Unknown To Knowledge

Trisha and Pauline at an editorial meeting at the beginning of the trial. Photo by Heather Wallace

I will give you the story on how it feels, on how it affects women to live that lifestyle...but I do not think I can bear the burden of giving you knowledge.

By Citizen Correspondent Trisha Baptie

Date Posted: 02/20/07

Reader Rating:

We heard yesterday from Daryl Hetherington, a 25-year veteran of the police force who joined the task force for the missing women in October, 2001 and joined the investigation at the farm on February 7, 2002. She's a woman who had probably seen much in her law enforcement career. Yet as she began to testify yesterday, she became emotional. She turned her back to the courtroom. I assumed she was gathering her notes or something. Little did I know she was actually gathering herself and taking a moment to breathe before the she shared with us the horrific situation she witnessed first hand.

After witnessing how deeply she felt affected, I sensed her testimony would be bad, so I took a big breath and closed my eyes - like somehow that would shut out some of the horror. She told us she walked in on a sow that was unable to stand, lying next to an aborted litter. A pit bull was playing with one of the fetuses. She turned around and saw a hog that had an injured leg that was clearly rotting. On that pig were two other pigs, obviously leaning on each other for warmth. She immediately called for someone to call a vet, and as she looked around the farm, which is supposed to be a 'pig farm,' she could find no pig feed.

What I heard in court this Monday is summed up in a few lines. But unpack those lines. Read each word separately and think over each sentence carefully. Imagine the state of the building -dirty and rundown. Investigators found notes left by a woman named Nancy, apparently a houseguest, begging Pickton to shower: "It's been six days-have a bath." I wonder how well a man with bad hygiene would take care of his animals. How would it smell to have a hog with a rotting foot? What noises come from pigs when they are too sick to stand? Do you think a sow can be aware that her aborted fetus is being violated by a dog? And the so-called "pig farmer" who is meant to be looking after them does not even have food for them?

Personally I have not stopped being weepy yet. I still have yet to learn how to go into court and impassively listen to this kind of information.