A key Crown witness in the Robert William Pickton murder trial admitted Wednesday that she lied about being assaulted by her ex-boyfriend, and didn't recant the story until after he had spent two months in custody.

Lynn Ellingsen, a former friend of Pickton's, testified in the B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster that she concocted the story about her former boyfriend during a crack-induced psychosis.

Crown witness Lynn Ellingsen testified Wednesday that she lied about being assaulted by her boyfriend.
(Chuck Stoody/Canadian Press)

Ellingsen, 37, was grilled by defence lawyer Richard Brooks Wednesday as the defence attempted to bring her credibility into question. Ellingsen was the first witness since the trial began in January to testify about seeing Pickton with a dead body.

Pickton is facing 26 counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He is currently on trial for six of the deaths and will be tried on the remaining 20 later.

Ellingsen testified that she went to the Crown office in Surrey, B.C., in early June — on the day her boyfriend was supposed to go on trial — and informed people in the office that the story she had told about her boyfriend abusing her was not true.

Ellingsen told them she had a history of getting into fights and that she hit her boyfriend, not the other way around.

"I explained to the lady [at the registry of the Crown office] that alcohol and drugs were involved," Ellingsen testified. "I had hit him and I wanted no charges laid."

The defence asked Ellingsen exactly what she told the Crown about her boyfriend, who was charged with assault-related offences in March and April.

"You told Crown counsel he had never made physical contact with you on the date you told [a police officer] he grabbed you, and he choked you, and he hit you and he did all these awful things to you?" Brooks asked.

"You told told the Crown that was not true?"

"Yes I did," Ellingsen answered.

"This was after [your boyfriend] had spent, what, two months in custody?" Brooks asked.

"Yes," Ellingsen replied.

Brooks also asked Ellingsen about her allegations that her boyfriend threatened her over the phone, allegations which she also later admitted weren't true.

"You told Crown counsel that the phone messages were not from [your boyfriend] but from your drug dealer's boyfriend, do you recall telling the Crown that?" Brooks asked.

"Yes I do," Ellingsen said.

'I'm an addict, not a doctor'

Brooks questioned her about why she told the Crown counsel she was in a condition of "crack-induced psychosis" at the time.

Ellingsen would not explain what the term means.

"I'm an addict, not a doctor," she told Brooks.

Ellingsen, who has been on the stand since Monday, testified she was smoking crack cocaine the night she walked into the slaughterhouse on Pickton's Port Coquitlam farm and saw Pickton — who she said was covered in blood — standing next to a dead woman hanging from a chain.

She testified about the memory on Monday, during which time she also testified that crack cocaine does not make her hallucinate.

Pickton is on trial for the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Marnie Frey and Georgina Papin — all women who went missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside between 1997 and 2001.

Pickton, who was arrested in 2002, has pleaded not guilty.

The jury of seven men and five women has already heard that Ellingsen was one of three people who were arrested, but never charged, in connection with the Pickton case.

On Wednesday, the jury got more details about Ellingsen's arrest, learning that police took her into custody on 11 counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

She was arrested Feb. 10, 2002, 12 days before Pickton was first charged.

With files from the Canadian Press