The husband of Sheree Fertuck has been charged with first-degree murder in her disappearance, Saskatchewan RCMP said on Tuesday.
Greg Fertuck, 65, was arrested on Monday evening just outside of Saskatoon, police said at a press conference.
He is also charged with offering an indignity to a body.
“In this case, the Crown felt we had enough evidence to prosecute for first-degree murder,” said RCMP Supt. Derek Williams, with the major crimes unit.
“We will continue to search for Sheree’s body to bring that closure to the family.”
Sheree, who was from Saskatoon, was last seen on Dec. 7, 2015, leaving her family’s farm east of Kenaston, Sask.
Authorities said she was hauling gravel with her semi-truck to a nearby pit.
Her mother, Juliann Sorotski, reported Sheree missing the following day after her vehicle was found abandoned at the pit.
RCMP called her disappearance a homicide in April 2016.
Police said her body has not been found and they continue to search for her remains to bring closure to her family.
New information came to light in a January 2016 production order seeking access to a Fertuck family law file.
Police said at the time they had reasonable grounds to believe that Fertuck’s husband, Greg Fertuck, committed murder.
He has denied the allegation.
Williams said they would not go into details over what caused them to lay charges as the case is now before the courts.
“Any homicide investigation is complex in nature,” he said, “especially historical cases as they do take a long time to collect the evidence necessary to lay a charge, and after this period of time we were successful in laying a charge.”
Fertuck will make his first Saskatoon provincial court appearance on Wednesday.
-With files from Global’s Brittney Matejka