Accused killer Greg Fertuck officially looking for new lawyer 1 year into 1st-degree murder trial

Accused killer Greg Fertuck is looking for a new lawyer, one year into his first-degree murder trial.

Fertuck's judge-alone trial began in September 2021 before Court of King's Bench Justice Richard Danyliuk. On Monday, lawyers Morris Bodnar and Michael Nolin were given leave to withdraw.

They wanted out because Fertuck had complained to the Law Society of Saskatchewan in the spring about their professional competence. Bodnar and Nolin were not told of the complaint until months later.

"Well, he's made derogatory comments which are completely untrue," Bodnar said.

Fertuck questioned whether certain witnesses should have been called and why he did not get bail.

Bodnar has practised law for five decades and this was his last case. He said he's never had an experience like this trial.

Lawyer Brent Little has been appointed as independent legal counsel to help Fertuck find new representation. This could prove to be daunting given the complexity and volume of the material.

• Crown is '95 per cent' sure all evidence and witnesses called in the case against accused killer Greg Fertuck

​​​​​​The trial began on Sept. 7, 2021. Fertuck is charged with first-degree murder and offering an indignity to a body. His estranged wife Sheree Fertuck disappeared Dec. 7, 2015, after heading to work at a gravel pit east of Kenaston, Sask. Her body has never been found.

Greg admitted to police after his arrest in 2017 that he had been at the pit that day. Investigators also found a speck of Sheree's blood in the back of his truck. Although Greg had been arrested, he denied having anything to do with her disappearance and was released.

Police then ran an elaborate undercover operation, called a Mr. Big sting, where they posed as criminals and tricked Greg into disclosing that he had shot and killed Sheree and then dumped her body in a bluff of trees northeast of the pit.

Greg later said he had made up that story. He was charged with killing her in June 2019.

To further compound matters, Greg slipped on the ice outside a west-side Saskatoon bar on Jan. 1, 2019. He was knocked unconscious and taken by ambulance to hospital. The court heard how he checked himself out that same day but, within a week, collapsed at his girlfriend's home with a brain bleed.

The injury's impact on Greg's memory, and whether officers should have continued with the sting, arose during the trial.

The matter returns to Court of King's Bench on Nov. 18.