Carbondale and Cape Girardeau police worked together to crack the cold cases.

After Timothy Krajcir was charged with killing Deborah Sheppard, Carbondale officials submitted evidence taken from that scene to a Missouri crime lab.

It turned out to have a connection with one of the Cape Girardeau murders.

“We received word from the lab technician that there was a relatively strong DNA match from evidence seized at the Wallace scene to Timothy Krajcir” says Cape Girardeau Police Chief Carl Kinnison.

65 year-old Mildred Wallace was killed in her home on Williams Street.

Police had long believed that her death was linked to the murders of Mary and Brenda Parsh, Sheila Cole, and Margie Call.

“Krajcir immediately became our primary suspect in all 5 murders.”

In an interview with both Cape Girardeau and Carbondale officers, Krajcir confessed to the killings of the five women, and to raping an unidentified 34 year-old Cape Girardeau woman.

Family members of the victims gave the police who worked on this case a standing ovation saying this news comes as a great relief.

“We thought about Mom every day. There were only 2 of us and I’m the only one left. My brother died a year and a half ago, so he’s not here for this, but I’m sure he’s watching from somewhere” says Don Call, son of victim Margie Call.

The next step is for Krajcir to be extradited from Illinois to Missouri so he can face the new charges.

Officials say they will not seek the death penalty. That was part of a deal made with Krajcir to get more details on one of the murders.

Krajcir, 63, a native of Allentown, pleaded guilty Monday to the 1982 rape and murder of Southern Illinois University student Deborah Sheppard. Later Monday, he was charged in Cape Girardeau, Mo., with killing five women from 1977 to 1982. Authorities also announced that day that Krajcir admitted to three other killings.

The locations of those killings were not released, but police in Reading; Marion, Ill.; and Paducah, Ky., are taking a close look at Krajcir. Meanwhile, authorities in Poplar Bluff, Mo., and New York, New Jersey and Colorado are reviewing unsolved cases to see if there is a possible link.

Krajcir has spent most of his adult life behind bars for sex crimes. After a stint with the Navy, he entered the Illinois prison system in 1963 on rape charges. Except for a brief period of freedom in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Krajcir has been in prison ever since. Records show that he was arrested in Allentown in 1983 on sexual-assault charges and served time in prison in Pennsylvania, the Allentown Morning Call reported this week.

DNA evidence connected Krajcir to the Sheppard killing in Carbondale, Ill., and the Cape Girardeau murders. Authorities in Pennsylvania said DNA evidence also links him to the 1979 murder of 51-year-old Myrtle Rupp, found strangled inside her Reading home.

DNA collected from the murder scene was submitted to a nationwide database and Krajcir came up as a match, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Thomas G. McDaniel said.

“We feel pretty confident in the investigation,” McDaniel said. Authorities were investigating whether Krajcir could have been involved in other unsolved crimes in Pennsylvania.

Smith said Krajcir agreed to admit to the killings in Cape Girardeau and Carbondale only after authorities promised not to pursue the death penalty. Smith said it is possible Krajcir killed others in addition to the ones he’s admitted to, but he doubted it.

“He disclosed some things he wasn’t really forced to up front,” Smith said. “On the other hand, could he have done others? Yes.”

Pickton, who was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder Sunday, will be handed a life sentence by Judge James Williams but the number of years he must serve before being eligible for parole is up to the judge who can pick a number anywhere between 10 and 25 years.

The jury declined to make recommendations when they returned a verdict in the case on after 10 days of deliberations.

Crown counsel Mike Petrie suggested Monday the Crown will seek the maximum 25 years.

“Our position is that this is a case where the maximum would be appropriate,” said Petrie.

“He is convicted of six counts of second-degree murder over a period of time, they were vulnerable victims, we’ll make all those points.”

Before both Crown and defence make submissions on the length of sentencing, family members of the six victims will have a chance to address the court.

The Criminal Code says the court must consider their statements before pronouncing a sentence, but one victim advocacy group acknowledges it doesn’t really work out that way.

“Some people argue that it doesn’t really have an impact on sentencing because it is provided literally right before the judge makes that determination,” said Heidi Illingworth, executive director of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime.

“But it is, in the view of our organization, an important role for the victims’ to have if they choose to do that.”

Illingworth said the statements give the families a chance to outline the emotional, physical and financial impact the crime has had on their lives.

They must, however, stay away from attacking the criminal himself or asking for a specific sentence.

In British Columbia, no program exists that gives the victim the right to read the statement aloud in court – that’s up to the discretion of the judge.

The Crown has indicated they plan to ask the judge to give family members that chance on Tuesday.

At least two have said they wish to address the court directly, and more than a dozen statements have been submitted.

The family members of the other 20 women Pickton has been charged with killing will not be given a chance to address the court unless the former pig farmer is convicted on those counts as well.

A trial is expected at a later date.

One of the police officers closest to the investigation, however, said he was skeptical about bringing the remaining 20 charges in front of a jury.

In a candid interview outside the New Westminster, B.C. courthouse, retired Insp. Don Adam said jury trials might not be the best way to handle mega-cases like the Pickton file.

“The thought of bringing 12 more citizens in and going through this worries me,” Adam said.

“But I tell you that if we had three justices that could sit on that, I’d go for that in a heart beat.”

Adam said he felt the justice system has betrayed the seven men and five women hearing Pickton’s case because they weren’t presented with all the evidence.

” To me, full justice wasn’t done,” he said.

“I don’t need to pretend that that was justice at its best. It’s justice, and I believe that Justice Williams will make things as right as he can (Tuesday) and we’ll all go on.”

Pickton was convicted of the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe and Georgina Papin.