The son of Greg Fertuck and Sheree Fertuck saw his father threaten to kill his mother, according to testimony in a Saskatoon courtroom.
On the stand at his father’s first-degree murder trial, Lucas Fertuck recalled a confrontation between his parents in which Greg Fertuck threatened to shoot Sheree “between the eyes.”
Lucas testified that Greg Fertuck blamed Sheree for calling the police after she found an Uzi in the Saskatoon home. Charges resulting from the seizure led to Lucas’ father being subjected to a gun prohibition.
The couple separated shortly after the confrontation in 2011.
Greg Fertuck’s drinking and gambling had also led to fights about the couple’s finances, Lucas testified.
Ron Stachowich, a former friend and coworker of Greg Fertuck, recalled the man showing up on his doorstep in the fall of 2011. Greg Fertuck, according to Stachowich, said Sheree had kicked him out of the house and he needed a place to stay for a few weeks. He stayed for just under five months, court head.
He described the accused’s bouts of drunken anger, occurring about three times a week.
“He talked a lot about her, and mostly it was just bad stuff, what he was going to do to her,” Stachowich said.
He made comments like how he wanted to “bury the b—h in the north 40” and sometimes how he wanted to put his “mother-in-law on top of it,” the witness said.
Crown prosecutor Cory Bliss asked why Stachowich didn’t give the full story about Greg Fertuck in a 2016 police interview. Stachowich said he was fearful of Greg Fertuck, and only opened up to officers after doing a media interview.
“(Greg Fertuck)’s more powerful than me, and I know he’s got a temper.”
In the Crown’s opening statement, Bliss said Greg Fertuck shot his estranged wife twice while at the gravel pit near Sheree’s family farm east of Kenaston, about 85 kilometres south of Saskatoon. Two .22 calibre shell casings were found the following spring during an RCMP search of the pit.
Court also heard testimony from John McJannet, whose father owns the gravel pit where Sheree went missing. At the time, she was the sole person hauling gravel from the pit, McJannet said.
The owners never had issues with people partying in the pit and McJannet said he never heard anyone firing guns in the pit.
“I am not aware of anybody shooting down there. I never shot down there,” he testified.
During cross-examination, McJannet agreed with the defence that it’s not uncommon for people to shoot at gravel pits in general.
Testimony from Todd Degelman shed light on Greg Fertuck’s financial actions in the weeks following Sheree’s disappearance. Degelman was an investment advisor at the National Bank when he first met Sheree, who he described as “a very smart, very kind, very gracious lady.”
In January 2016, Degelman said Greg Fertuck contacted him to withdraw money from his locked-in retirement account. Sheree’s approval was needed for any transactions, and Greg Fertuck was “quite frustrated” to learn he couldn’t access the funds, Degelman said.
Greg Fertuck then tried to transfer his account to the Royal Bank of Canada. A roughly $400,000 transaction was blocked after the RCMP directed Degelman to freeze the transfer.
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