Uncover - S23 E10: The case against Greg | "The Pit"

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

Prosecutors and police reveal their evidence against Greg, including blood DNA and cell phone data. They build a timeline of the day Sheree disappeared, but Greg tells a different version of what happened on December 7, 2015.

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. Of course, today is going to bring back a lot of memories of Sherry. To me, she was a sister. To her children, a mother. To my mom, who's no longer here, a daughter. A friend to many. I just want everybody to remember Sherry.

I think Sherry was one of those people that you don't forget. You know, she's somebody that will stand out in people's minds. Tika White is standing on the steps of the Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatoon. The big stone building looms behind her. It's the first day of the trial of her sister's accused killer. Sherry Furtuck has been missing for almost six years. And Tika tries not to cry as she talks to reporters outside.

Just hope that justice is served. Sherry's husband, Greg Furtuck, is already inside. He's charged with first-degree murder, and he's been in custody for more than two years now since his arrest. Greg told an undercover police officer that he killed Sherry. Now, he says that confession was a lie. If Greg is convicted, he'll spend the rest of his life, or most of it, in prison. I'm Alicia Bridges.

I'm Kendall Latimer. And this is episode 10 of The Pit. I have to, would have to say that's probably complete bullshit. That was the first time that I had heard any record of Greg showing emotion in response to Sherry's disappearance. It's not until you drive around that you suddenly see how the timing matches up. The logic may not. It's day one and Kendall arrives early.

It's Tuesday, September 7th, just about ten minutes after nine, and I'm walking up to the courthouse, the Court of Queens bench here in Saskatoon. There's a small group of reporters gathered on the courthouse steps. Saskatoon isn't big enough to attract big crowds of media, like you see on TV. Tika arrives wearing a flowing summery top and blue jeans, and that angel pin that belonged to her mum. Julianne used to wear it when she talked to reporters about Sherry.

But after Julianne died, it's Tika who speaks to the media. Just before 10, it's time to go inside. When we get inside, Greg is sitting in a prisoner's box. I sit right behind him. The only thing that separates us is a piece of glass. His shirt is orange. His feet are shackled. His gray hair is longer, but it's thinning. He's pushing 70, and he looks tired. We're in courtroom number one. I'll be here pretty much every day for the next eight weeks, maybe more. That's how long this trial is supposed to last. It's a big room with tall mahogany walls and plenty of space for observers. But on day one, the courtroom is actually pretty empty.

COVID-19 is still raging here. So for the most part, the only people who will be watching the trial are journalists like me and close family or friends. In the gallery, we all wear masks. Witnesses and lawyers don't have to. I see the team of defense lawyers side by side in front of Greg to the left and to their right at the neighboring bench are the two lawyers for the prosecution. There's no jury in this trial. Greg's lawyers didn't want one. So this case will be decided by a judge alone. Greg's future is in the hands of one man, Justice Richard Daniluk. He sits above everybody at the bench at the front of the room wearing a white collar and a draping red sash over his black gown. He speaks in a measured voice and he warns people in the room that emotions could run high.

If anyone is feeling overwhelmed during the trial, they should step away. Greg seems to be in okay spirits, considering where he is and what's at stake. He's had problems hearing before, so the court gave him a special pair of headphones to help him listen. And he's happy about that. He tells the court clerk they're magic. By the end of the second week, Greg will be a little less chipper. Sometimes he takes the headphones off, as if he's heard enough. During the trial, there's a lot for the judge to consider.

A four-year investigation. A Mr. Big Sting with questions about police tactics. And Greg's memory loss. There are dozens of witness testimonies and even more exhibits. And this is a murder case where the victim's body hasn't been found. Obviously, we can't relay nearly 20 days worth of testimony, but we're going to tell you as much as we can. The trial begins with the prosecution.

In Canada, these lawyers are called Crown Prosecutors, or just the Crown. They lay out their entire case first, before the defence gets to make its own case that Greg is not guilty. Keep this in mind as you're listening to this episode, that these first four weeks we're talking about are mostly told from the Crown's perspective. We'll hear mostly from the police and the lawyers trying to put Greg in prison. Corey Bliss is the Crown prosecutor leading this team. You might remember him from the preliminary hearing back in early 2020. It was a very complex investigation and with a lot of

evidence developed by the RCMP. Corey is an extremely tall man who towers above basically everyone in the courtroom. His peppery hair is cropped into a short army style fade. He's quite serious. He hardly cracks a smile except when he's trying to warm up a nervous witness or when he's talking about football. He's got this habit of placing one hand in his pocket and sort of swaying back and forth while he questions witnesses. As the trial begins, Corey lays out a roadmap of the Crown's case against Greg. It's just an overview, not evidence, that will come.

