Uncover - S23 E2: Echo in the valley | "The Pit"

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

The search for Sheree Fertuck is underway. Police are digging, questioning, and looking for suspects. Suspicions about what might have happened to Sheree begin to emerge. A neighbour says he remembers hearing a loud noise. 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've been through a winter in Saskatchewan, you know what it feels like to have numb fingers and toes, freezing temperatures, and the wind. Since it's so flat here, the wind howls and it hurts. So you can only imagine what it felt like for those searching for Sherry Furtuck. She had vanished while working at a gravel pit near the town of Keniston in December of 2015. The day she disappeared, it was unusually mild.

But the next day, when the search began, the weather turned. Winter had arrived. The prairie fields are now blanketed with fresh snow. It covers any trace of life. Footprints, tyre tracks. If there was any evidence to explain what might have happened to Sherry, it was likely buried by snow. I'm Alicia Bridges, and this is Episode 2 of The Pit.

The day after she disappeared, we got snow. So yeah, there was an extensive search done out here with the cadaver dogs, or however you say that, that day. And then they were out here a second time and did the whole property again. They did the gravel pit several times, twice that I know of with the dogs. That's Sherry's mum, Julianne Sorotsky. The search for Sherry is still in full swing. Not only do police use cadaver dogs,

they use infrared technology to search inside the mounds of gravel in hopes of spotting any trace of a warm body. On the ground and from the air, their search and rescue teams are all looking for Sherry. Well, it was very upsetting for the first, you know, week or so that, you know, there were police around her lot and there was the investigations or the searches were going on because the searches went on for that whole week. You know, there was different search parties set up, and they just, well, they just combed the whole area.

And, like, not just right around here, but, you know, around the pit and kind of far and wide. And, yeah, just to see if they could find her anywhere, but... With instruction from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, community volunteers soon join in. This group is led by the local pastor, Gene Whitehead. Well, they said to watch for birds circling overhead, coyote trails, things like predators that might attack a body, you know, unusual activity.

And they told us to watch for any vehicles that, a vehicle that might be just driving around watching the people searching, you know, that somebody might, whoever was responsible might be watching to see if anything is found. For days, a group of about 100 people searched the area. They hop into trucks and onto four-wheelers, snowmobiles, and even break out their crop duster planes to cover more ground. They look down wells, along freezing sloughs, through grassy areas and inside abandoned buildings.

But nothing turns up. Sherry could be anywhere. You know, Christmas was coming and the weather was really turning bad and cold and starting to snow and blow. And some of the guys were saying it was minus 30 in some of the places they were searching. And with wind coming up and snowing, you know, it was just,

it got to the point where it wasn't safe for us to keep people out more than a couple hours. Hopes of finding Sherry alive begin to fade. And so does the search. It's now December 18th, a little more than 10 days since Sherry was reported missing. The search for Sherry Furtuck is expected to continue this morning. Julianne joins me now on the line. Good morning. Good morning. Sherry's mum Julianne makes an appearance on a local

CBC radio show, Saskatoon Morning. She's speaking with the host, Alicia Grabinski. When she didn't return home, what were your initial thoughts? Well, when she didn't come home at the regular time that she usually does, I thought, well, she had stopped to visit someone, and she would be home at, you know, at some time that evening. But when she didn't come home all night, wasn't home in the morning, then I thought, well, I better go see if she's out at the pit. And she wasn't there? No, she wasn't there. What do you think has happened to her?

I have no idea, Shari. I think she's been abducted, and for the life of me, I can't figure out for what reason she might have been taken. I don't know. Abducted. It's one of the many theories shared by community members. There were optimistic thoughts, too. Maybe Sherry left on a last-minute trip.

