Uncover - S23 E5: The interview | "The Pit"

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

A letter to the Saskatoon jail nets our reporters a meeting with the suspect. We hear from him for the first time. 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. It's a warm, humid morning in Saskatoon. Fluffy storm clouds hang over the city's provincial jail. Two guards in Navy uniforms are outside, and they hold the door for us as we walk in. I'm with Victoria Dinh. We've been working on this story together. We're at the Saskatoon Provincial Correctional Centre. A woman at the front desk tells us to lock up our valuables.

They scan our bags of recording equipment, and some workers give us suspicious looks. It's not common here for reporters to step inside a jail. But somehow, that's what we're doing. The series of events that led to us being here feels pretty surreal. But it is real. We're going to interview Greg Furtuck. I'm Alicia Bridges, and this is Episode five of The Pit. We were always going to try to approach Greg Furtuck,

but we have to have all the information we need before we can ask Greg for an interview. But when the time comes, it's too late to just go and knock on his door because Greg is in jail. He's been in custody since he was arrested on June 24th, 2019. Arrested over the death of his estranged wife, Sherry, and charged with first degree murder and causing indignity to a body. to a body. So we write him a letter. Honestly, it's a long shot. It's pretty rare for someone accused of such a serious offence to sit down and talk to reporters when they're in jail, especially when their case is in process. But something tells us it's worth trying with Greg. Almost a week later, we still haven't heard back. I've almost given up on the idea. And then he calls. I've almost given up on the idea. And then he calls.

Okay, let's do that. Okay, thanks Greg. We'll be in touch. Okay, bye. Listen'll be in touch. OK. Bye. I have chills. Like, that's insane. What did it like? How did it start? Did it say, like, do you want to receive a collect call from? Yeah, it's definitely it's definitely him. Yeah. Because he wouldn't have my cell number. And it did say it was a collect call from Saskatoon Correctional. So it's Greg, and he wants to talk to us and wants to do a sit-down interview and tell us what he says happened. The day after we hear from Greg, we're on our way to the jail.

Alicia and I have been working hard on a list of questions for Greg. We've been waiting to talk to him. There's a lot riding on this interview. To be clear, we're not looking for a gotcha moment. We just want to know the truth. Greg hasn't gone to trial, and in the eyes of the law, he is presumed innocent. Over the months we've worked on this story, people have told us many different things about him. We want to give him a chance to respond.

We decide that only one of us will be asking the questions. It's me. We wait to enter through heavy sliding metal doors. We walk by some inmates in the maze of hallways, and they look at us, but there's no reaction as we pass. They're quiet. It's the first time either of us has been inside a jail. And admittedly, we're a little nervous. To be honest, I can't quite believe this is happening. The correctional centre puts us in a boardroom. The walls are powder blue.

There are motivational posters on the wall with slogans like celebrate success. We take a seat at the end of a large table surrounded by big black chairs. We don't have to wait very long but it feels like forever. Greg Vertuk enters the room. Victoria. I'm Alicia. Alicia. Nice to meet you. Where is Adrian or whoever I talk to? Oh, that's Alicia.

Oh. Yeah, yeah. Alicia. Oh, Alicia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's wearing the same thing all the prisoners here are wearing, an orange T-shirt. And because he's talking to us, orange handcuffs.

We have a microphone set up for him. He takes a seat in front of it. My name's Greg Furtuck, and I was Sherry Sarotsky's husband. I probably still am. They haven't found the body, so she might be out there somewhere, you know. Greg looks tired. He still has that scruffy grey hair and goatee from when we saw him in court a couple of weeks ago.

The guards leave the door slightly open for the duration of the interview, and half the blinds are shut. Greg's piercing brown eyes lock on to mine when he talks. It's a little unnerving. We start off light. We ask Greg to tell us a little bit about himself. He says he grew up in Bigger and worked for the railways for 37 years. And then we get straight to the point. Sherry. So do you remember the day you met Sherry? Well, not really. You see, back in December, I had a little accident.

I banged the back of my head when we were going out for supper. It was icy. I fell back and hit the back of my head, and I was in the hospital for over two months. So I lost quite a bit of my memory. Greg says he ruptured a blood vessel when he fell, and that he has a kind of amnesia. He says he doesn't remember much from

before the fall but we persevere is there anything at all from that time like any sort of earlier memories of sherry from when you were together initially well sherry's my wife and i loved her and i wouldn't hurt her and in terms of like do you remember what it was about her that you liked? That it was you know what was it about her that you loved? She was sort of outgoing and friendly. She was a hard worker. Do you remember I guess the moment you found out that Sherry had gone missing? Could you tell me about that? Well, I remember a little bit about that.

