Canada farmer faces more murder charges

Police have been gathering DNA evidence from the farm

A Canadian pig farmer suspected of being a serial killer has been charged with the murders of four more women, bringing the total to 11.

Police probing the cases of 63 missing women are still searching the farm owned by 52-year-old Robert William Pickton, 30 kilometres east of Vancouver.

Pickton has denied any involvement in the killings

The women have all gone missing over the past 20 years from Vancouver's depressed Downtown Eastside district. All were drug addicts or prostitutes.

A 91-strong team of police and archaeology experts have been involved in a seven-month search of the four-hectare farm and another property owned by Mr Pickton - and say vast amounts of evidence have been collected.

"We feel extremely optimistic as to the outcome of this investigation," said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Cate Galliford.

The new charges are for the murders of Jennifer Lynn Furminger, Helen Mae Hallmark, Patricia Rose Johnson and Georgina Faith Papin - all women in their late twenties or early thirties who went missing between 1997 and 2001.

The earliest of the disappearances under investigation goes back to 1983 - and the list of missing women included in the probe may rise, police said.

Other suspects?

Mr Pickton co-owns the pig farm with his brother and his sister, but is the only person charged so far. However, police have said there may be other suspects.

The accused and his brother operated a drinking club known as "Piggy's Palace" near the farm, which was a haunt of bikers and prostitutes.

Mr Pickton was charged with attempted murder in 1997 for the stabbing of a drug-addicted prostitute at his home, but the charges were later dropped.

Police say Georgina Papin, last seen in 1999, was among the victims

Between last February and May, he was charged with the murders of seven women: Mona Wilson, Diane Rock, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Heather Bottomley, Brenda Wolfe and Jacquilene McDonell.

Investigators have told families of some of the other missing women that matching DNA has been found at the farm, but not enough to lay additional charges.

Mr Pickton is in prison awaiting a preliminary hearing to be held in November to decide if a trial can go ahead.

Canada's most notorious serial killer, Clifford Olson, was convicted of molesting and murdering 11 children in the 1980s.