Uncover - S23 E1: A strong lady | "The Pit"

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

It's winter in Saskatchewan and Sheree Fertuck is hard at work hauling gravel in her semi-truck. She has lunch with her mom but doesn't come back for supper. The next day, her semi is found abandoned in a gravel pit. Sheree is nowhere to be seen. For more, including a 360 video experience of the gravel pit, visit cbc.ca/thepit

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. If you're not from Saskatchewan, like me, you learn pretty quickly that people in this province use a lot of slang. Hoodies are called bunny hugs. Gravel roads are grids. A two-four is a case of beer. But lately, there's one term I've been thinking about a lot. The North Forty. It means the far side of the farm. An unused piece of land off the beaten path. In a farming province like this one, it's common to come across these remote, secluded places. Pastures, sloughs, gravel pits. Places where you can be alone. Places where you can simply vanish. It could well describe the place where Sherry Furtuck was last seen.

It could well describe the place where Sherry Furtuck was last seen. I just can't believe that she would just disappear. Like if somebody tried to take her, she would have had to have fought. There was no paper on the ground, there was no articles of clothing, there was no blood or anything around. After a few weeks and months, you know, you just, you know that, that she's not, there's something, something went wrong or she's not coming back. I'm Alicia Bridges, and this is Episode 1 of The Pit. Winter in Saskatchewan feels like it never ends.

The freezing dry weather can really get to you. For half of the year, the temperature bounces between zero and minus 30 degrees Celsius. On this particular day in March of 2018, it's cold, but it's also blindingly sunny. A perfect day, by Saskatchewan standards, to drive out to see Julianne Sirotsky. I'm with another reporter, Victoria Dinh. We've been working together in the same newsroom for a couple of years now. And when Sherry's story came up, we both wanted to find out more about how someone could just up and disappear like that. We weren't the only ones looking for answers. Sherry's mum, Julianne, was doing the same.

So we called her up. Well, I'm doing as well as can be expected. So Julianne, I'm thinking of maybe doing kind of a broader story, kind of delving into who Sherry was. Would you be interested in maybe sharing her story? Yeah, probably I could do that. Yeah. If I were to come out and speak to you in. Yeah, that's a possibility. That might be easier than we can just have a conversation.

Yeah. Yeah, so 8 miles east, sign that says Allen, turn right. Okay. We get some directions and hit the road. This is the first time we're meeting Julianne in person. We're going to Julianne's farm in the middle of nowhere, or at least it seems that way. Do you want to say what it's like here? Lots of snow around.

It's very flat. Very, very flat. I think this is it. She said turn left here and then about half a mile up is where the farm is. I think there it is. Our vehicle creeps up to a small white bungalow on the edge of the Sarotsky property. Julianne has lived and worked here for more than 50 years. It's about 15 kilometers east of the town of Keniston, Saskatchewan. The nearest big city is Saskatoon,

and that's over an hour drive away. Julianne is expecting us. As we reach the steps, she pops open the door and invites us in. So I actually am not in the farming business anymore. Thank goodness. Her kitchen looks typical of a Saskatchewan farmhouse. Maple wood cupboards, tiled floors, family photos everywhere. It's cozy.

The TV is on faintly in another room. It helps drown the silence. And it makes sense, because Julianne lives out here alone. And it makes sense, because Julianne lives out here alone. At this time, it's been a little more than two years since Sherry disappeared. And as Julianne talks to us, she seems beaten down, exhausted. And it's understandable, because of where we're sitting at this kitchen table. This is where she saw her daughter, Sherry Furtuck, for the last time.

Yeah, it is tough. When it's your own child, it's very tough. And kind of when it's a senseless disappearance, it's hard to get it kind of wrapped around your brain. And the biggest hold back is there's no body. You know, like Sherry hasn't been found, and who knows where she is. Come on, Lee, get up there.

Are you sure you don't want me to... No, I'm OK. I'm OK. I need to do this every once in a while. Julianne is a petite woman. She needs a chair to reach a stack of photos on top of her fridge. Do you want us to do it? Yeah, and this is Sherry. This is my family.

Like, Sherry, Glenda, Michelle, Darren, and Tika. So these are all of your kids? Those are my kids, yeah. Okay. So she's one of five. She's one of five, yeah. Is she, like, one of the youngest? She's the oldest.

The oldest. Yeah, she's the oldest. These photos of Sherry are very different from the one we're used to seeing. The one that police used when Sherry first went missing. The one that appears in news feeds when her name is brought up. As far as pictures of missing persons go, it does the job. It's crisp and clear. It shows exactly what Sherry looks like.