For the first time, he reveals what police say happened to Sherry and how they think Greg killed her. But before he gets there, he reminds the court of who Sherry was. A loving mother who also loved her dog named Charles. A hard-working, skilled gravel hauler. He says Sherry didn't have medical problems, no mental health concerns, no spontaneous tendencies. Then he turns to Greg. He talks about the ongoing conflict between the couple, who never settled their divorce, and says Sherry was afraid of Greg. As he continues on, the details become darker. The RCMP theory is that Greg shot Sherry twice. They say he used a gun called a Ruger 10-22 rifle to

kill her. The police say Greg wrapped her body in a black tarp and then used a payloader to lift her into the back of his truck. According to the theory, he drove her body to a remote location away from the pit, basically in the middle of nowhere. to a remote location away from the pit, basically in the middle of nowhere. They say he put her body near a small group of trees and covered the body with dead wood. Police say Greg dumped the rifle on the outskirts of Saskatoon the next day.

All of these details come from Greg's confession. Oh, what I told Mr. Big? I just told him I threw her in a bush. It's what he told that police officer who was pretending to be a crime boss. Greg told us in 2019 that confession to the crime boss was a lie. Because it was all BS. I never, I didn't kill her and there was nobody out there. Even without Sherry's body or the gun police say Greg used to kill her,

the Crown still says it has enough evidence to back up the confession. My name's Greg Furtuck and I was Sherry Sarotsky's husband. When we interviewed Greg back in 2019, we tried to ask him where he was and what he was doing on the day of Sherry's disappearance. I don't remember nothing that far back. This is one of the many things he told us he didn't remember because of the memory loss he says he got from that head injury. He was in hospital for six weeks. Ruptured blood vessel in my brain. It was sort of bleeding. Greg slipped on ice outside a small neighbourhood pub. It happened on January 1st, 2019,

and the fact that he was injured isn't disputed by the police, although the exact nature of the injury and its effect on his memory won't be explored in more detail until later in the trial. Our interview with Greg happened seven months after he got hurt and we tried to push him for anything he could tell us about the day Sherry disappeared. I don't remember much that I said after my accident. Is there anything that you could say to the police to prove that you weren't in that area?

Not really. Before we go any further, there's something you need to know. Even though this evidence is being heard by the judge in court, it won't necessarily factor into his decision on the verdict. We'll explain more about that later, but basically it comes down to the legal process for cases like this. That the judge can decide to accept some pieces of evidence, but dismiss others. So keep that in mind as we go through this timeline.

To understand the Crown's theory, we need to go back to the day Sherry disappeared. December 7th of 2015. Greg's activities on that day have remained a mystery until now. Cell phone records released at the trial have created a map of Greg and Sherry's movements, and this timeline is a major element of the Crown's case against Greg. There are some big questions raised here, and we don't yet know how the defence plans to answer them. But let's start at the beginning, at 10.30 in the morning with a phone call, when Sherry calls Greg using her flip phone. Her next call is to a bank in Keniston. Greg was doing some work for Sherry at the gravel pit. Her mom, Julianne, paid him a check

for that work. But Sherry thinks he asked for too much, so she calls the bank to cancel the check. We've heard this before from Sherry's he asked for too much, so she calls the bank to cancel the check. We've heard this before from Sherry's sister, Glenda. At 11.30, there's another phone call. This time, Greg calls Sherry, right after he leaves a physio appointment in Saskatoon. The police have him on surveillance tape leaving that appointment. After he drives away, his vehicle isn't seen anywhere in Saskatoon, not for the next five and a half hours, or at least not on the surveillance footage that police have checked. So where was he?

police have checked. So where was he? Greg tells his story to police for the first time in December 2015, two days after Sherry was last seen. Police officers meet Greg at the house where he lives in Saskatoon. He seems cooperative and accommodating. Greg explains the phone calls between him and Sherry on the morning of the 7th were just about work. Nothing unusual. He says Sherry had actually asked him to come work for her the next day, and she was supposed to call later to firm up the plan, but she never did. Greg says after physio, he went home and had lunch, did the laundry, then took his dog out for a run near a rural town called Clavette, not far from the city. Then he went home again and barbecued a steak. Well, he says the dog actually ate most of his steak because he had a stomach ache.

