Defence witness testifies she saw Sheree Fertuck's truck after dark on the day she disappeared

Mary Ellen Lowdermilk testified Thursday at Greg Fertuck's murder trial that someone drove Greg's ex-wife Sheree's red-and-white gravel truck past her farmhouse on Highway 15 around 5 p.m. CST on Dec. 7, 2015.

At that same time, Greg Fertuck was captured on a surveillance video washing his truck at a Saskatoon service station.

Lowdermilk said she recognized the white truck with a red stripe along the bottom from the times her family worked on it in their shop, and from watching Sheree Fertuck drive past their living room window daily during the gravel hauling season.

"If she was hauling gravel, it would go by our place," she testified Thursday at Greg Fertuck's first-degree murder trial at Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatoon.

Lowdermilk's testimony is significant to the Crown's timeline because Greg told undercover police that he murdered Sheree around 3 p.m. CST on Dec. 7 during a confrontation at the gravel pit near Kenaston, Sask. The truck was discovered at the pit the next morning with her phone and jacket inside. Sheree has not been seen or heard from since.

Fertuck later recanted his confession and pleaded not guilty.

Lowdermilk testified that she's lived in the Kenaston area her entire life and that her farm is about 10 kilometres from Sheree's family's farm. The Lowdermilks run a trucking and hauling business, and do some machinery repairs in their shop.

She testified that the family typically stops working in the shop around 5 p.m. She said that on that day, she was sitting in the living room looking out at the highway when Sheree's truck went by, heading west on Highway 15 toward Kenaston.

Lowdermilk said that she couldn't see the driver or tell whether it had gravel in the back. She estimated the truck was between 200 and 250 feet away when it passed by.

About a second

Under cross-examination, Lowdermilk told prosecutor Cory Bliss that her front room was in semi-darkness when the truck drove by and that her husband was working on the computer. It was dark outside.

She said the truck was travelling at about 100 kilometres per hour and that it would have taken only seconds to pass through her line of sight. She reiterated that she had an unobstructed view of the entire truck and trailer as it passed by.

Lowdermilk said she didn't realize the significance of the sighting until after police came and questioned her.

Argument phase

Greg Fertuck was charged with first-degree murder in June 2019 after telling undercover police officers posing as criminals that he killed Sheree.

Justice Richard Danyliuk is presiding over the judge-alone trial, which began on Sept. 7 with a voir dire, or trial within a trial.

• AUDIO The Pit podcast returns with new episode as trial for Sheree's Fertuck's accused killer continues

The Crown and defence called evidence and witnesses over the past eight weeks of the voir dire and are now preparing their written admissability arguments.

They will return to court on Nov. 22, when the defence may call one more witness on the voir dire.