Fifty-three-year-old Robert Gordon appeared in Saskatoon Provincial Court Wednesday afternoon after being accused of submitting hate comments on the obituary of Megan Gallagher.
Megan’s father, Brian Gallagher, said that the family received an anonymous tip that a person was spreading racist comments on a funeral page regarding Megan.
Megan Gallagher was last seen in September 2020. Her remains were found in September 2022, bringing an end to a two-year search.
Nine people have been charged in her homicide.
Four were charged with first-degree murder. The remaining five were charged with committing indignities to her remains and aggravated assault.
Saskatoon Police say the recent hate comments were never posted publicly as the website monitors comment submissions before publishing.
The comments were reported on Dec. 1. Gordon was arrested Feb. 1 and charged with indecent communications.
Police say Gordon isn’t charged with a hate crime yet, but an application has been requested as race was an aggravating factor.
Gallagher said that the hardest part about hearing about the comments towards his daughter was the online anonymity.
“To be a keyboard warrior, to sit there and hide behind something as anonymous as your computer screen, you can be very, very hurtful to people and it’s just not acceptable,” Gallagher said.
The family attended Saskatoon Provincial Court on Feb. 15 to try to put a face to the crime.
The family confirmed that the accused did not know Megan.
They said that they had hoped to be in Vancouver this week, but court dates are constantly controlling their lives.
“It’s just the reality of Megan being missing, and Megan being murdered… we just do the best that we can,” Gallagher said.
“An old friend of ours once told us when this all started, ‘you just have to get up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other and keep on moving’. There are other people that are counting on you that may suffer the consequences.”
The session was adjourned and there were no new updates to the case. Gordon is set to appear in court again on March 16.