SASKATOON - It's been over eight years since the disappearance of Sheree Fertuck, almost five years since the arrest of her alleged murderer Greg Fertuck, and nearly three years since the court trial first began.
To this day, Greg Fertuck maintains his innocence in the death and disappearance of Sheree, his estranged wife.
The 51-year old mother and grandmother vanished from a gravel pit near the village of Kenaston on December 7, 2015. Her semi truck was left abandoned, engine running and the door unlocked, with her keys, jacket and cell phone left inside.
Although Sheree's death was ruled a homicide by law enforcement and two shell casings were found at the gravel pit in the spring of 2016, the case proceeded to get cold for over three years until June 2019, when Greg was arrested and charged with both first-degree murder and offering an indignity to human remains. The arrest came after Fertuck confessed to Sheree's murder at the conclusion of a 10-month undercover police operation, a sting known as 'Mr. Big'.
However, in his arguments heard in a Saskatoon court room, Fertuck said any details that he provided during the 2019 conversation with an undercover officer acting as the boss of a fake criminal organization were only to make his story "believable" because he was a lonely alcoholic who said what he thought needed to be said in order to stay in the organization.
Fertuck told the court that the fact that Sheree’s body has never been found helps prove that he lied to undercover officers when he said he shot her twice in a gravel pit and then used a loader to move her body into the back of his truck.
Crown prosecutor Cory Bliss argued that Fertuck was telling the truth because the officer portraying a crime boss had offered to clean up the police investigation, and because he had also "internalized the group’s message about the importance of honesty."
Bliss argued that Fertuck had a financial motive to kill Sheree, with witnesses testifying that she was filing for divorce and preparing to split their assets. Greg wanted $15,000 from his pension, but Sheree refused to consent until the property division had been worked out. On the afternoon that Sheree had gone missing, Bliss said that Greg drove to the gravel pit to confront her about the money, noting that records showed that his cell phone pinged off a tower near the pit at around 1:20 p.m.
Fertuck would later tell the acting crime boss, "She was taking everything that I worked all these years for," Bliss reminded the court, stating that there was never a denial of any sort to the boss or any other undercover officer that Greg had killed Sheree.
Justice Richard Danyliuk will deliver his verdict in the case on Friday, June 14.