They said Sherry didn't show up at the farm. And they went out there, looked at the gravel pit, and she wasn't there. So they called the police. Okay. And who called you? Was it the the police i think it was her mom julianne okay and at that time did she what did she think had happened to sherry was she just thinking there'd been an accident or what did she say to you well she said she was just missing you know she thought maybe she fell hit her head or something and wandered off you know well sort of like me and I fell and hit my head I didn't know where I was or anything

and what did you think at the time did you think that she um like what were your first thoughts I guess when when you heard from Julia well when she first told me I thought maybe she had bumped her head and just wandered off maybe Maybe to the neighbours or something like that. And do you remember where you were that day? Like an alibi kind of thing. Oh, well, I think I was at her home when that happened. Okay, in Saskatoon? Yeah.

Yeah, okay. And do you remember, like, the timeline of that day? Like, do you remember what you were doing that day? What was happening when you got that call to say Sherry was missing? Actually, I don't remember much. I said, after my accident. And I'm just saying that I think Julianne was the one that told me. Because she was the one who went down to the gravel pit and said, you know,

she wasn't there. But I don't remember anything. I actually went on a holiday to Canmore and I don't even remember nothing about the holiday. Really, you don't remember anything? Wow. Just pictures, you know, that I was there and stuff like that.

So, what about that, I guess I'm still asking you about memories, but anything you can remember about the day that Sherry disappeared. Do you remember what you were doing that day, the 7th of December? If I can't remember Canmore and that it happened this past year, I don't remember nothing that far back. The Canmore trip.

Greg says he doesn't remember it, but he says he's seen photos of it. Photos of him with the undercover officers who would later arrest him. Photos they showed him when they visited him in hospital. Supposedly they were at Canmore because he said I won this trip to Canmore and this police officer won the trip to Canmore. So I don't know. That's what he said, how he ended up. And he came and visited me in the hospital when I was in the hospital. Have you had another thing? No.

And what about after that? Like, what was your relationship with those police officers? Well, we used to go out, pick up cars. I thought that was sort of a little funny, because we'd pick up a car or a vehicle today and bring it back to Saskatoon to a car lot. In the last episode, we learned a bit about how the police investigated Greg. From what we've been told, it sounds like they used a technique called a Mr Big sting.

It's a controversial tactic where undercover cops pose as criminals. Mr Big is the crime boss. He or she is usually the one to offer their services. And this can mean offering to get the police off their case if they're being investigated. In return, they have to confess a secret, something they do to earn Mr Big's trust. In Greg's case, he works with two guys he thinks are mobsters in Saskatoon. He says they transported cars between the town of Hague and Saskatoon. It's about a 30-minute drive.

And after that, they would go for supper. And what about the criminal side of things? Like, were they telling you that they were involved with any kind of, like, mob situation? Or what did they tell you about who they were? Well, from the time in Calgary there... That's a city in the neighbouring province of Alberta. I kind of thought they were criminals because this one guy killed his girlfriend

and I know he had blood all over him, scratches on his face. And this guy from Vancouver got rid of everything. He was sort of a clean-up guy. So I thought they were like mobsters. So why did you keep hanging out with them then, like spending time with them? you well i didn't well they didn't actually do anything illegal in my view okay aside from the girl there was a girl that you said was that you felt like he you thought he

had killed her well no this other guy killed her Well I seen the blood and his face was all scratched up. Yeah, and he said he was going to do it? Or he said after that he did it? Well no, they sort of covered it up. Supposed to be the mob boss or whatever. Covered it all up and stuff like that. Mr Big. He met him at the tourist town of Banff in the Canadian Rockies. Okay, and what was he like? Was he friendly? Was he a serious guy? He reminded you of a crime boss, that's what he reminded you of. Okay, like from the movies or something? Yeah, right. And so what were you thinking this whole time? Were you worried about getting involved with these people?

At that time I wasn't worried. But when I got called into the hotel room, he said I cost him a bunch of money because the cops were looking into me. I didn't know what he was talking about. And then I seen the cleanup guy, so that's when I started. I got worried for my safety and I was being intimidated anyways, so... Greg says he told the

undercover officers he got rid of Sherry. Those were his words to us. Got rid of. He doesn't go into the specifics of what he told them, but he says it was all fabricated. I made it up, and we went out supposedly looking for the body. Well, there was no body, so we just drove around to these different places

because it was all BS. I didn't kill her, and there was no body out there. So they didn't find nothing. So is this when they were with you you guys went out driving around or was it afterwards was it based on something that they that you told them no this after the hotel deal well i had to take them somewhere you know did they say were they saying that they wanted you to prove it is that why you had to take them or why?

I don't remember because the big boss told me to go with them and find the body or whatever. But there was no body to find because I made it up, you know? Okay. Where did you take them? Oh, just... We drove around the country road, went through some bushes, and that's about it. And how did you explain that there was no body?