Maybe she forgot to call home. But Julianne always had a feeling something terrible happened to her daughter. She wouldn't hold back when people asked. When Victoria and I went to see her in March of 2018, she told us there was one person in particular she had suspicions about. Sherry's husband, Greg Furtuck. Sherry had previously voiced her concerns about him to Julianne, or at least alluded to them. I can't remember if she'd ever say Greg for sure or not, but I think maybe sometimes she did and maybe sometimes she didn't, but I just assumed that that's who she was afraid of. There was different incidents when she'd say, you know, Mom, 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 about Greg's disposition. Julianne says Sherry told her everything. They talked a lot. Sherry worked at the gravel pit close by, so she would pop by Julianne's farm at least twice a day. There, Julianne got a glimpse into Sherry's home life in Saskatoon, and things weren't always good. I mean, Sherry was a big girl. She could fend for herself. But, you know, there were different instances when she ran out of the house because, you know,

he was either abusive with her verbally and or physically. abusive with her verbally and or physically. Julianne says she confronted Greg once because of what Sherry told her, and she says his answer was clear. I never ever did that. I wouldn't do that to her. I loved her. Greg's mum and brother will later tell us the same thing, that Greg was very much in love with Sherry.

Sherry and Greg were married in 1991, and they lived in Saskatoon for decades. They raised three children together, but as the years passed, their relationship began to sour. By 2010, Greg has moved out, and their separation soon evolved into talks of a divorce. Nothing was ever finalized before Sherry disappeared. But Greg and Sherry still worked out at the pit together. He would help his estranged wife when she needed an extra hand. Oh, well, when Sherry went missing that day,

I phoned him and I said, have you talked to Sherry today? No, I haven't talked to her. I was waiting for her to phone me and let me know if I had to come and haul gravel again. Greg wasn't the only person who helped Sherry out at the pit. Like Sherry, her brother Darren was introduced to the concrete and gravel crushing industry at a young age. He had already mastered the heavy machinery at the age of 10. I've been his friend since we were little boys, like three, four years old. That's Barkley Purpick. He grew up near Keniston and now owns a bar about a 15-minute drive from the town. He sees Darren from time to time when he stops by for a drink. Barkley says Darren keeps to himself a lot, mostly spending time with family. He tells us the two siblings took over the family concrete and gravel crushing business

when their father, Michael, died in 2010. They were business partners, but Sherry was always in charge. She would make the deals and handle the paperwork. Darren was the muscle of the operation. Once you lose that big dog person, I'll call it, someone's got to step up to the plate. And when things get all wrapped up in logistics and all that stuff, it makes it very difficult for someone

to carry on operating. When the family business shuts down, Darren looks for work elsewhere. We connect with Darren, but he says he's too busy to talk. He says he'll get in touch, but he never does. Over time, the image of Sherry's missing person's photo starts to fade in people's memories. People outside Sherry's family start to move on with their lives. The community stops searching. By April of 2016, the weather finally lets up and the RCMP make an announcement. Julianne Sarotsky doesn't know what happened to her daughter,

but she now knows it's not good. Earlier this morning, RCMP said publicly they now believe that Sherry Furtuck is dead and the victim of a homicide. Sorotsky struggled to fight back tears at a news conference. Her number one priority was her children and her one and only grandchild. And we miss her so much.

RCMP are stepping up the search for her body with the weather turning. They'll be checking specific locations around the province. The spots came from tips during the investigation. This is news to the public. She was a person of habit and predictable behaviours. Police say for her to up and leave in the middle of a workday, that was suspicious.

After lengthy searches, analysis of evidence and their overall investigation to date, police not only think Sherry is dead, they think someone killed her. But who would have wanted to see her die? It's definitely a very mysterious case because, you know, a lot of the evidence is circumstantial. And, you know, you can presume this or presume that,

but that doesn't fly in court. Four months into the investigation, and no word on suspects. If the police know anything about who might have wanted to hurt Sherry, they're keeping it under wraps. 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. Fast forward to June of 2019 and we're on our way back

to the pit. So we're just following the two RCMP officers down into the gravel pit. The last time we were here, there was snow on the ground. Today, it's a bit different. Although the wind is still howling, it's warm out and the sky looks angry as it threatens to rain. There's a man and a woman waiting for us at the bottom of the pit. The man is clean cut, he has salt and pepper hair and a strong jawline. He's wearing

a polo shirt tucked into dress pants. The woman beside him is dressed in a floral top and a pink cardigan, her hair pinned into a loose bun. The only thing that gives them away as police officers is the badge and gun clipped to their belts. I'm Ron. Hi Ron. Hi. Hi. Pascal.

