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| Canada farmer is guilty of murder | Canada farmer is guilty of murder |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| A pig farmer accused of being Canada's most prolific serial killer has been found guilty of second-degree murder. | A pig farmer accused of being Canada's most prolific serial killer has been found guilty of second-degree murder. |
| Robert Pickton, 58, was being tried for the murders of six women whose remains were found on his Vancouver farm. | Robert Pickton, 58, was being tried for the murders of six women whose remains were found on his Vancouver farm. |
| Under Canadian law a murder conviction leads to an automatic life sentence. Pickton must wait 10 years for possible parole. He pleaded not guilty. | Under Canadian law a murder conviction leads to an automatic life sentence. Pickton must wait 10 years for possible parole. He pleaded not guilty. |
| Pickton is charged with killing 26 women. A trial date for the other 20 murder charges has not been set. | Pickton is charged with killing 26 women. A trial date for the other 20 murder charges has not been set. |
| The verdict followed a week of deliberations by the jury, and 10 months of gruesome testimony and evidence. | |
| Pickton's head was bowed as the verdict was read out. Two female jurors wept, and members of victims' families cheered. | |
| Gruesome evidence | |
| The pig farmer denied killing any of the women, but prosecutors presented thousands of pieces of forensic evidence and showed video of him admitting to police that he was hoping to kill 50 women. | |
| Pickton had been charged with first-degree murder but the jury lowered that to the less severe second-degree murder. | |
| The BBC's Iran Gunn in Vancouver says this means the jury did not believe there was sufficient evidence that Pickton had pre-planned all the murders. | |
| Police had found the dismembered remains and personal belongings of the women Pickton was accused of picking up from the streets of Vancouver when they raided his farm outside the city in 2002. | |
| The 10-month trial heard from almost 130 witnesses. | |
| Our correspondent reports that the pig farmer's lawyers argued that none of the evidence proved that he himself had murdered the women. | |
| But the prosecutor said the evidence, while circumstantial, was more than enough to prove that Pickton had been the murderer and the jury eventually agreed. |