The jury at the Robert William Pickton first-degree murder trial was told Monday to ignore all the evidence about the skull of an unidentified woman, known only as Jane Doe.

Robert Pickton is on trial for the deaths of six women who went missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
(Jane Wolsak/Canadian Press)

Her partial skull was found in Mission, B.C., in 1995, and seven years later investigators at the Pickton farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., found a heel bone and rib bone with the same DNA.

The woman was never identified and investigators gave the remains the name Jane Doe.

"I've decided that the Jane Doe evidence is not anything you can consider in any way in determining whether the Crown has proven that Mr. Pickton is guilty of any or all of the offences on the indictment, or whether you have a reasonable doubt on any or all of those offences," Justice James Williams told the jury of seven men and five women.

The order comes a week after lawyers acting for Pickton launched their defence in the long-running case, which is being heard in the B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster.

Testimony from civilians, police officers and forensic specialists about Jane Doe's remains were woven throughout the Crown's eight-month case against Pickton for the murders of six Vancouver women. Jane Doe was not among those charges.

The ruling means the jury must sever even the most mundane references to Jane Doe from the reams of evidence.

The judge, in an unusual mid-trial instruction, cited witness Brian McConaghy's testimony as an example of the jury's task.

Cut marks similar

The tool-mark expert had testified that cut marks found on the remains of Andrea Joesbury, Mona Wilson and Sereena Abotsway were similar to those found on the Jane Doe partial skull.

That evidence will now have to be disregarded, but the jury can still take into account McConaghy's evidence on tools that could have been used to cut the other skulls.

Photographs of evidence relating to Jane Doe will also be stricken from the record. The judge said some will be replaced.

"You must not speculate why I have done this," Williams said. "You must also not for a moment think that this is the fault of the Crown or fault of the defence. It's not.

"The result for you is that you must put the Jane Doe evidence entirely out of your mind. You must disregard what you have heard about her. That evidence cannot form any part of your reasoning. It must simply be ignored."

Explicit instructions

Williams said he'll give the jury more explicit instructions on how to handle the evidence at the end of the trial.

Pickton is on trial for the murders of Abotsway, Wilson, Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Brenda Wolfe and Marnie Frey.

A trial on the remaining 20 charges is to follow at a later date.

"The integrity of this process requires, it demands, that you accept my instructions and that you follow them," Williams said.

"Our system operates on the premise you will faithfully follow the instructions that I give you. It is in that way that we have confidence in the trial process working properly."

After his instructions, the Crown resumed its cross-examination of Bill Malone, a longtime friend and business associate of the accused and his younger brother Dave.

Malone was testifying on the comings and goings on the Pickton farm.

With files from the Canadian Press