As he faced a man accused of killing 26 women, Sunshine Coast RCMP Staff Sgt. Brad Zalys started to speak, and Robert Pickton began to listen, as testimony continued in the largest murder trial in Canadian history.
Zalys was at the notorious trial last Tuesday to tell the jury about something he investigated over 10 years ago while he was a corporal in Mission.
With a thick glass-like wall separating the crowd from the trial proceedings, Zalys told of a skull -a half skull - that was found in a slough near Mission and reported to the RCMP in February 1995.
Zalys was the second officer on the scene and responsible for identifying the "weathered and dark" skull as likely to be human, and having it sent to the coroner. "There was something very unique about this skull. It was sawed, cut in half, so we weren't really sure what we were dealing with," Zalys told Coast Reporter in an interview this week.
His testimony is part of the Crown's attempt to link the skull found near Mission to Pickton's Port Coquitlam pig farm. But Zalys' 1995 investigation would prove only to be the first of what would become a series of involvement with the Pickton case. While stationed in Coquitlam, Zalys headed up a group of officers who, in 2002, was part of a larger group of teams that discovered body parts while on a weapons search warrant at Pickton's farm. "I was not actually on the farm that night, but I had a group of officers reporting back," Zalys said, as he flipped through his notes from years back.
His precision note taking and experience has made Zalys a valuable witness in this long and complicated trial. From 1982 to 1992 Zalys was a crime scene examiner in Cranbrook and Prince George. He said, "I dealt with a fair amount of autopsies and bodies over those years."
Zalys has testified at hundreds of trials, heard and seen many things. However, he said the infamous nature of this case set it apart.
"It is probably the most well publicized trial in Canadian history, but other than that it was very similar to other proceedings I've been involved in," he said.
The New Westminster courtroom on the day of Zalys' testimony was absent of the media mayhem seen earlier in the trial, as the long days of seemingly tedious testimony have sent most reporters onto other beats.
"From what I saw the media is sharing information at this point," Zalys said. Another frenzy is anticipated once the trial nears an end.
Whether Zalys will testify again is unclear. He did not rule out the possibility, noting this is the first of two trials for Pickton. The second trial is expected to start as early as 2008.
