Greg Fertuck Trial Learns of Search Efforts for Sheree Fertuck’s Body with Ground Penetrating Radar | The Canadian News

The Greg Fertuck murder trial has heard of the RCMP’s numerous attempts to find Sheree Fertuck’s body, including the use of ground-penetrating radar.

In May 2020, Greg Fertuck’s former partner in law told police that Greg Fertuck claimed to have used a “machine” to bury his ex-wife’s body in a gravel pit.

The RCMP contacted a forensic anthropologist who recommended using ground penetrating radar at the site. Officers were told the technology could be used to scan flat areas around piles of gravel, according to Const’s testimony. Robert Head.

“If even if you put the soil back on (a body), using ground penetrating radar, they would see the digging marks in the ground,” Head said.

The court heard that the gravel piles had been moved since Sheree’s disappearance on December 7, 2015, from the area east of Kenaston, Sask., Which is about 85 km south of Saskatoon.

A seven-hour search effort revealed six “anomalies” in the well, including an area of ​​interest that could have been a burial site. The teams brought in a tractor to dig into the dirt.

“They logged about a meter and a half and found nothing of relevance to this investigation,” Head said.

The officer said rocks, boulders and other insignificant elements could also be responsible for the anomalies.

Cpl. Ronald Degooijer, the RCMP search coordinator following the undercover investigation, also testified and said he concluded that Greg Fertuck could not have dug a hole in an open area of ​​the well due to frost on the ground.

In the spring of 2016, officers conducted a shoulder-to-shoulder search of the gravel pit. Their examination revealed two .22 caliber shell casings, which the Crown claimed were from the Ruger 10/22 rifle used to shoot Sheree.

While Head was on the stand, Crown Prosecutor Cory Bliss operated GPS software to plot the locations of the carcasses on a map. He then showed the tracked movements of the vehicle Greg Fertuck was traveling in on the day he took the undercover officers to the well.

Greg Fertuck led RCMP officers to a location near the area where the two casings were previously found by police. At the time, he was unaware that the police found casings.

An RCMP forensic report determined that the two shells were fired from the same rifle, but was inconclusive as to whether they matched shells taken from Greg Fertuck’s home.

His trip to the well occurred on June 21, 2019, the same day he told an undercover officer posing as a crime boss who shot Sheree twice, loaded her body in the back of his truck and drove it from the well to a nearby location. poplar cliff. He said he covered Sheree’s body with some logs in the wooded area.

Greg Fertuck was arrested on June 24, 2019 and charged with first degree murder and offering an indignity to a body.

Within days of Greg Fertuck’s arrest, officers used a police dog to search for Sheree’s body, starting with the area identified by the defendant. The following month, officers walked around the area.

In May 2020, the police used eight quad bikes to search an expanded area for the body.

Sheree’s body is still missing, along with the rifle police believe Greg Fertuck used.

The court also heard testimony of a piece of denim found in gravel crushing equipment in August 2019. A father and son had been crushing gravel in the pit where Sheree is believed to have disappeared.

During questioning by defense attorney Mike Nolin, Head said the denim did not match what Sheree was wearing on the day she disappeared. Nolin suggested that Sheree’s brother, Darren Sorotski, said he was wearing a denim shirt that day.

Nolin asked if there was a stain on the denim and the witness said he only remembered that it was “old and tattered.”

All the Crown evidence over the course of nearly eight weeks has been entered in a voir dire. Judge Richard Danyliuk has yet to rule on which part of the Crown case will be admissible in the one-judge trial.

The Crown is expected to close its case on Thursday.