Greg tells the police that his landlady can vouch for all of this. He's referring to Doris LaRock. Doris later tells police that she's his girlfriend. During this conversation, one of the police officers writes something interesting in his notebook, that Greg has tears in his eyes. Greg's lawyer brings this up in court, and it catches Alicia's attention when I talk to her afterward. So I do want to talk about the tears. Sure. Because I was kind of struck by that.

Because he has a photocopy of this police officer's notes from that interview. Morris Bodner says, well, I think in your notes that you say he had tears in his eyes. Is that correct? And the officer checks his notes to make sure because he doesn't remember. And so he testifies that that's correct. He did confirm to Morris that Greg apparently had tears in his eyes when he was saying he had no clue where Sherry was and that he hopes she's well. That was the first time that I had heard any record of Greg showing emotion in response to Sherry's disappearance.

During that interview, police also bring up Greg's history of violence against Sherry. They mention the death threat he made to shoot Sherry between the eyes in 2010 and the time he assaulted her in 2011. He pleaded guilty to both of those charges at the time. They ask Greg, were you in the area of the pit at all on the day that Sherry went missing? He says no. Well, would your phone records show your calls pinging off a tower near Keniston? Again, he says no.

It's not until two years later that he changes his story. 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. We know police decided Greg was a killer within weeks of Sherry's disappearance. Remember that was revealed accidentally. The media found out through some court documents in May 2016. accidentally. The media found out through some court documents in May 2016. RCMP believed that a Keniston woman missing since December was murdered by her husband. Sherry Furtuck went missing December the 7th. In April, RCMP said publicly they believe she was dead. Morris Bodner is representing Greg Furtuck. He says Greg Furtuck has not been criminally charged with anything.

An RCMP officer said he had reasonable grounds to believe and did believe that Greg Furtuck murdered Sherry. But it takes more than a year for the police to make a move on this suspect in October 2017 when police arrest Greg at his home mid-morning. It's all captured on a bad audio recording that's played in court. It's a bit hard to make out, but there's definitely a dog barking and a Shania Twain song called Don't Be Stupid playing in the background as police enter Greg's home. At this point, officers are armed with two years' worth of information that they've collected to use against him.

It's clear they've put a lot of preparation into this. They have him for 24 hours. This is their chance to try to get him to crack, maybe say something incriminating, or even confess. The strategic interrogation is handled by two high-ranking RCMP officers, Sergeant Chad Clark and Staff Sergeant Charles Lerat. It goes on for six hours. Lerat starts off easy, chatting with Greg about his hometown, people they know from the area, and hunting. They talk about the guns they like. But soon the police get to the point

and they confront Greg with all the reasons why they believe he killed Sherry. They tell him about a spot of blood on his white Dodge Ram truck. It's on the interior of the tailgate and the blood spot there matches Sherry's DNA. Greg says he doesn't know how it got there, and he challenges LaRaw. Greg asks, tell me how I loaded up a 250-pound woman into the back of the truck. Greg says he can't have killed Sherry. He wasn't at the pit that day. But the officers say they know he was

there because they have evidence. The police show Greg a map of cell phone towers in the area near the pit. They tell him that cell phones have to communicate with these towers to make a call or to receive one and that data from Greg's phone shows it pinged a tower right near the pit. They ask Greg, if you weren't at the pit that day, why was your cell phone there? Why did your phone ping off the tower by the pit that afternoon? The police know who called Greg's phone. It was the workers' compensation board.

And Greg has already told the police the phone was with him the whole day compensation board. And Greg has already told the police the phone was with him the whole day, so that's not disputed. But he says he doesn't know why it pinged the tower near the pit. About four hours in, LaRod just says, Greg, you were there. At this point, Greg stands up, puts his wrists together and reaches them out, At this point, Greg stands up, puts his wrists together and reaches them out, motioning to the officers to handcuff him. He tells the police he's already said too much. Greg actually says this a few times during the interview.