Pascal, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Victoria. Hi Pascal. Nice to meet you. You too. Alright. So this is kind of the area.

Obviously it changes, the landscapes have changed a lot in three years simply because of the... I mean, it's a gravel pit, so it's a constant movement going on here. That's Corporal Pascal Loria and Constable Ron DeGoya. They were part of the RCMP's initial investigation of Sherry's disappearance. Pascal says it's been more than three years since she's been back to the pit. The machinery is still here. Totally looks different, but similar to what it was at that time. Just the piles are in different spots and the hole is different. She wasn't there for the first couple of days of the search. It was initially in the hands of the local detachment. 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. Later we found out we may have needed, but then it became apparent that it wasn't accidental and she wasn't found in the immediate area where they were digging and searching. It made sense. At the time, right? At the time it made sense. They thought maybe. Because, you know, you look, these piles are probably in places 20, 25 feet high.

And I mean, when they're digging, you can get a sheer edge and if for some reason Sherry had got out and got close to the pile for something and it had collapsed on her so I mean at the outset there was some there was there was fresh digging and so it made sense for them to go up and do the digging so they were not faulting anybody for doing that that would have been probably the first avenue to say hey if she's buried under here we got to try to find her so because there was nothing else to point to anything else that had happened so you know by looking through the the gravel just trying to do the thing that seemed to make or that made sense at the time not knowing what you know now but I mean how much how much of a difference do you think it made to the evidence that could have been present if there was any evidence there? I don't think it would have made a big difference.

Evidence doesn't show very easily on gravel. So I don't think that it would have made a huge difference had they not touched anything. And I mean, eventually we would have had to dig in there to see if she was there regardless, but I don't think it would have made a big difference. Pascal and Ron say witnesses saw Sherry's truck park there after lunch at 1.30. No one saw it move after that. And is there any thought that the semi could have been somewhere else and brought back here and placed there to look?

There's no evidence of that. I don't know, but there's no evidence of it. But was there anything forensically that you could see? Any evidence of another vehicle being here? Not that I know of. I know that the identification section was here. Had there been tire impressions that were usable, they would have lifted those prints. I don't know if there were or not because I wasn't involved that first day.

they would have lifted those prints. I don't know if there were or not because I wasn't involved that first day. But like you can see here, it would be very difficult to find a usable tire mark in this gravel. So who are some of the first people that you touch base with? Family is going to be always our start. And then we're going to look at if there's an opportunity for competitors. So in this case, she's a business lady. Is there possible people she's competing with? That's possible. So those are avenues that we would also examine. We would also look at

neighbours, any of those things. Julianne was in constant contact with the RCMP. She wanted to find her daughter, so she kept a close watch of their investigation. You know, they questioned Darren, of course, because, you know, he's a brother. And I told him, I said, he had absolutely nothing to do with it because he wasn't even around that day. Well, he was around a little, you know, in and out, but not to be here the whole day. So, yeah, I guess when they questioned him,

they found out pretty quick that he had nothing to do with it. And they did question a couple of the neighbours closer to the gravel pit there. She's talking about the Sagans. Because they also haul gravel, so... There are a few Sagan families that live around the gravel pit. We're going into the story with an open mind, so we contact all the people whose names come up.

First up is Bernie Sagan. He and his wife live on the property on top of the hill. It's the house that overlooks the gravel pit. And I talked to them too to ask if they had seen her at all that day. And the one fellow said, well, he said he was in the city that day, so he wasn't on the highway, just his brother was. When we called, Bernie told us the same thing. I remember we had gone to the city that day,

so we weren't in the area. And did the police ever talk to you guys at all? Like, because your house is right there? No, they did not. We were away at Saskatoon that day, so perhaps they did reach out. I don't know. If they did try to reach out, it might have been that day, but nobody's contacted us or anything.

