Friend of Robert Pickton tells jury of threats

NEW WESTMINSTER - A close friend of Robert Pickton testified Thursday that another acquaintance of the accused serial killer threatened to kill a woman named Andrea.

Gina Houston, who testified in late May and completed her cross-examination Thursday, recalled two or three telephone conversations she said she had with Dinah Taylor.

Houston, who is stricken with cancer and said she has lost half her weight since the conversation that she said occurred in June 2001, was shown a poster by defence lawyer Marilyn Sandford.

The poster contains the pictures of 48 women missing from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, including the six named on the indictment against Pickton.

Houston identified the third photo -- Andrea Joesbury -- as the woman that she had been introduced to one day by Taylor in the Downtown Eastside, and also the subject of a telephone conversation between an "angry'' Taylor and Houston.

Houston recalled the woman she met briefly as being well-mannered, polite and soft-spoken and said they only met one time in the spring of 2001.

The witness agreed with a suggestion by Sandford that she had been at Pickton's trailer residence on his Port Coquitlam property in June 2001 and noticed that the trailer had been cleaned thoroughly.

She said Pickton showed up when she was on the property and asked Houston where was "the girl that cleaned the trailer'' because he was signing cheques that day.

She agreed with Sandford's suggestion that Pickton said he was going to meet with Taylor and the cleaning girl in New Westminster, B.C.

Houston said she got a call a few hours later that day from Taylor.

"Dinah was angry and she kept telling me she was going to kill the bitch,'' said Houston.

Houston said that Taylor was angry because "Willie'' had given the woman more money than he had given Taylor.

"She was talking about Andrea,'' said Houston.

Andrea Joesbury was reported missing June 8, 2001.

Houston said Taylor insisted that Houston pick up Taylor and the other woman and take them to the property, but Houston refused.

The witness described Taylor's demeanour on the phone as "irrational, enraged and not the person I knew.''

Under re-direct examination by Crown prosecutor Mike Petrie, Houston acknowledged that she had had only a brief face-to-face meeting with the woman she identified as Andrea.

He persisted in questioning how she could remember her name so well after only a brief meeting.

"I believe so,'' said Houston.

Petrie asked whether the name she recalled was Andrea or Andy, "or something else.''

Houston said it might have been "her street name.''

The jury has already heard at least two references to Joesbury having the street name of Angel.

Petrie suggested Houston might have learned the name "Andrea'' from the media. He reminded her that she had also told Sandford of another time she met a woman through Taylor named Michelle.

Houston said "Andrea'' was petite compared to Michelle.

"Do you know today that No. 3 is the woman (Taylor) was talking about?'' asked Petrie.

Houston conceded she was not certain.

Pickton is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Joesbury, Marnie Frey, Sereena Abotsway, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Mona Wilson.

The Crown and defence also presented the jury with a set of admissions, or facts that both sides agree on.

One concerned a woman named Wendy Eistetter. The jury heard that she was working as a prostitute in the Downtown Eastside and that Pickton picked her up in a truck and drove her to his property on March 22, 1997.

She said that the drive was too far but consented when he offered her $100 and said he would drive her back to Vancouver afterwards.

Inside the trailer they had sexual intercourse and she was paid $100.

The sides agreed that a woman named Maria Isidoro was hitchhiking in the fall of 1999 when she was approached by Pickton in a truck on the east side of Vancouver.

They drove to his property after he offered her $100 for sex and the promise of a ride back to the city. In the trailer, he offered her a job for $800 a month and free room and board as his caretaker.

She performed oral sex on him and he gave her another $50 and drove her back to the city. She called the next day and asked him if he wanted a date. He declined but later drove to Vancouver and gave her $40.

In May, Houston testified that Pickton told her Taylor "was responsible'' for some of the murders.

Houston testified about a conversation she and Pickton had in a car on Feb. 20, 2002.

At the time, police had been on Pickton's property for two weeks and the chat occurred just two days before he was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Houston also testified about a scuffle she overheard while speaking to Pickton on the telephone in December 2001.

She said she asked Pickton whether a woman named Mona was involved in the scuffle and Pickton said she was.

Mona Wilson is among the six women Pickton is accused of killing.

Under cross-examination in May, Houston agreed Pickton told her in the car that Taylor was responsible for Mona's death and some others.

But Houston agreed she might have got the name Mona from media reports at the time.

Houston also testified earlier that Pickton told her there were several bodies on his farm and that he suggested she join him in a suicide pact. He mentioned a rope, a truck or a train, she said.

She told the jury that Pickton said to her there were "one, two, three, four, five or maybe six bodies'' in the piggery _ a mostly abandoned area behind a building that Pickton used to slaughter pigs and adjacent to the trailer he lived in.