Court hears first person charged in Sweeney murder loved knives, had long criminal record

Jason Katz took out his gun. His adrenaline was high.

The Sudbury police officer had responded to a call of someone being shot at the Adults Only Video on Paris Street that morning of Jan. 27, 1998.

"I opened the door, I didn't know what to expect," Katz told a Sudbury courtroom on Tuesday morning.

Inside, Katz, who is now with the Ontario Provincial Police, found the dead body of 23-year-old Renée Sweeney and two women who had come in to help her.

Steven Wright, who was 18 at the time of Sweeney's death, is charged with second-degree murder.

The 43-year-old has been held in the Sudbury Jail for four years since his arrest, waiting for his day in court. 

Wright's lawyer Michael Lacy raised his voice in questioning Katz and how he recalled a conversation he had with a man identifying himself as an eye witness on the day of the stabbing.

That man is expected to be called by the defence later in the trial to testify that he saw someone else enter the video store earlier in the day.

In its opening statement, the defence said they will present evidence that a man named John Fetterly, who was charged with Sweeney's murder for one day in February 1998, was in Adults Only Video 30 to 40 minutes before Wright went in and found Sweeney dead.

Robert Keetch, who later served as chief of Sault Ste. Marie Police, but in 1998 was a sergeant with Sudbury Regional Police, also testified Tuesday.

He recalled that after a sketch of a possible suspect was released that police received a "tremendous" amount of tips and the investigation became "bogged down" sorting through "potential look-a-likes."

Keetch told the court that on Feb. 10, 1998, he went to the Sudbury courthouse to arrest John Fetterly, who was appearing at a bail hearing on an unrelated matter.

Officers had picked him up on Elgin Street, where he had called police from a pay telephone on Elgin Street, and Keetch testified that investigators determined that Fetterly's thumbprint was a match for the print found at the video store. 

Keetch testified that he then conducted a search of the apartment where Fetterly lived with his mother and seized several knives.

The charges against Fetterly were dropped on Feb. 12, 1998.

On that same day, a Sudbury police officer took a statement from a local mental health worker who said Fetterly was a client of his, liked to talk about knives and on one occasion, showed a knife to other mental health workers.

On cross-examination, defence lawyer Michael Lacy showed that statement to Keetch, who didn't remember seeing it before.

Lacy also read out Fetterly's long criminal record, which included several convictions for assault and theft between 1983 and 1994.

Retired Sudbury police officer Brian MacRury took the stand Tuesday afternoon, recalling how he and a tracking dog followed footprints in the snow leading from the murder scene in the video store.

They found a teal jacket in a bush area near the intersection of Paris Street and Walford Road, which today is a parking lot for the Sudbury hospital. 

MacRury said the jacket was found along a footpath, wedged between two rocks and had "dark stains" on it. A pair of bloody gloves were also found. 

He will be cross-examined by the defence when court resumes on Wednesday morning.