She has short, soft brown hair with a hint of grey. Her eyes are dark under metal-rimmed glasses. She's wearing a white polo shirt. But this photograph makes her look uncomfortable, a little cold. She's smiling with just the tiniest corner of her mouth. It's a photo that is easily forgotten. And this is why Victoria and I wanted to find out more about Sherry. Julianne shows us family photos that reveal a different side of Sherry.

That's Sherry and Greg and that's Lucas when he was a baby, I believe, maybe at his christening. Yeah, because they were wearing corsages. Yeah. Flipping through this pile, I can see that Sherry was a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend. Julianne lights up when she talks about her family. This is my sister Gladys.

That's my oldest sister Josie, or Lily, my next sister Josie and she's next Grace and that's Michelle, my daughter Michelle. Well that's just part of my family. Is it a very big family? I come from a family of 12. Oh wow. Yeah. Oh, wow. every single day, to work at the gravel pit near the family farm. Sometimes Sherry would get help from her husband, Greg Furtuck, or her brother, Darren Sorotsky.

And like clockwork, Sherry would stop by to visit her mum, Julianne, for lunch and supper. Sometimes Darren would join them. It was routine. She hauled mostly for the RM of Rosedale. RM means rural municipality. It's like a local government. On the roads there and some into a project in the town there and some through the town. Yeah, that's basically it.

You load up, you go dump, you come back, you load up. She was a worker. She usually stopped and had supper at supper time and then she'd supper time and then she'd come home and shower and flop into bed. On December 7th, 2015, that routine changes. At first, everything seems normal. Sherry leaves for work from her Saskatoon home at 9.30 in the morning. She works at the gravel pit until noon. Then she stops by the family farm to have lunch with Julianne.

Sherry says goodbye at 1.30. Sherry walks back to her semi-truck, parked outside on the gravel driveway. It's unusually warm. Her coat is in the truck. on the gravel driveway. It's unusually warm. Her coat is in the truck. Later, the police would describe her as wearing a grey sweatshirt,

sweatpants and white sneakers. She leaves the farm and heads back to the pit. She guides her heavy vehicle back down the empty highway, past abandoned farmhouses and expansive fields. But by the time evening rolls around, Julianne starts to worry. I've been on her cell phone I don't know how many times that day trying to get hold of her and she never did answer. And I found that very strange because at some point she, at the gravel pit, she usually didn't have a reception there. But she still would have reception at some time on the road or whatever and she never got back to me and then you know of course at that time of the year you know how

short the days are and she didn't show up for supper and I thought what the heck's going on but anyway I didn't go out and look that night because I don't like going out at night and especially into a gravel pit where you know I didn't know what I was going to find. So I didn't go out until about eight o'clock the next morning and it was still kind of dark and I had her dog with me and when we got to the pit oh my god he started to whine and cry because he recognized her truck. 51-year-old Sherry Furtuck was last seen on December 7, 2015. She had lunch with her family. She hasn't been seen since.

Her semi was found abandoned the following day at a gravel pit near Keniston. Her coat, keys and phone all inside. Family, friends and police extensively searched the area for Furtuck. No charges have been laid. Everyone in Keniston is baffled. How could Sherry just disappear? Coffee row is another term you'll hear a lot around here.

It's a nickname for a place where people routinely meet and chat. Coffee row is another term you'll hear a lot around here. It's a nickname for a place where people routinely meet and chat. In Keniston, you'll find coffee row at the local Chinese restaurant. About twice a day, the tables are packed with people catching up and gossiping. Since we're looking for people to talk to, everyone in the area tells us we'll find them here. We arrive just before lunch. Within minutes, a man sits down at the table next to us. It's Alan Kirpin. If you know about Canadian politics, you'll know the name. I actually served two terms in Ottawa as a member of parliament and two terms

in Regina as an MLA. But my roots are in the farm. My grandpa came here 100 years ago or more and started farming, and then my dad and now myself, and now our son is farming. Turns out Sherry Furtuck is Alan's cousin. In a small town, everybody knows everybody, right? And our kids didn't really fit into the same age category. Sherry's a little older than our kids were, but you watch them grow up and you watch them go to school.

It's all part of being in a small community. You can't really explain it unless you live with one. He's right. Keniston is small. There's pretty much one main street with all the basics. A post office, a church, a school, and a little gas station that also serves as a grocery store. There's a 5 1⁄2-meter half meter tall snowman at the edge of town.

