Given a (local) Kato measure μ on R d \ {0}, d ≥ 2, let H +μ 0 (U ) be the convex cone of all continuous real solutions u ≥ 0 to the equation u + uμ = 0 on the punctured unit ball U satisfying lim |x|→1 uwhere G denotes the Green function on U , is bounded on L 2 (U, μ) and has a norm which is at most one. Moreover, extremal rays in H +μ 0 (U ) are characterized and it is proven that + μ satisfies the Picard principle on U , that is, that H +μ 0 (U ) consists of one ray, provided there exists a suitable sequence of shells in U such that, on these shells, μ is either small or not too far from being radial. Further, it is shown that the verification of the Picard principle can be localized. Several results on L 2 -(sub)eigenfunctions and 3G-inequalities which are used in the paper, but may be of independent interest, are proved at the end of the paper.