But each time, LaRaw reels Greg back in, telling him he doesn't have to say anything. He just has to listen. LaRaw just keeps rattling off the evidence and pushing harder on the cell phone ping. He wants an explanation. Greg says, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. But then he does tell them. He tells the police that he was at the pit on the day Sherry disappeared. Greg says it's not what it looks like. He tells the police he went to the pit that afternoon because he needed gravel.

He says he had a problem with his back fence, something about water flow causing the gate to freeze, and he was trying to fix it, and that he didn't tell the police earlier because he thought it would have looked bad, or as he puts it, another nail in his coffin. In the end, Crown prosecutors decide there's not enough evidence to charge Greg, and the police let him go. What Greg describes seems like a lot of driving to fit into one day, but it's hard to tell when we're just looking at it on paper.

So Kendall decided to recreate the day, as Greg tells it, by driving the route he says he took on December 7th, 2015. She takes Dan Zekreski with her. He's been reporting on crime in the city for ages. I started transitioning to court in the mid-1990s. Dan's doing daily updates on the Fertuck trial for CBC. He and Kendall decide to start their drive at the beginning of Greg's timeline when he leaves his physiotherapy appointment. Right around the time Sherry and Greg spoke on the phone.

It's 11.28am and apparently around that time he calls Sherry for about a minute and 30 seconds. I wish we could know what was in that phone call. Think of where the camera is. There's the Tiger Automotive across the street. I think they had referenced a photo at Tiger Automotive. Is that the Chevrolet?

Yep, SMP. Greg is seen on grainy surveillance videos from businesses near the road, steering his big white truck away from his morning appointment. I will set our cruise at the speed limit. 110. It's about an hour since we left Saskatoon. So yeah, you'll want to get in the left lane. We'll be heading east.

I feel like the timing will be a little tight, but we'll see you when we get down into the pit. Greg told police officers he arrived at the pit sometime around 1 o'clock. He's supposed to be here to pick up five buckets of gravel. We're about to descend down into the gravel pit. How long would you imagine it takes to fill a bucket with gravel? Get the bucket out of the truck, fill it with gravel, put it back in the truck, especially if you have a knee injury

and you're having trouble with your mobility. Minute, minute and a half per pail. So maybe 10 minutes or 7 minutes? Yeah, 7 or 8. 7 or 8. All right. 12.45. So he would have probably sat up, had his pail on the ground.

Got the back of his Dodge. Bops the tailgate. Doesn't see Sherry. When Greg admitted he was at the pit, he told police that he was actually hoping to run into Sherry. But he says she wasn't there and he didn't stick around. He says he was leaving the pit at 1.20 when he got the phone call that pinged the tower nearby. The timing seems like it'll

work out to get to the top of the hill, get the call. So this would be the crest I guess right? Up here. The one thing I didn't see, I didn't think to look for, was the cell tower that they're talking about. I'm to look for, was the cell tower that they're talking about. I'm trying to think, is that a tower over there? Drove about four minutes away from the pit to a tower that's clearly visible from the crest line. Very close. Very close. And it also certainly explains why the RCMP would have been so aggressively challenging Greg on his version of events when they talk about the cell phone ping placing him at the gravel pit. After the 1.20 call, Greg drops off the radar. There are no incoming or outgoing calls, texts and no data use for about three hours. texts and no data use for about three hours. So we're turning back onto Highway 11 heading north to Saskatoon and it's 1.35.

It's just so interesting to drive out here and how when you're physically out driving and you get a sense of the distances and that how it changes all your questions you know like why would i drive out this far it's nearly 2 30 wait we're almost at greg's residence back in 2015 should we drive to the back alley so we can dump the gravel? It's not totally clear what Greg is doing after he says he dumps the gravel at his house, because the police don't press him on that during the interrogation. But his cell phone is active again just before 4.30pm, when it pings a tower near Clavette. We're heading out to run the dog.

This is the part where he's taking his dog for a run. Or near Clavette. It's actually in the same direction as the pit, but much closer to the city. About a 25 minute drive. This would be a good place. It's a nice wide road. Grass ditches, nice and flat, so you can see there's no critters around. Could crawl along here at about 20 clicks, let the dog out. Kendall and Dan allow about 20 minutes for the dog to go for a run.