Its sign declares Keniston as the blizzard capital of Saskatchewan. Sherry grew up in Keniston, so it seems like everyone here knows her. People say she was a friendly face around town. They used to have a laugh with her and chat about football. And she especially loved the Rough Riders. That's Saskatchewan's team in the Canadian Football League. They're insanely popular. But there was one thing about Sherry that everyone noticed.

She was not unhealthy at all. She was a big, strong, healthy girl. She was a very strong, masculine type woman. Like, she was not a little person. Like, she was a big, strong woman. She was large, but very strong. Like, a very strong person. It came up over and over again.

Here's her childhood friend, Florence Greek. The jobs that she did and stuff like that, she was quite muscular and stuff like that, so she was very strong. And when I was growing up, we milked cows, so you had by hand, so your arm muscles would get strong, so like that kind of stuff. And she'd helped her dad with,

he had a rock crushing gravel business, so she would help work with the crusher and stuff like that. So you would build muscle and stuff like that. So she was, you know, stronger. So. When Sherry turned 18, she got her semi-truck driver's license. Her father, Michael, wanted her to help out with M&S Ready Mix. That's the family concrete and gravel crushing business. But she also had other plans. She was good at debating. A friend tells us she had aspirations to becomeushing business. But she also had other plans. She was good at debating. A friend tells us she had aspirations to become a lawyer. But when things didn't work out at university, she returned home.

She came back to the family business, hauling and crushing gravel. And she was good at it. When her dad died in 2010, Sherry took over the business with her brother Darren. Sherry looked after most of the business transactions and bids, and Darren looked after crushing the gravel. It was a sibling-run company. There were ups and there were downs,

but they worked together for decades, right up until the day Sherry vanished. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

In November of 2018, we go back to the last spot where Sherry was known to be, of 2018, we go back to the last spot where Sherry was known to be, the pit. But we need some help finding it. People around town tell us John McJanet owns the gravel pit and the land around it, so we look him up in the phone book. It's his son who answers the phone, who also goes by John McJanet, and he's the one who takes us to the pit. he's the one who takes us to the pit. There is no way we would have known to come all the way down here. No. And I think we would have been too concerned about driving onto the private property anyway.

John leads us down a valley to a site next to a small creek. It's off of the highway, about 15 kilometres east of the Sarotsky Farm. We drive onto the property, past large gravel piles, and down a winding road covered in overgrown grass. There's a small herd of deer watching us, and we stop at a lower clearing surrounded by gravel. Hi, John. Sorry, we were just a bit worried we were going to get there.

Yeah, we don't know if our car would make it through. Okay, no problem. Victoria. Nice to meet you. I'm Alicia. Nice to meet you. So this is approximately where the truck was found, where her truck was found. Just right where we're parked right now? Just about right on the spot, yeah.

In a few weeks, it will be three years since Sherry's disappearance. And the anniversary is on all of our minds. John says he still thinks about it. He was one of the first people Julianne called when she realized Sherry was missing. Originally in the morning, first thing in the morning, Julianne had called some neighbors and called my uncle. And his farm is just about a mile south of here. And said that Sherry hadn't come home that night, and she was wondering if we'd seen her at the gravel pits the day before or if we'd go down and take a look and see.

So we came down, and essentially what we found was the payloader that they were using to load the gravel into the truck, and the truck were parked here. And what was the feeling like when you came here and you saw an empty truck? Well originally we'd hoped that somebody picked her up and then she went back home and then just forgotten to tell her mom that she was safe somewhere but just hadn't notified anybody that she wasn't going to be at the truck or at her mom's place. The wind is howling as we stand outside. A light layer of fresh snow swells around the ground. It's bitterly cold, about minus 20. John says it reminds him of what it was like that day.

There was fresh snow that morning. So we'd had a little bit of snow and it had melted, something like this. And then overnight there was likely about this much fresh snow. So at that point in time, my wife and my son and my aunt and my uncle had come down to the pit in the morning. And we had just left the truck and went in different directions to see if, you know, maybe she'd wandered off, had some kind of medical condition and got disoriented. And so we walked around the perimeter looking for footprints, tracks,

anything that was out of the ordinary and didn't see anything. And then later that day, the RCMP were on site and closed this scene and had teams of professionals, search and rescue people, come out and comb this area quite well. It's just, it's odd because there was no trace of a scuffle. There was no, nothing. That's Dennis Powder. No evidence at all around there that alluded to her being abducted or, well, who knows, I guess what.

