The Crown and defence lawyers for Robert (Willy) Pickton agreed on the adjournment and said the hearing would resume in June for about three weeks.

The hearing began Jan. 13 before provincial court Judge David Stone.

Pickton, 53, is facing 15 charges of first-degree murder in connection with a long list of women who have disappeared from Vancouver's seedy Downtown Eastside in the last two decades.

The preliminary hearing is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial, which would be held in B.C. Supreme Court and not likely begin for at least a year.

The hearing was held in one of the largest courtrooms in this Vancouver suburb's provincial court.

Despite the notoriety of the case, the hearing rarely attracted large crowds, and there were many days when only a handful of reporters and members of the public watched the proceedings.

Some relatives of the victims occasionally attended but for the most part stayed away.

The case was ignited by a massive police raid on Pickton's farm on Feb. 6, 2002. Pickton was charged with the first two of the 15 murders Feb. 22, 2002.

He is charged with the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Diane Rock, Jacqueline McDonell, Heather Bottomley, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Jennifer Furminger, Helen Hallmark, Patricia Johnson, Georgina Papin, Heather Chinnock, Tanya Holyk, Sherry Irving and Inga Hall.

The 15 were among at total that eventually rose to 61 women from the Downtown Eastside — mostly drug-addicted prostitutes — who disappeared from the poverty-stricken neighbourhood.

The hearing is being conducted under a sweeping publication ban that forbids not only publication of the evidence but also any comments or submissions regarding evidence.

Courtesy of