Accused serial killer Robert Pickton's preliminary hearing adjourned yesterday until June 30 after nearly four months of what prosecutors warned would be grim and sensational evidence.

Crown counsel Michael Petrie told Port Coquitlam Provincial Court Judge David Stone yesterday that he has agreed with Pickton's five-person legal team to present a further area of evidence that could take up most of July.

Pickton, 53, is facing 15 counts of first-degree murder of women who are on a list of 61 women, mostly prostitutes, who have disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside since the 1980s.

Stone will rule at the end of the hearing whether there is enough evidence against Pickton to order him to stand trial.

Meanwhile, Vancouver police have denied that one of its officers is writing a book on the case.

Det. Lori Shenher, who promotes herself on the Internet as "a 10-year veteran of the Vancouver Police Department and . . . the lead investigator/file co-ordinator on the missing Downtown Eastside women investigation," has been reported to have secured a book deal with the aid of Toronto agent Michael Levine.

The Globe and Mail's Report on Business magazine recently cited a perceived conflict-of-interest on Levine's part for representing both Toronto journalist Stevie Cameron, who is writing a Pickton book, while obtaining a contract for Shenher. Cameron is, coincidentally, the first cousin of Vancouver police Chief Jamie Graham.

Police spokeswoman Const. Anne Drennan denied yesterday that Shenher was writing a book. "I spoke to [Lori] this morning and she is adamant that she is not writing a book," said Drennan, adding Shenher is on maternity leave until February.

Drennan acknowledged that Shenher -- who was never a member of the joint RCMP-Vancouver police task force whose work led to Pickton's arrest -- has written freelance scripts on subjects that mirror the missing women's case.

Shenher's writings offend some families of the missing women, who have long complained the Vancouver police did little to investigate the disappearances.

"About the time Det. Shenher was busy selling scripts that sought to profit from many families' misery, my daughter Angela had gone missing and Det. Shenher was supposed to be looking for her," said an angry Deborah Jardine, whose daughter's DNA has been found at the Pickton pig farm.

Should anyone from the public have information regarding the homicide or disappearance of a Vancouver street trade worker, please phone Crime Stoppers at 604-662-TIPS (8477) or the Missing Woman Tip line at 1-877-687-3377.

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