VANCOUVER - The public now has a chance to decide for themselves whether Robert Pickton is a dim-witted rube, as his defence lawyers suggested, or the ruthless, methodical serial killer he was convicted of being.
Anyone willing to sift through hours of discussions between Pickton and various police officers will be able to follow what those in the courtroom saw during the trial three years ago.
The video of Pickton's rambling discussions with his cellmate, an undercover police officer, was released Friday, along with transcripts of that discussion and of his 11-hour interview with police.
Video of his police interrogation is expected to be made public Monday.
People can go to a variety of media websites to see the tape and the transcripts. There, they can find for themselves the point where Pickton tells his cellmate that he planned to kill 50 women, then wait awhile before killing another 25.
And they'll be able to see video of him imitating horses and ostriches, laughing at his own stories of youthful pranks and becoming emotional about the death of a favorite horse.
The material also offers a clue as to why jurors might have interrupted their deliberations with a question that later formed the grounds for the case being appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
A lawyer for several media outlets successfully argued this week the recordings should be released now that the legal proceedings against Pickton are over.
Last week, the Supreme Court agreed Pickton's second-degree murder convictions should be upheld and the Crown stayed the remaining 20 charges against him on Wednesday.
The recordings were among the most important pieces of evidence in the Crown's case.
During closing arguments, lead Crown lawyer Mike Petrie repeatedly drew jurors' attention to the things Pickton said, including Pickton's confession that he killed 49 and that he got caught because he got sloppy.
But Pickton's lawyers urged jurors to pay close attention to Pickton's intellectual competence and his level of understanding.
The transcripts include some of the most chilling comments heard during the trial. For example, there's this excerpt from the cell plant discussion:
"Robert PICKTON: I was gonna do one more, make it an even fifty.
"(Undercover officer:) (LAUGHING)
"Robert PICKTON: That's why, that's why I was sloppy . . (INDECIPHERABLE)
"(Undercover officer:) Yeah.
"Robert PICKTON: I wanted one more, make, make the big five O."
Pickton made a similar statement in his interview with police.
Later on, Pickton told the cell plant that police had no one to pin the murders on and were coming after him.
"No, I'm screwed, tattooed, nailed to the cross and now I'm a mass murderer," he said, though the audio on the tape is virtually indecipherable.
Pickton told the officer he was supposed to be getting out of the pig business, but "I'm buried now. My name is mud."
Still later, he said: "I got a murder charge on me. . . and 48 more, 48 more to come. Whoopee."
In the interview with police, Pickton makes repeated references to himself as the "head-honcho."
And he is cagey about the role of a woman named Dinah Taylor, who police interviewers tell him they've been told may have been involved in some of the murders.
"There are bodies," Pickton said at one point.
When pressed, Pickton said repeatedly that he wanted to talk to Taylor before telling police anything more: "It's gonna come out anyways. . . But I gotta talk to her first."
Taylor has never been charged and did not testify at the trial.
Many months after hearing the taped interview when the jurors were finally sequestered, they asked the judge if they could find Pickton guilty if they inferred he acted indirectly.
In his answer, the trial judge said if they found Pickton "was otherwise an active participant" in the killings, they could find him guilty.
The answer formed the defence's main ground for appeal, but the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the argument.
The transcripts show Pickton's fascination at the notion he was famous. They indicate a man with a sense of pride, a fatalist who could be a wily negotiator but who had some quirks
During his interrogation, RCMP Staff Sgt. Bill Fordy showed Pickton newspaper clippings about the case. Pickton couldn't seem to get over it and asked a few times: "So my picture is all over the front page?"
Pickton was adamant and serious about the topic of showers and baths, telling the cell plant he would not take a shower while in custody, only a bath.
And he had unusual speech patterns and odd expressions. At one point, he asked Fordy "How does that word out?" and he said of himself "I'm mind baffling," and "I'll keep you in suspicion."
He told the cell plant raucous stories of stunts he pulled, like the Christmas Eve when he released some pigs in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and watched as police tried to capture them.
"'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the streets," he recited. "Not a soul to be found except two little pot-belly pigs and two working girls."
During the 11-hour interview with police, Pickton also mentioned that at one point he was engaged to a woman in the U.S. named Connie and spent several weeks with her when he was in his 20s.
"She couldn't leave her job and I couldn't leave mine," he said. "I had to get back to the farm."
The police handling of the case has prompted mounting calls for a public inquiry.
On Friday, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell wouldn't say whether his government will call one, suggesting it might not be the best way to ensure British Columbians find out everything about the investigation.
"We're going to do this deliberately and thoughtfully, and I think the people of British Columbia will be well-served by that kind of a process," Campbell said in a telephone interview from Manitoba at the conclusion of a premier's conference.
"The primary issue is not cost. It's making sure we learn as much as we can," he said.
"Sometimes public inquiries take a long, long time. They can get bogged down in legal discussions."
Campbell said his cabinet will decide within the next two weeks about whether to hold an inquiry.