Did you just have to make up an excuse? Well, I can't remember everything. That was it. 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're trying to find out why police are charging Greg with causing indignity to a body. What did he tell them he did to her? We ask again later in the interview. Oh, what I told Mr. Big?

I just told him I threw her in the bush. Well, you might say I was sort of worried about my health. He had no business being there because he's from Vancouver, so I was wondering why he's there. But he's sort of like the clean-up guy. I thought, uh-oh, this doesn't look good for me. Greg says this was all taped at the James Hotel in Saskatoon. He says the RCMP later arrest him near a place called Greg's Grocery.

And that happened on June 24th, 2019. I mean, how were you feeling at that point? I was very shocked. You felt like these guys were friends? You felt like these guys were friends of yours? Well, I didn't really think of them as friends, but I guess I trusted them a little bit, you know, because I worked for them and stuff like that.

Greg says all of this happened after he hit his head and lost his memory at the end of 2018. He's already told us he doesn't remember meeting Sherry, and that was before 1991. But maybe he'll remember what happens a little later on. If it seems like we're moving through our questions quickly, you're right. We don't have much time. We're worried the guards could cut the interview off at any time, and we have limited time to put these questions to Greg. Like, we wanted to ask you about,

there's some court documents from the two offences from a few years ago. So, well, 2012, you're in court for the assault charges and the Uzi, like the gun that was seized. And then a couple of years before that, there was a death threat that went to court as well. There was none, but I can't remember any of that. But I never ever assaulted Cherry. I remember one time she come at me and I just pushed her back.

Okay. How did she come at you? Was it like, did she have a weapon or something? No, she punched me with her fists. So you pleaded guilty to both of those things like you pleaded guilty to both of those things at the time well I never threatened her I did push her back if you call pushing I thought it was just self-defense but I don't choose she was very out to get me, I guess, whatever. Right.

So, yeah, I mean, how were things between you guys? Like, we've heard from other people that you fought a lot. Is that true, that you guys had a lot of arguments? I don't remember that, no. And we also were told about there was disagreement between you both over money about the house, that when the divorce was going through that you were angry because you felt that you rightfully should have had the house. Is that correct? I don't remember any of that part of it.

Okay. Do you remember anything about why the divorce was filed in the first instance? No. So your whole recollection of your relationship with Sherry is just gone? No, I don't remember anything about the court or the charges. Okay. So, I was going to ask you... who was my lawyer that time anything uh morris bodnar was your lawyer for both of them i think who's that uh morris bodnar oh he was there for both of us oh okay

yeah so i'll have to ask him because i i don't remember yeah well i think a lot of our questions are about things that happened like before your arrest as well so i think um you know we're wanting to know like someone told us that you had uh sat on the couch one night at their home and said that you were going to get rid of sherry um yeah that you'd been drinking and that you said, I'm going to get rid of Sherry and her mum and that I'm going to bury them in the North 40. Well, I don't remember seeing something that stupid. Do you think you'd ever say something like that? Well, I can't say I would say something because that's really far out.

But they said I was drinking. I don't know. I don really far out. But they said I was drinking. I don't know. I didn't know what I was like when I was drinking. See, after I got out of the hospital, I quit drinking, you know. Because they said the fall was partly because I was drinking, you know. When I slipped and fell on the ice there, that was partly due to the fact that I was drinking. So you don't think that you would say,

like I guess I'm just trying to, if someone says that you said that, would it be something that you might say because you were angry one night or something like that? Would there be some explanation for a comment like that? I can't see myself saying something like that, you know? And we did hear from another person that you said, I have to ask you these things, like, yeah,

that you said that you had talked about getting rid of people and that it would be easy to do. Do you remember saying anything like that? Or do you think you would say anything like that? I never ever got rid of anybody so I don't think, except watching TV, you know, that's my only thing. I've never gotten rid of anybody and I don't think I would talk like that either. This is not language that you would use generally?

No, not normally like that so I don't know who told you that or why. I mean, we did hear from multiple people that they felt like you were quite different when you had been drinking. Quite a different person when you had been drinking and that you were maybe more aggressive and angrier. Do you think that's an accurate description? I don't know. i don't even know what it was like when i was drinking okay like you don't remember because of the fall or you don't remember because you were drinking at the time and i don't remember because of the fall i

i don't know what i was like you know to be truthful um all right and i guess i mean we kind of want to ask you obviously there has been reporting previously like the police put in a court document that they felt that you were responsible for Sherry's murder yeah I guess we want to know like

why do you think people should believe you like I mean like you say you forget and you know there are people out there who won't believe that, so... Well, I don't really care what they believe, but I did love Sherry and I wouldn't have harmed her. Mm-hm. OK.

This is a line he repeats five times during the interview. I loved her and I wouldn't have hurt her or harmed her. He says what's happening to him is very stressful. Victoria has some questions to add about why. And a little bit about your charges. So after, you know, the first degree murder charge and the indignity to a body charge had been laid, how has this affected your relationship with your family and your kids?

