The first defence witness called during the Greg Fertuck murder trial has given testimony that may alter the timeline of Sheree Fertuck’s disappearance.
Court heard that after Sheree went missing, Mary Ellen Lowdermilk told Saskatchewan RCMP she was sitting on a couch in her home, about 200 to 250 feet from Highway 15 sometime after 5 p.m. on Dec. 7, 2015.
“I told them that I’d seen Sheree’s truck go by after we’d finished work,” Lowdermilk testified Thursday in Saskatoon’s Court of Queen’s Bench.
She knew it was after 5 p.m. because her family typically works in a shop adjacent to the home during the day, keeping regular work hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
If it was Sheree’s truck, then the sighting would cast some doubt on the sequence of events court has heard so far. Family last saw Sheree leaving their farmhouse around 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 7, 2015.
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During his admission to a fictitious crime boss, Greg Fertuck said he shot and killed Sheree around 3 p.m. at the gravel pit.
Just before 5 p.m. on the date of the disappearance, Greg Fertuck was seen on surveillance video at Vern’s Car Wash on 11th Street West in Saskatoon. The Crown has characterized the visit to the car wash as an attempt to wash blood out of the truck bed.
Family found the semi-truck at the pit on Dec. 8, 2015 with Sheree’s keys still in the ignition. Her jacket and cell phone were also inside the vehicle.
Lowdermilk was unable to identify who was driving the semi-truck, court heard. The vehicle was headed away from the area of a gravel pit, hauling an end-dump gravel trailer toward Kenaston, she said.
The Lowdermilk home is about seven kilometres east of Kenaston, which is located about 85 kilometres south of Saskatoon.
The witness said she recognized the semi-truck as Sheree’s because her family had done mechanical work on the vehicle. She estimated it drove by at least three times per day, depending on the time of year.
“We’d seen it quite often go by,” Lowdermilk testified.
She also told the court she’d looked up a picture of Sheree’s semi-truck on the internet before she testified. Lowdermilk said she did not look at any other news articles in preparation for her court appearance.
During cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Cory Bliss, Lowdermilk acknowledged she only saw the semi-truck for about one second. She saw more of the end-dump trailer than the truck’s cab, court heard.
It was also dark outside and there was a single light on inside her home at the time of the sighting, Lowdermilk testified.
All of the Crown’s evidence over the course of eight weeks was entered in a voir dire, or admissibility hearing. Following arguments from prosecutors and the defence, Justice Richard Danyliuk will rule on what portions of the Crown’s evidence can be applied to the trial itself.
Crown prosecutors closed their case on the voir dire portion of the trial Thursday. Court is adjourned until Nov. 22, when the defence could call another witness or there could be admissibility arguments.
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