When police arrested Greg Fertuck at the end of a Mr. Big sting, he told an RCMP investigator he lied about killing Sheree Fertuck because he wanted to make a good impression on his boss and keep his job.
On Friday, a Saskatoon murder trial viewed a video of Greg Fertuck’s warned interview with Staff Sgt. Charles Lerat. Four days earlier, the accused, now 68, told an undercover officer posing as a crime boss, he’d shot and killed his estranged wife at a gravel pit east of Kenaston, Sask., which is 85 kilometres south of Saskatoon.
Sheree was last seen leaving her family’s farmyard to haul gravel on the afternoon of Dec. 7, 2015.
In court, Lerat played part of a covert video of Greg Fertuck, depicting him telling the fake crime boss what happened. The employer told Fertuck he’d help him.
“I didn’t want to get fired, so I made up the story,” Greg Fertuck said on the video. “It was b——t. I just said it to impress him.”
During his warned interview, Greg Fertuck said he wanted to keep his job because he liked his coworkers and transporting vehicles was easy.
“It was something to do to get out of the house,” he said.
Through four hours of questioning, Greg Fertuck remained adamant that he never killed Sheree and he still loved her. He also rejected a suggestion investigators thought he had a financial motivation to kill.
Lerat showed the accused a .22 calibre rifle magazine that Greg Fertuck had turned over to undercover officers who he thought were his coworkers.
Greg Fertuck told Lerat he never gave the men the magazine and they must have taken it from him.
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“I couldn’t believe they took that because I actually trusted those guys,” Greg Fertuck said on the recording. “I thought those guys were friends of mine.”
During the interview, Lerat told Greg Fertuck for the first time that police found two shell casings at the gravel pit. He didn’t disclose the type of casings found, but asked Fertuck if he owned a .38 calibre weapon.
“I’ve never owned a .38 calibre weapon in my whole life,” Greg Fertuck replied.
On the witness stand, the investigator said he asked about a .38 calibre gun to give the accused confidence to say he had a .22 calibre rifle — the type of weapon that actually matched the shell casings found at the pit.
Lerat also testified he asked many questions to test Greg Fertuck’s memory. The accused said he’d experienced memory issues after slipping and hitting his head on Jan. 1, 2019.
“Mr. Fertuck had selective memory at points,” Lerat said under cross-examination by defence lawyer Morris Bodnar.
Bodnar asked if Lerat had sought medical reports on his interview subject, and the officer said he could only rely on his observations and experience.
The defence’s position throughout the trial has been that during a nearly year-long Mr. Big sting, the RCMP manipulated an alcoholic, lying man with a head injury into admitting to a crime he didn’t commit.
Justice Richard Danyliuk has not ruled yet on whether Greg Fertuck’s multiple statements to police are admissible at the judge-alone trial. They’ve been played in a series of voir dire proceedings within a larger admissibility hearing for all of the Crown’s evidence.
The Mr. Big sting is a contentious practice in Canada. Several police witnesses in this trial have testified the only goal is to find the truth, and some operations have exonerated suspects.
However, opponents have argued the tactic is manipulative and targets suspects for the sole purpose of producing a confession, sometimes leading to some false confessions.
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