“You know you did it, I know you did it; now everyone knows you did it,” Justice Richard Danyliuk told Fertuck during Thursday’s sentencing.
Reading their victim impact statements in a Saskatoon King’s Bench courtroom, Sheree Fertuck’s sisters said their mother, Juliann Sorotski, died from the grief of losing Sheree, not knowing what happened to her in a Kenaston, Sask. gravel pit on Dec. 7, 2015.
Glenda Sorotski said she can’t shake the image of her sister’s final moments before she was murdered.
“We will never escape the horror of the pit,” she said.
While the conviction of Sheree’s estranged husband, Gregory Mitchell Fertuck, has given them some closure, it will not be complete until her body is found, sister Teaka White said during Fertuck’s sentencing hearing on Thursday.
“There is only one person who can provide that for our family,” she added.
Justice Richard Danyliuk found that Fertuck shot Sheree first in the shoulder and then in the back of the head during an argument over money at the gravel pit. He said Fertuck then used a loader to move her body to the back of his truck and dumped her body in a bluff of poplars northeast of the pit.
Despite several searches, Sheree’s remains were never found.
The conviction was partly based on admissions Fertuck made to undercover police officers posing as fake criminals during a Mr. Big sting, which led to Fertuck’s arrest in 2019.
Danyliuk, reading from his written decision last month, described Fertuck’s confessions as “chilling and convincing.”
First-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence with no parole eligibility for 25 years. Danyliuk imposed the sentence, as well as a concurrent four-year term on the indignity charge.
“You are a cold and heartless and callous killer,” he said.
Addressing Sheree’s family, Danyliuk said a trial has to focus on the accused, and it may have felt like Sheree got “lost in the shuffle.”
“She didn’t,” he assured them.
Judges can look at the bigger picture if an accused person is found guilty, he said, adding he hopes this trial has helped them find the truth.
“It haunts me that there has never been an expression of regret or remorse, that evil was chosen over good, and that the darkness was worn like a badge of honour,” Sorotski said.
When given a chance to speak, Fertuck said “I got no remorse because I never, ever did commit a crime. I’m wrongly accused and I will prove my innocence in the appeal.”
Family members told court that Sheree lived in fear of Fertuck, but put up a brave front for her three kids. After the verdict, her sisters told reporters that they knew Fertuck, a self-admitted alcoholic, was capable of killing Sheree because he’d threatened to do it during prior domestic disputes.
Danyliuk said it’s a “disgraceful fact” that Saskatchewan leads the country in intimate partner violence.
“And you, Mr. Fertuck, are of the worst of the worst of this lot,” he said, his voice rising.
“You acted like a petulant two-year-old in a man’s body. You robbed the world of the light that shone from Sheree.”
The trial heard Fertuck and Sheree were separated, and Sheree was preparing to file for divorce. Fertuck wanted $15,000 from his pension, but Sheree refused to consent until they had worked out the property division.
He was still doing work for her gravel hauling business. On the morning of Dec. 7, 2015, Sheree was angry because she believed Fertuck had logged more hours than he had worked and was going to call the bank to stop his payment, the Crown said during closing arguments.
Fertuck planned to confront her about money. He had a loaded gun in the back of his truck in case the conversation went poorly, Danyliuk said last month.
“You know you did it, I know you did it; now everyone knows you did it,” he told Fertuck on Thursday, saying Fertuck will be forgotten while Sheree’s kindness, love and bravery will live on.
In his statement to the court, Fertuck, who is self-representing, said he was convicted based on a lie he told to impress a bunch of fake criminals, and that the Crown relied on circumstantial evidence and “malicious slander.”
Prosecutors Carla Dewar and Cory Bliss turned around to look at Fertuck as he vowed to prove his innocence to his kids, from whom he is estranged.
Several no-contact orders were imposed against Fertuck at the request of Sheree’s family.
In her statement, read by Dewar, Sheree’s daughter Lanna Fertuck said her mom desperately tried to keep her family intact, despite Fertuck’s emotional and physical abuse.
“Greg never cared about his family or how his actions would affect others. He would constantly say, ‘I had a life before I had kids.’ Well, I hope Greg thinks about the life he’s created for himself,” Lanna wrote.
“Greg had created some alternative reality that (Sheree) was taking everything away from him, when he was the one who destroyed his family.”
She said she’s struggled to empathize with others since her mother’s murder.
“‘Isn’t she the girl whose dad is on trial for murdering her mom?’ becomes your identity, and you desperately try to escape it.”
Michelle Kish, Sheree’s third sister, said through a statement that she continues to feel immense sorrow for Sheree’s children and grandchildren.
“We all now have such a tragic family history to tell.”
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