Well my mom and brother didn't believe it. My partner Doris, she was upset because she's alone now. Nobody to help her and stuff. Well, she said she's just upset. But I told her I didn't do none of that stuff anyways. Did she believe you? I couldn't see her eyes or anything like that. But yeah, we went out there looking for the body for two different days and never found nothing because I made it up.

That's why they didn't find nothing. It was a fabrication, just like they fabricated it to me, they were my friends. And what about your children? Well, I haven't talked to them yet. Since my arrest. In court, they said I was supposed to have no contact with him. So I guess maybe I won't get to talk to him until this is over.

And how did that make you feel, like when you heard the no contact order? I was a little depressed. I don't know how I felt when I was in court those other two times because I don't remember. Greg's not allowed to talk to his children. There's a court order preventing it. And they weren't in court for his first appearance. And so you've been married to Sherry since 1991, right?

So knowing that she's been missing since, you know, for the past, like, almost four or four years, like, how do you feel now? Like, how are you feeling now? I feel really depressed. Because I said I still love my wife and I wouldn't do anything to hurt her. I still love my wife and I wouldn't do anything to hurt her. And do you have any regrets about, like, your relationship with Sherry? Like, do you feel like the good times were worth the bad that has come of you guys being together for you?

I don't remember the bad times after that fall, so I don't know. I just remember the good times, like way back when. Right, but like this is, this situation, this is pretty bad, like you're in jail now. So I guess I wonder, you know, if you feel any kind of regret about your relationship with her or... Oh, I don't feel no regret about Sherry.

Like I said, I loved her, and I would never do anything to harm her. And you can't think of anything from, like in terms of your case, I know you want to speak about this with your lawyer here, but just like obvious things from that time that you would know for sure would clear you of this accusation. Like is there anything that you could say i was definitely at this place on this day um i couldn't have been anywhere near where the gravel pit

the which uh the gravel pit where sherry disappeared yeah yeah is there anything that you could you could say to the police um to prove that you you weren't in that area? Not really. Greg does have his own theory about what might have happened. He thinks Sherry might have been killed by someone else in the gravel business. I also have to ask, do you know who did it? I haven't got a faintest idea. She was sort of disappeared. I don't even know if she's really gone, you know?

Maybe she just hit her head and went off somewhere, you know? You should do that. I don't know. What, after it hit my head, I couldn't remember nothing. Yeah, I'd probably wander off somewhere if I didn't have anybody telling me stuff, you know. We know Greg was in hospital around the time he says he was. Someone tipped us off and we called to check.

And I also wanted to ask you about the medical documents so I guess when I'm thinking as you're telling me about the fall I mean I feel like there are people who are going to listen to our interview and maybe think like you know that it's convenient for you to not remember before that time

go to city hospital and university hospital and pull my record that's what I was going to ask is like if there are records of that we would need your permission though to do that yeah go ahead pull my records i don't care i think we'd have to like maybe get a written letter or something like that from you to get them to give it to us because they won't just give us your information yeah so is that something you're able to do? Because that really helps us to say... Let's talk with Morris next week.

He means Morris Bodnar. I'm going to miss dinner here. Oh, you need lunch? Okay. What time is it right now? Almost 12. Oh, okay, they started to eat already, so... At this point in the interview, things get a little uncomfortable. Greg wants us to put $50 into his jail account.

Are you going to put that money into my account so I can get money to phone? I think all we could do is probably just give you, like... I mean, do you know how much the phone calls are? Well, I don't know, but you can give me $50, put it in there for giving you... Like, personally, I can't. I have to get permission from my bosses. So that's why. Well, you're going to get paid a lot for this interview. He leans into the mic. Interview's

over. You can get the rest from my lawyer. Okay, we'll do that. Thank you. Thank you. We'll do that. Some of you will be here to take care of it. Thank you. Thank you. And that's it. We pack up and leave. There's still so much we don't know.

For the Crown to approve charges against Greg, it shows they think they have a solid case. But right now, we don't know. For the Crown to approve charges against Greg, it shows they think they have a solid case. But right now, we don't know what evidence they have. A confession obtained through a sting might not be enough. Mr Big Stings have been controversial in Canada. And they have been criticised for inducing false confessions. Sometimes the evidence is deemed inadmissible. Any deviation from the rules could make the RCMP's case fall apart. In 2014, the Supreme Court called into question the

reliability of Mr Big Confessions. But in Saskatchewan, the technique has led to some high-profile convictions. We'll be back soon to talk about the case. We'll keep you up to date with developments, what to expect, and how the Mr Big Sting could play out in court. That's on the next episode of The Pit. 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 Dornstetter and David Hutton. Additional support from Karen Yeske and Courtney Markowicz. 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 thepit at cbc.ca. Thank you. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.