Others investigated in Canada serial-killing case

NEW WESTMINSTER, British Columbia, Jan 30 (Reuters) Police investigating accused serial killer Robert Pickton arrested three other people during the probe, but did not pursue charges against them, a Canadian court heard today.

Dinah Taylor and Lynn Ellingsen were arrested in February 2002 after police raided Pickton's farm -- but before he was formally charged with murder -- and Pat Casanova was arrested in January 2003, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Insp. Don Adam said.

Taylor, Ellingsen and Casanova all knew Pickton, and are expected to be called as prosecution witnesses in the murder trial in New Westminster, British Columbia.

Pickton has pleaded not guilty and is the only person charged with murder in the investigation of more than 60 missing Vancouver women.

This trial deals with six of the 26 first degree murder charges he now faces. The judge divided the case into two trials to make it easier for jurors to handle.

Pickton's attorneys have denied he was responsible for the six murders, but acknowledged that the women's remains were found on his pig farm in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia.

Police say Pickton, 57, brought prostitutes to his farm, killed them, butchered their bodies and disposed of the remains.

Adam, under cross examination by Pickton's attorney, told the court that Taylor, Ellingsen and Casanova were all thoroughly investigated during the probe.

Police have said they believe a woman helped Pickton bring prostitutes to his farm, and they told Pickton after his arrest that Ellingsen had told them she witnessed him cutting up a woman's body in the farm's slaughterhouse.

Adam, who headed the investigation into the missing women, said Pickton was known to the special task force before he was arrested on February 5, 2002, by officers investigating an unrelated weapons complaint.

Items found in Pickton's trailer home by the officers looking for an illegal gun led to murder charges being filed.

Adam said he knew soon after the gun raid that the investigation of the farm would have to be massive and require careful planning.

''You don't go on to a farm like that and rush around as if you're on some Easter egg hunt looking for a hot piece of evidence,'' Adam said.

Investigators spent 18 months on the ramshackle property and say they eventually found DNA belonging to 31 of the missing women, who were all drug addicts or sex trade workers from Vancouver's poor Downtown Eastside neighborhood.

REUTERS PB ND1052