The marathon trial of Robert William Pickton, charged with six counts of first-degree murder, reached one of its final milestones Tuesday as his defence lawyers rested their case in the B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster.
  
The move means testimony is at an end and all that's left now before the jury starts deliberating Pickton's fate is for both sides to submit their final arguments and for the judge to deliver his instructions.

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

Justice James Williams said final submissions will begin Nov. 13 and if everything goes according to schedule, jurors will begin their deliberations a week later.

Pickton, a Port Coquitlam pig farmer, is charged in the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Marnie Frey and Georgina Papin.

He is to face a second trial later on an additional 20 counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He has pleaded not guilty to all 26 charges.

Defence lawyers originally said their case would only take three weeks, but it lasted for seven, starting and stopping due to legal arguments and illness plaguing jurors and witnesses alike. They called 30 witnesses.
  
Most of their testimony was aimed at trying to establish Pickton as a dim-witted farmer living on a sprawling property that was a constant hive of activity.
  
The defence has acknowledged the remains of the six women Pickton is accused of killing were found on his farm, but disputed the charges that Pickton was responsible for putting them there.

'My IQ scores and the testing that I've done is best predictive of how he will function in certain circumstances.'— Defence witness Larry Krywaniuk

Before defence lawyer Adrian Brooks announced the end of testimony, an IQ expert acknowledged under cross-examination that Pickton's low IQ score doesn't mean he is incapable of murdering women, dismembering them and disposing of their remains.
  
Larry Krywaniuk, who gave Pickton a series of intelligence tests, conceded Tuesday the test scores didn't give him any information on whether someone is capable of such acts.
  
"You're not saying that any of these scores, including the indexes, would suggest that Mr. Pickton was incapable of … picking up people on the Downtown Eastside, taking them to his home, murdering them, butchering them and then disposing of the evidence?" asked Crown lawyer Mike Petrie.

"I have no information," said Krywaniuk. "My IQ scores and the testing that I've done is best predictive of how he will function in certain circumstances."
  
Krywaniuk agreed that Pickton's full general IQ score of 86 puts him well above the level of mental retardation, which is below 70, and that the score is better than 18.6 per cent of the population of his age.