Dennis is a member of the Keniston Volunteer Fire Department. He remembers receiving a text from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or the RCMP, and they asked for help out at the pit. So you get to the gravel pit after you get this text and you find out it's Sherry Furtuck. Like, what are you thinking? Like, wow, what happened? Everybody's, of course, her poor mother is worried sick. Where's her daughter? It's like a lot of emotions, I guess, running through your head.

You know, what are we going to find? Or are we going to find her or what, you know? It was a situation Dennis had never faced before, someone disappearing so close to home. And the RCMP put him to work right away I was asked to run the loader to dig out some of the pile

to see if we could find her How did you do that? Did the police have directions for you? Or did you have to do it the best way you thought? Like, how did you sort of do that? Yeah, they wanted us to do a certain way and, you know, of course, be gentle in what we were doing. If she was in there, it would have been too late already to save her. But it was more of a recovery situation by then.

So being as gentle as I could and dumping it as gently as I could into another pile while the RCMP watched to see if there was anything in there, anything at all, I guess. Were you worried during that process about what you might find? Yes, I was worried about, you know, if I accidentally, you know, dug her up and cut off her arm or something or her leg or something, you know, that wouldn't have been very fun either. And during this time, what was the atmosphere like in the village here?

Everybody couldn't believe that, you know, somebody from a little town like this went missing and, you know, you can't find her. Still to this day, I mean, everybody's, you know, what happened to her, right? Anything could have happened. If someone took Sherry, did they have a gun? Did they trick her into getting in their vehicle? Was there more than one person? What happened to Sherry Furtuck? Standing in the middle of the gravel pit now, it's isolated.

I'd hate to be out here alone. It must have felt normal for Sherry. This was her office. Looking around, I can see more animal footprints than tire tracks in the snow. It's clear not many people come here. Not many people have a reason to. They're not here anymore. John McJanet points to his pasture from where we're standing. It's close. There's a lot of land like that around here. Farm fields as far as the eye

can see. The nearest house is on a hill in the distance. It's about a kilometre away along the highway. And John says it's hard to see what's going on down here. Except for, you know, if you're on that farmland over there, you can see here, but not very many. At that time of the year, there wouldn't be too many people driving around on that side and if sherry was in here like would you be able to see her walking around from the highway do you think uh if you had good eyesight yeah you could you could probably see her if she was walking around but i mean and unless you made a an actual note to look to your right. I mean most people when they're driving down the highway are just watching down the highway and drive right by and take no notice of what's going

on down here. So do you think it's possible that someone could have driven in here something could have happened without anybody noticing is that your thought? Absolutely mean, there's very few neighbours around, unless you were actually sitting on the highway watching. I mean, anything could happen down here and nobody would see. From dawn till dusk, Sherry came out to this spot every single day, loading and hauling gravel. Everyone in the area had a sense of her routine, and they all have their theories. They told us how Sherry was afraid she might die. There were guns, death threats, there were troubles in the family, and problems with money.

People were afraid. Many had stories to tell but didn't want to be named. Many feared telling the truth would put their own lives at risk. And we started to wonder what we had gotten ourselves into. We realized we had to be even more careful than we had expected. People we spoke to, and even police officers, warned us we needed to proceed cautiously for our safety and for others. Back at the family farm, Julianne tells us she thinks she knows what happened to Sherry. She thinks everyone knows.

Because she, you know, she often says, if anything happens to me, like she told the kids, if anything happens to me, you look after my dog. Which they did, you know. But, you know, there was different, I can't think of anything else right now, but there was different incidents when she'd say, you know, mom, you know, if anything happens to me, do this or do that. So she kind of always had it in the back of her mind, I think, that she was very uneasy. And I don't even know if I should have this recorded, but I'm kind of careful with what I say. Because, I don't know, he could come out here someday and kick the door in and, you know, because he does not like me. So I don't like to say too much against him just for that reason.

On the next episode of The Pit. So when the detachment first got here, they didn't know what they had. So they dug, for example, if the scenery was like this, they dug in some of the gravel because they figured that maybe she was buried accidentally. So they were searching right away. So possibly destroying some of the evidence that later we found out we may have needed. Somebody was in an awful big hurry that day because that jayking was loud, so loud that it echoed all the way up the valley.

The Pit is a CBC investigative podcast. The story was written, produced and mixed by Victoria Dinh and me, Alicia Bridges. Our senior producer is Corrine Larson. Editorial guidance came from Paul Dornstatter and David Hutton. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.