Police did contact Jeff Sagan. He was around the day Sherry went missing. He's one of the Sagans involved with another gravel hauling company in the area, but they're pretty new to the game. They've only been doing it for the past five years. Their pit is just north of the one where Sherry was last seen. Jeff says he doesn't remember speaking to Julianne around that time, but he definitely remembers Sherry.

She was a hard worker, for one thing. There's no guy that I know that ever worked harder than she did. She was always going early and going late. She definitely knew how to work. He grew up farming in the area and was just a year younger than her. They weren't friends, but they were friendly. He would see Sherry from time to time around Keniston or when their trucks passed along the highway. When he heard that she had vanished from the gravel pit, he felt uneasy.

I couldn't sleep, you know, very well for a while because shit like that doesn't happen out here, you know. There's never any problems and that happens. It's pretty upsetting, you know. It wasn't too long before the RCMP came knocking. The police questioned us, to see if we had seen anything or heard anything. And did you guys? Well, the only... I think it was my wife that went to Davidson earlier that day, I think.

Me and our hired man were working in the shop, and Tara had went to Davidson, and on her way back, she'd seen the lights on on the truck. She'd seen it down there because it was getting dark, I think. And me and Warren heard some jaking, like really loud truck jaking from the shop that day, but we never, we could hear it, but we never seen who it was or anything. Sorry, what does that mean? Truck jaking? Well, you know, when you go to slow down with the semi, they jake. They make that loud noise.

It's an engine brake. So when you hit this engine brake, it's usually you turn it on when you're slowing down to a corner or else. Like there's this valley here. If somebody was going down into the valley too fast and wanted to slow up, they might hit their jake brakes. So they're loud usually. Like they echo. I don't know if you ever heard them in the city sometimes. Back at the office, Alicia and I check out Jake Brakes on YouTube. Could this be what Jeff and Warren heard that day? be what Jeff and Warren heard that day? It was the afternoon of December 7th, 2015 when Jeff heard that truck.

He told the police about it. My brother seems, he's kind of a fast driver and he uses a Jake's more than I would like, so that's why it caught my attention because our shop looks great south and you can see 15 Highway out of the old shop. So when I heard the jaking, I know I... And it was...

It must have been calm and clear that day because it echoed up the valley pretty good because I remember hearing it. And I looked and I'd never seen anything so it might have been something to do with Sherry but maybe it was just some odd or somebody else I mean. Do you ever think about that now like do you ever wonder who or what that was? Yeah, I often think about that that might have something to do with your disappearance. Because 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.

And we could hear it inside a shop. So this person would have had to be in like a big semi-truck? Yeah. And how many semi-trucks usually go down that road that's not like you or your brother or Sherry? Oh there's lots of semis on it that's the that's the kicker of the problem like it's a pretty main highway. Who was this person? And why was he or she in such a hurry on the afternoon of December 7th, 2015? Julianne remembers talking to Jeff not too long after Sherry disappeared.

He was questioned, and I think they're pretty, you know, confident that he had nothing to do with it. As far as I know, he's not a suspect, so. Sherry and the Sagans weren't the only ones working with gravel in the area. There were other companies using the same highway. One of them moved into Sherry's gravel pit not too long after she vanished. Ron Ettinger is the owner of Melron Services. It's located in a small town called Watrous, about 50 kilometers away from the pit.

Ron has known the Sarotsky family since the mid-70s. He's been working in the gravel and construction business for more than 20 years. So of course he remembers Sherry. business for more than 20 years. So of course he remembers Sherry. And she worked hard just like a man, that girl did. She was always ready to go and do her thing and not hold back of any fear that would be a concern. When Ron heard that Sherry had disappeared from the pit near Keniston, he was shocked. But he still had a company to run. Her disappearance wasn't going to stop operations around his shop. Well, we actually, after all this occurred the next spring,

we actually crushed in that pit. You know, and I made the boys fully aware, and I talked to all the neighbors and everything else, that we were quite watchful and paying attention to what was going on when we were digging in the walls of the pit and all the rest of it to see if we'd see anything or find anything that would retain any information. So what kind of things were you watching out for? Well, any article like clothing or, you know, what maybe would relate to the situation. Because there was all kinds of guessing and knowing what happened to the poor girl.

