Gallagher family disappointed with guilty plea at murder trial

“It’s like a kick in the gut,” is how Brian Gallagher and his wife described how they felt on Thursday after hearing about the latest developments in Megan Gallagher’s homicide case.

On January 6, the first-degree murder trials began for two women charged in connection with Brian’s daughter’s death.

The judge-alone trial for 31-year-old Cheyann Crystal Peeteetuce and 26-year-old Summer-Sky Henry was set for 39 days; they are among nine people who were arrested in the Gallagher investigation.

“They pled guilty to the lesser of charge of manslaughter,” said Brian. He wanted to leave the courtroom immediately after hearing the pleas.

“I don’t know the best way to explain that, but it’s a sick feeling in your stomach.”

Megan Michelle Gallagher was last seen leaving a friend’s house in Saskatoon on Sept. 19, 2020.
(Facebook)

Gallagher was last seen in Saskatoon on Sept. 20, 2020 on video surveillance at a convenience store on Diefenbaker Drive.

Two years after she went missing, her remains were found along the South Saskatchewan River.

“We really wanted it to go to trial, so that the evidence could be heard. So that we could hear, you know, some of the things, or some of the details about what actually has happened to Megan,” said Brian.

“That silence, that still haunts us. We need time to work through, and we need to have some answers.”

Justice Richard Danyliuk granted an interim publication ban applied for by Crown Prosecutor Tyla Olenchuk preventing any details presented within the trial from being reported on.

The publication ban will also protect the upcoming jury trials later this year for Thomas Sutherland and Roderick Sutherland, who are also charged in connection to Gallagher’s death.

Although it was not the outcome Brian and his wife Debbie had hoped for, he said “I’m not losing faith in the justice system, but I know that there are some holes in it.”

Summer-Sky Henry pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in the first degree murder trial of Megan Gallagher on Jan. 16, 2025. (Saskatoon Police Service/Submitted)

Debbie who is Meghan’s stepmother, said the trials continue on April 28 for Thomas Sutherland’s manslaughter charge and Roderick Sutherland’s first-degree murder trial will begin in October.

Brian has been attending the court proceedings as much as possible describing how life-changing the process has been.

“It’s different the way we eat and the way we sleep,” Brian said. ” We are children, our grandchildren have to live different lives because of what it is that we’re going through.”

However much it has impacted his family, Brian said he is not only thankful but also grateful for the people who are working hard to get them to this point.

“The police, investigating teams, the Crown prosecutor and as well our friends, all of our friends and family and everybody that supported us in any way, I’m just grateful for all of their all efforts put forward by everybody.”

On Dec. 6 at Saskatoon’s King’s Bench, 29-year-old Robert James Joseph Thomas was sentenced to life in prison for the second-degree murder of Gallagher.

Gallagher’s father Brian told 650 CKOM he felt some sense of relief when he heard the judge at the sentencing, and hopes the Thomas case sends a message that “there will be consequences” for violence against women.

— With files from 650 CKOM’s Lara Fominoff and Mia Holowaychuck