So unless he's got some Belgian Malinois or some monster husky, that's a pretty good dog run. The phone call that places Greg at Clavette is to Julianne. Greg says he called her looking for Sherry. We know from the trial that Julianne asks Greg, why don't you just call her yourself? There's no record of him calling Sherry that afternoon. The next known record of his movements is just before five, back in the city. We're going to get to the car wash before five.

Yeah. Police have surveillance footage of Greg at the car wash by his house. What I thought was interesting was that he didn't mention the car wash in that first statement he made to police on December 9th. The video is played in court and surveillance team puts him at the car wash. It shows a white truck driving up to the bay and for a few minutes the grainy figure of Greg rummages

around in the box. It's hard for Kendall to see but it looks like he takes something out and throws it in the bin before pulling into the wash bay. Police searched the car wash garbage but they never found any evidence that they could use against Greg. It's 3.50 and we are pulling up at Vern's car wash. Kendall and Dan followed Greg's timeline as closely as possible and they still arrive at Vern's about an hour before Greg did back in 2015. We've both been in the van all day and it's not until you drive around that you suddenly see how the timing matches up, the logic may not and really what the outstanding questions are. And at the end of the day, the Crown had all of this in October 2017 and decided it wasn't enough to lay a charge.

Potential questions raised by the timelines still aren't enough to convict somebody of murder. And he's presumed innocent. We heard Greg version number one two days after Sherry went missing, and then we heard his second alternative version during the interrogation, and now I think we're about to hear Greg, his version number three. Yeah, Greg 3.0. The third version of Greg's story is the one he tells the undercover police officer

pretending to be the crime boss. It's a detailed description of killing Sherry. But before we get to hear version three, we learned something new at the trial. A couple of months after Sherry went missing, the RCMP did an arm-to-arm search of the pit. It snowed a lot right after Sherry went missing, so police say they needed to wait for the snow to melt. During the search, police found two bullet casings. They're found next to the spot where Sherry's truck was left at the pit. They were from a.22 rifle. At the trial, when prosecutor Corey Bliss is questioning Ra, he points out that this evidence wasn't revealed to Greg during the six-hour interrogation.

He asks him why not. The police revealed all the other evidence they had. Ra says he deliberately chose to not tell Greg about the spent casings. He explains the bullet casings were considered loose holdback. That's evidence that's not released to the public or people connected to the investigation. Holdback is used in Mr. Big cases. Police might try to use it to verify a confession. The idea is that the holdback is a detail only the killer could know about. The Crown says these two bullet casings support the case against Greg. When Sherry went missing, police searched Greg's home.

They found a lot of.22 caliber ammunition and a cartridge at his home. No gun though. But when Greg tells the crime boss that he did kill Sherry, he says he shot her two times using a.22 rifle. Of course, Greg now denies what he told Mr. Big. So based on what we've heard in court so far, this is Greg's timeline, that he went to the pit that day to get gravel. The police don't buy it, and neither does Sherry's sister, Tika. I have to, would have to say that's probably complete bullshit, pardon my language. What person drives, I'll say an hour and a half for argument's sake, to get five pails of gravel

when you have access to that in Saskatoon where you live. So it just doesn't add up in my books. We mentioned earlier that none of the evidence from the trial has been formally accepted by the judge and that some of it could be thrown out. What it really comes down to is whether or not the police played by the rules when they were running the Mr Big Sting. And if they didn't, the judge can exclude some of their evidence, including Greg's confession. In the next episode of The Pit, we'll hear about testimony from Sherry's three children, Lucas, Lauren and Lana.

Their memories of growing up with Sherry and Greg under one roof and whether they believe that their dad is responsible for killing Sherry. We'll also hear more from Greg's lawyers as they raise alternate theories of what could have happened to Sherry and they bring up the names of other people who they say could have wanted her dead. They're strong kids. I think they're probably doing whatever they can,

you know, staying as strong as they can to go through the process. The lawyers say that Sherry Furtuck won a big contract to haul gravel in the months before she vanished, and that upset a local business rival. Everybody needs closure. Everybody at this point wants closure and if this if the judge rules it inadmissible then what? The Pit is a CBC investigative podcast. This episode was co-written and produced by Kendall Latimer and me, Alicia Bridges. Kendall also did the sound mix.

Our senior producer is Corrine Larson. Editorial guidance came from Paul Dornstader and David Hutton. Thanks also to Dan Zekreski for contributing to this episode. If you've been enjoying the podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or just tell your friends. Thank you.