What was it like going to the gravel pit after you knew what had taken place? Well, pretty touchy. A lot of my men didn't want to even be there, you know. And I said, well, boys, just pay attention. Life has to carry on, and the work goes on. That's the way it was. That's the way it was. Police tell us they questioned gravel companies in the area, but Ron says he never got a call. He says there wasn't much he could tell them anyway.

Back at the gravel pit with the RCMP, you can tell they think a lot about what took place here. You can tell they think a lot about what took place here. Every file in our office, you get invested in it. So you want to see them come to a conclusion. That's kind of how we're all wired in our office. We don't get in there to investigate, not to have it come to conclusion. So that's kind of what we all push for. How does that affect you? You're working on a case and then we're coming up to three, four years.

Like, how do you guys deal with that? You can't let it consume you because that's all you would think about. But I do find myself thinking about files sometimes when you're at home or something comes to your mind or you see something and it brings up different, you know, ideas in your head. You just have to learn to put it out of your head, otherwise you never get any rest from it. I can't drive through Keniston without thinking about Sherry. Every time I drive through here, I wonder where Sherry is. But we just keep plugging away, one thing at a time,

one tip at a time, and we hope for a conclusion, I guess. Pascal and Ron are police officers. They're not going to tell us who they think is behind Sherry's death, and they don't when we ask. But when we talk to people who knew Sherry, they have a few ideas. I wonder what Greg did to her. That was my very first thought. As soon as I heard that his wife was gone or whatever, I mean, he's the first person that popped into my head

as the suspect or whatever, you know. It wouldn't have surprised me, put it that way. Greg. Greg Furtuck. Sherry's estranged husband. Greg's family says he loved his wife. So why would people say this? We'll soon find some information that might explain things further.

Things that point to problems between Sherry and Greg. But we'll get to that in the next episode. Well, the police are in contact with me fairly regularly, the head investigator. And if she doesn't call me once a month or once every six weeks, I call her just to see if there's any new developments. And she has assured me that any new developments, I will be the first to know about it. And then her kids, of course.

But, yeah, there has been some progress made i think you know in terms of gathering more evidence and you know re-submitting evidence to the labs and that kind of thing so yeah there has been progress made in that respect, but in order for them to present it to the Crown prosecutors, they have to have it pretty foolproof so that it doesn't get thrown out of the court system. So that's what they're working on now, is just to try and get all the details that they can and kind of make their evidence foolproof so that they can, you know, in essence, make a conviction and arrest somebody. When we last spoke with Sherry's mum, Julianne, she had no idea what the future would

bring. About a year later, something big would break in Sherry's case. And unfortunately, Julianne wouldn't be around to witness it. On July 13th, 2018, after a brief battle with cancer, father with cancer, Julianne died. She was always hopeful that Sherry would show up. That was her main goal, that Sherry would someday just walk through the door. I think she was just so hopeful that that would happen. That's Julianne's good friend, D Guy. D says Julianne accepted that Sherry would not just appear out of the blue, alive and well. But that didn't stop her constant worry and anguish. And after a while, these feelings would begin to plague Julianne's health. You could see that her health was deteriorating, especially losing weight. She was getting very thin and she seemed to be, well, she was in a lot of pain because it's a cruel type of cancer that she had too. So

just thought I missed Julianne a lot because she was a good friend of mine and saw her every Sunday in church. She sang in the choir and I was part of the choir as well, so miss her. She went to her death knowing that maybe she knows now. We can only hope. On the next episode of The Pit... His anger is when he talked about Sherry. It's one of the times I've seen his anger when he talked about Sherry. We learn more about Sherry's husband, Greg Furtuck. And because of the divorce and the money.

I was going to say, what was he angry about specifically? All the false reporting she did. She's mad because that's not what happened. That time when they called the police, no, that didn't really happen. She was mad at her for that and different things like that. 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 Corinne Larson. Editorial guidance came from Paul Dornstetter and David Hutton. Additional support from Karen Yeske and Courtney Markiewicz. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or just tell your friends. You can also contact us directly by emailing the go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.