NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. -- The man who led the RCMP task force that investigated missing women on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside expressed his disappointment Monday about the verdict in the Robert (Willie) Pickton murder trial.
Former inspector Don Adam, who retired last week, said there was more than enough evidence to convict Pickton of first-degree murder in the deaths of six women who disappeared from the troubled area between 1997 and 2001.
"If there is a person here who doesn't know (Pickton) planned these murders, then I'm on the wrong planet," Adam said Monday.
"That he walked away and we legally consider him innocent of that -- that wasn't right."
After deliberating Pickton's fate for 10 days, a jury found him guilty Sunday on six counts of second-degree murder. But they acquitted him of first-degree murder, which is defined as a planned and deliberate killing.
Adam said the trial judge handled himself intelligently and compassionately, but that his four-day address to the jury was difficult to understand because it was full of "legalese driven by appeal courts."
"I don't think there was a person here who understood it," Adam said.
Adam said he feels the jury might have reached a different verdict if they had been allowed to see all the evidence police gathered.
"I believe that we let (the jurors) down. We took a year out of their lives and we didn't give them everything," Adam said. "What's going to happen when they actually find out everything? How are they going to feel? And haven't we betrayed them?"
A superior court judge, who presides outside British Columbia and did not want his name used, said Monday that one or more people on the Robert Pickton jury almost certainly were pushing for an acquittal and the second-degree verdict was a compromise.
With one or more holdouts, the remaining jurors had no choice but to opt for second-degree.
"If one holds out for an acquittal and the difference is going to be compromising from first to second degree, or a mistrial, what would you do if you were the 11 people?"
The judge said he's done enough jury work as a lawyer and a judge to know that juries can do "strange things and this one I read as a pure compromise to save the trial."
The next step in the process that began almost six years ago with Pickton's arrest occurs Tuesday when Pickton is sentenced.
His conviction calls for a life sentence but the parole eligibility date must be set between 10 years and 25 years.
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."
The prosecutor also reiterated that the verdict satisfied him, even though the charges were for first-degree murder.
"He was convicted of murder. We charged him with murder and he was convicted of murder."
-- CanWest News Service, with files from The Canadian Press
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