Greg Fertuck details fatal confrontation with wife Sheree in secretly recorded meeting with fake crime boss

Greg Fertuck told an undercover police officer on hidden camera that he shot his wife Sheree twice with a .22 calibre rifle, once in the shoulder and then in the back of the head, during a confrontation at a gravel pit near Kenaston, Sask. six years ago. 

"I snapped and then I shot her," he said in a secretly-recorded conversation with the officer.

The veteran officer was posing as the head of a criminal syndicate at the time. Two hours of the three-hour conversation was played Monday at Fertuck's first-degree murder trial at Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatoon.

Sheree Fertuck disappeared on Dec. 7, 2015.

The 51-year-old mother of three went missing after heading to work at the gravel pit near the small town south of Saskatoon. Her truck, jacket and cellphone were found there on Dec. 8, and she has not been seen or heard from since.

Although Greg told undercover police that he shot her and dumped her body in the country, he later changed that story and pleaded not guilty.

Police elicited the admission by posing as criminals in a technique known as a Mr. Big sting. The damning disclosure came during a meeting June 21, 2019 in a seventh floor suite at the James Hotel in downtown Saskatoon.

None of the officers involved in the operation, called Project Fisten, can be named because of a court-ordered publication ban.

Justice Richard Danyliuk is presiding over the judge-alone trial and he has yet to determine the admissibility of the evidence from the sting.

On Monday, the beginning of the seventh week of the trial, the officer who played Mr. Big took the witness box and answered questions from prosecutor Cory Bliss to set up the hidden recording.

'The day of the crime boss'

The officer who portrayed Mr. Big is a 20-year veteran of the RCMP who has played every role in previous "major crime techniques," which is how RCMP describe Mr. Big stings.

Under questioning by Bliss, he said the undercover officers involved in the 136 scripted interactions with Fertuck were all well aware of the expectations set out by the Supreme Court when it comes to the stings.

"We will not risk losing this technique because of poor conduct on our part," he said.

Bliss asked how the officer responded to charges that police use "trickery and deceit" to get a suspect to admit to a serious crime.

"Yes, we engage in trickery and deceit," he testified.

But he added that the specifics of the deceit are such that they would pass the "community shock test." He suggested that no one would be outraged by how they went about resolving a murder investigation.

He testified that officers never physically threatened Fertuck or made him more pliable using booze or drugs. The officer said he had to be sure to his own satisfaction that Greg was fully aware what was happening on "the day of the crime boss," he testified.

"When it comes to the day of the crime boss, I am the last step in the gatekeeping process...I could have terminated that scenario, no person could have ordered me to do that interview," he said.

"Mr. Fertuck was clear of thought, clear of speech."

'Understand I am the Alpha'

The meeting with Mr. Big was triggered by two developments.

Greg was manipulated into believing that police were turning up the heat on the investigation into Sheree's disappearance and, second, that this heightened scrutiny was endangering an upcoming high-stakes poker tourney the gang was setting up in Montreal.

The late-morning meeting took place in a large suite at the James Hotel.

The video shows the curtains are drawn shut, illumination coming from a standing corner lamp. Fertuck, in a white long-sleeved shirt, yellow ball cap and jeans, is sitting on a two-seat sofa with his long walking stick propped against the wall.

Given that Fertuck is "physically intimidating" and has easy access to an improvised weapon should the interview go awry, the officer testified it was key that Greg "understand I am the Alpha personality in this relationship."

The camera capturing their exchange is hidden near a coffee station across the room. The sight line on both men is unobstructed and the audio clear.

The officer playing Mr. Big is trim and muscular and is wearing jeans and a checked shirt.

The officer sets the tone immediately. He says that the police scrutiny on Greg is endangering the poker tournament, and Mr. Big is not pleased.

"What buddy has been feeding me, it's not good. Not good at all. I'm putting Montreal on hold right now, that's not a decision I was happy to do," he says.

"You can't let the cheese slide off the cracker."

The officer then explains that he initially planned on simply firing Greg from the organization but that another member vouched for him. This prompted the crime boss to request the sit down with Greg.

The good, the bad and the ugly

The undercover officer, his feet propped on a glass table, then delivers a fictionalized origin story on how he came to be a crime boss.

He tells Greg that he has done time in jail twice, once as a teen and then again in his 20s, and that in the adult stint he befriended a prisoner with a powerful uncle. Once out, the uncle involved him in the gang as a return for looking out or his nephew, he testified.

"I listened and learned from this gentleman," he said.

"Grind it out, for ten years, the good, the bad and the ugly. I looked at that as my university and grad school."

Then, "the old man got sick" and the officer took over the organization.

He then asked Greg to describe his top three characteristics.

"I'm honest, I'm reliable, I'm a hard worker," he says on the tape.

Then the undercover officer turns to the subject of Sheree.

"The heat's coming for you, I've looked into it. It's a 100 per cent problem for you," he says. "You have a mess on your hands. Do you want my help?"

"Yes," Greg replies.

"Then I'll give you the opportunity to talk to me."

'What do you think you're doing?'

Greg says that he drove out to the gravel pit that day to talk to Sheree about getting back some belongings he had stored at her family's farm.

He said that arrived at the pit in his white Dodge Ram 1500 around 3 p.m. and parked it around the side of a gravel pile in a spot near a payloader where Sheree would not see it. She arrived shortly after and backed her truck up to the gravel pile.

He then approached her and the pair began talking.

"I asked her to be more reasonable, after all the work I did. She said everything's gonna stay where it is, and that I'm gonna take you (Greg) to the cleaners," he said.

"That's when I snapped."

The undercover officer asked Greg to repeat what happened a second and third time, each time with more detail.

After losing his temper, Greg says he went back to his truck to retrieve is his Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle that he used to shoot gophers and crows. It was on the back passenger seat of his truck, loaded.

He returned "and she was still talking to me."

"She didn't think I was going to shoot her. 'What do you think you're doing?' (she asked). I'll show you," he said.

Greg said he shot her once in the shoulder, knocking her to her knees. Then he said he shot her again, in the back of the head, from a distance of about ten feet.

Body disposal 

Greg says that he rolled Sheree's body into a sheet of plastic. Then he used the gravel payloader to pick her up and drop the body into the back of his truck.

Then, he drove to a wooded area not far from the pit and dumped her near a stand of trees.

After the admission, the crime boss told Greg to not take credit for killing Sheree if he didn't do it.

"I'm not taking credit for killing my wife," Greg said.

"I'm sorry that I ever did it."

There were about 45 minutes remaining on the recording when court broke on Monday. The balance will be played Tuesday.