A man charged with murdering two of 50 women who have disappeared from the Vancouver area over the past two decades was shocked by the accusation, his lawyer said yesterday.

Robert Pickton, 52, was not asked to enter a plea during the two-minute hearing where he was formally charged with murdering Sereena Abotsway and Mona Wilson.

Peter Ritchie, Pickton's lawyer, said he expected his client to seek bail "in due course." The next court appearance was set for April 2.

"When a person gets arrested for something like this, they're completely shocked by it. That's a fair description" of Pickton's reaction, Ritchie said. The lawyer said he was unaware if authorities were preparing other charges and asked reporters to leave the Pickton family alone.

Pickton, a pig farmer who, with a brother, operated a nearby drinking club frequented by bikers and prostitutes, was charged with murdering Abotsway between July and early February and Wilson between December and early February.

Outside the gates of the farm, family and friends of the missing women have made a makeshift shrine of candles, flowers and cards. Most of the missing women were drug addicts and prostitutes from Vancouver's rough east end.

After the hearing, Steve Ricks, who said he was Mona Wilson's common-law husband, told reporters he last saw her get into a car with two men on Nov. 23. Ricks said Wilson was intoxicated.

"She didn't deserve this," he said, adding that he wanted to talk to Pickton. "I know they won't let me near him."

President Bush was presented yesterday with the bullhorn he used during his visit to the World Trade Center ruins after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bush said the bullhorn will go on display in a father-and-son exhibit at his father's presidential library at Texas A&M University.

Bush received the blue-and-white bullhorn - still bearing two small black smudges - during an Oval Office ceremony with New York Gov. George Pataki and Bob Beckwith, the fireman who stood with him Sept. 14 atop a mound of rubble that covered a burned-out fire engine.

That day, a few rescuers complained that they couldn't hear what the president was saying. Bush raised the bullhorn and shouted: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."

Bush said yesterday he was glad to have the bullhorn as a reminder of the moment he could "speak to the world on behalf of the citizens of New York."

"It's a historic, really historic memento, something we didn't choose, but it's one of those days that I'll never forget," Bush said. "It was an amazing experience."

The Catholic Diocese of Tucson will likely have to borrow money to pay off a settlement reached in 11 lawsuits alleging four diocese priests had molested boys, a diocese official said yesterday.

The bulk of the payments in the settlement, the amount of which has not been disclosed, will come either through a loan from a financial institution or by borrowing from surpluses in the diocese's 71 parishes, said Larry McDonough, chairman of the Diocese Finance Council.

"One of the things the diocese will be considering is how to pay the settlements, and I am confident it is going to require some indebtedness," McDonough said.

The diocese faces having to go into debt partly because of restrictions on how it can spend its money.

The diocese has an annual budget of $6.5 million, about half of which is allotted for specific programs and can't be tapped for the settlement, McDonough said.

Money troubles are compounded by disputes with insurance companies and a lack of property the diocese might sell to raise money, said McDonough, whose council advises Bishop Manuel Moreno on money matters.

He said contributions already made to individual parishes, schools or other Catholic organizations won't be touched. However, donations to help pay the settlements must be part of the answer, McDonough said.

"I would expect that there will be some people of means who are close enough to the church and who will recognize our current needs and contribute," McDonough said.

He said the diocese faces a challenge to convince its 350,000 members that it will not pay plaintiffs with parishioner donations.

As recently as September, church officials believed a set of insurance policies would cover the bulk of any court settlement or judgment.

But last week, Coadjutor Bishop Gerald Kicanas said he was "disappointed" in what the insurance claims will pay.

McDonough said the diocese bought insurance policies in the late 1980s to protect itself against civil liabilities.

However, some insurers aren't covering the claims because their policies were purchased in the 1980s and some of the sexual abuse alleged in the lawsuits happened in the 1960s and 1970s, he said.

Diocese attorneys are reviewing the insurance policies to determine if court action might be needed or useful to get more money.

The first abuse suit was filed in 1997 in Yuma by a victim who had been an altar boy. The plaintiffs, who eventually totaled 16, contended molestations occurred from 1967 to 1989. Several cases involved repressed memory.

Two of the priests named in the allegations were suspended. The other two are dead.