A former lead officer in the Robert William Pickton investigation says the jury did not have all of the information about the case.
Retired Insp. Don Adam said the jury did the best they could without all of the details of the case.
The ex-cop -- who at one time led the masssive police investigation into the 26 murder charges against Pickton -- echoes similar comments made by an author writing a book on the case.
"The jury didn't hear a great deal of information," Stevie Cameron told Canada AM on Monday.
On Sunday, the seven-woman, five-man jury found Pickton, 58, guilty on six counts of second-degree murder.
He had been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Mona Wilson, Marnie Frey, Georgina Papin, Brenda Wolfe, Sereena Abotsway and Andrea Joesbury.
To find someone guilty of first-degree murder, the jury would have had to accept that the Crown proved there was planning and deliberation on Pickton's part. CTV legal analyst Steven Skurka told Canada AM that he saw the second-degree murder verdict as a compromise.
Cameron noted some chilling letters written by Pickton in February 2006 to a pen pal as he awaited trial. The letters specifically mentioned prostitutes.
The six women were drug-addicted sex trade workers from the troubled Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver.
"That's just a taste of the kind of information that we know," Cameron said, noting her main book on the Pickton case can't be published until all the publication bans are lifted.
Pickton's lawyers painted a picture of their client as a simple-minded Port Coquitlam pig farmer. Pickton's IQ has been measured at 86, which is at the low end of the "normal" range of 85 to 115.
Cameron, who has covered the Pickton story since shortly after his arrest in February 2002, described Pickton as a cunning and dangerous man who is "smarter than you think."
He lived in a world populated by criminals and dangerous people who were capable of violence or even killing enemies, she said.
"He also had the perfect place to do it," she said, referring to the farm where Pickton used to butcher hogs.
Pickton used to be the steady customer of a Vancouver rendering plant, dumping about a dozen barrels per week of pig entrails.
Police dug up the farm in a painstakingly detailed search for forensic evidence. They found the partial remains of four women either inside or near the slaughterhouse. A freezer in the workshop contained the head, hands and feet of two more women. Other fragments of dead women were found scattered on the property.
In one crucial bit of testimony, Lynn Ellingsen, a Pickton acquaintance, told the court she stumbled into the workshop and saw a female body hanging "the same way (Pickton) hangs his pigs."
Andrew Bellwood, another Crown witness, testified that Pickton once told him his technique for killing prostitutes -- including disposing of their remains by feeding them to his pigs.
Justice James Williams of B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster will hear sentencing arguments about Pickton on Tuesday.
Second-degree murder convictions carry a minimum sentence of life in prison with no eligibility for full parole for at least 10 years. However, Williams could sentence Pickton to serve up to 25 years, which would be equivalent to a first-degree murder sentence.
Cameron said the families are eager to give victim impact statements to the court. "I don't think they will have any effect on the sentencing," she said of statement, noting that Pickton is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Trisha Baptie, a former sex trade worker who covered the trial as a citizen journalist, told Canada AM that she had tried to "humanize these very lovely women who got caught up in the most unfortunate of circumstances.
"We had reduced them to a bunch of nouns and adjectives ... They were daughters, they were nieces, they were cousins, they were mothers, they were victims. They were friends. They laughed. They cried. They were people -- and it is so unfortunate they met their ends in such a violent way," she said, sobbing.
Pickton still may face trial on 20 other charges of first-degree murder.
CTV's Todd Battis told Canada AM that the planning process for those charges could start as early as Jan. 17.
However, an appeal of the verdict from this current trial could affect the timing of a second trial, he said.
B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal told CTV Newsnet on Sunday that the "public interest" would determine whether Pickton goes to trial on the remaining 20 charges.
