Greg Fertuck pleads not guilty in first-degree murder trial

After a six-month delay due to COVID-19 concerns, the Crown delivered its opening statements Tuesday in the Greg Fertuck trial at Court of Queen’s Bench in Saskatoon.

Dressed in a bright orange T-shirt and dark green pants and wearing a mask, the 67-year-old pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge in the death of his estranged wife, 51-year-old Sheree Fertuck, and not guilty to the second charge of offering indignity to a body.

Greg Fertuck is represented by defence lawyers Morris Bodnar and Mike Nolan in the trial by judge alone.

After a brief opening statement from Justice Richard Danyliuk, Crown prosecutor Cory Bliss delivered his opening remarks.

Bliss told the court Sheree Fertuck was a mother of three, a grandmother of one, a hard worker, and an astute business person who had a lucrative gravel pit contract in the Kenaston area. She would work long days and spend overnights at the family farm in the same area, near Highway 15.

Bliss told the court that Fertuck, who had been separated from her ex-husband for several years, went to work Dec. 7, 2015, in the afternoon, but missed appointments for dropping scheduled gravel loads.

The next day, her family became concerned and went to the gravel pit where they found her semi truck unlocked, the lights on and her jacket inside. By Dec. 9, the RCMP had been called, gravel pits were being searched and search dogs were brought in.

Bliss also told the court after interviewing Greg Fertuck and getting a search warrant, investigators found a small spot of blood inside the tailgate of his truck that matched the DNA on a razor given to police by Sheree’s mother. Two spent .22-calibre shell casings were also found by police at the gravel pit.

When no trace of Sheree’s body had been found, by 2018, the RCMP initiated a “Mr. Big” operation and put Greg Fertuck under surveillance.

Bliss described Fertuck “winning” an all-expenses-paid trip to Alberta, where he made some new “friends” who were actually RCMP officers.

The Crown prosecutor alleged that, over the course of the next year, Fertuck drank excessively, at one point injuring himself. He was taken care of by the new “friends,” with whom he was working by that time.

By April 2019, as he was preparing to leave Saskatoon, Fertuck met with the head of the “company” in a local hotel room.

It was there that Bliss said Fertuck admitted killing Sheree with a .22-calibre rifle, wrapping her body in black plastic sheeting, putting it in the back of his pickup truck and dumping it northeast of the gravel pit where she worked.

He told his “boss” that he then went and washed his truck and clothes and bragged that the RCMP didn’t collect the correct boots, gloves or clips from his gun. The gun, he allegedly admitted, was thrown into some brush west of Saskatoon.

In the coming days, Danyliuk will hear testimony from RCMP officers, including undercover members. He must determine during a voir dire — or trial within a trial — whether the “Mr. Big” evidence can be admitted.

The trial, which continued Tuesday afternoon, is expected to last about five weeks.