A police investigator told Robert William Pickton's murder trial Tuesday that she found human remains on Pickton's property as prosecutors showed the jury disturbing photographs of the evidence.

Const. Daryl Hetherington of the Vancouver Police Department testified she handled more than 3,000 exhibits as part of a search team that worked on Pickton's farm for nearly two years.

The search was not easy, she said.

"There was a number of us that were feeling ill and at some point health people came in and recommended that we wear masks," she said.

Hetherington told the B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster that she found human remains in a green garbage pail inside a slaughterhouse on the Port Coquitlam farm.

Crown prosecutor Mike Petrie, who was questioning Hetherington, warned members of the jury before directing their attention to a photograph showing the remains.

The remains were turned over to a forensic pathologist and later identified during an autopsy as those of Mona Wilson, Hetherington said.

She also told the court that Wilson's running shoes were found on the property, and her rosary was found in Pickton's trailer.

Pickton is being tried on six of 26 charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of missing women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, with a second trial to be held later. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.