Murder suspect’s grandfather testifies

Saretzky’s grandparents were friends with murder victim

Hanne Meketech may have had a large inheritance she kept in her home because she did not trust banks, the jury in the Derek Saretzky triple murder trial heard on Friday.

Saretzky is on trial for the 2015 Blairmore murders of Terry Blanchette and his daughter, two-year-old Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette, and the Coleman murder of 69-year-old Meketech.

Saretzky’s grandfather, Terry Megli, took the stand on Friday and told the jury about Meketech’s inheritance and her troubles with a neighbour and with her ex-husband. He said Meketech was a longtime family friend.

Megli said Saretzky knew Meketech personally and that he sometimes helped people in the neighbourhood with mowing lawns and cleaning their yards.

He said Saretzky had helped Meketech on occasion “two or three years” before her death in 2015.

Prior to Megli's birthday on Sept. 15, 2015, Saretzky asked to see Megli and his wife. Megli testified his grandson was “quite insistent” about seeing them. However, Megli was “emotionally” unavailable for his grandson due to Saretzky’s problems with alcohol and drugs.

“I didn’t want that in my house,” he said.

Megli’s home is located about a block from Meketech’s home and he and his wife were longtime friends of Meketech’s. He described her as a nice and simple woman who was a big animal lover.

“She was a real nice woman,” he said. “She was there for you if you needed her.”

Under cross examination, Megli told Saretzky’s lawyer Patrick Edgerton that he did not remember ever seeing Meketech and Saretzky get into a fight or argument.

He said he did not know much about the nature of the relationship between Meketech and her ex-husband.

“I know they had a bad divorce,” he said, noting one issue was the status of the trailer Meketech lived in and who owned it. “I know she didn’t like him.” He also testified she often argued with a neighbour, referring to them as “just two old hags getting on each other’s nerves.”

Megli testified he was aware Meketech received an inheritance when her mother passed away and that he thought Meketech might have been keeping it at home.

He was unsure of the total amount of money inherited, stating it was somewhere around $90,000.

Megli said his wife was the executor for Meketech’s estate, but that she stepped away from that duty when Saretzky’s charges came before the court.

The jury also heard from Meketech’s friend and neighbour Dwight LaRose, who has lived in the area on and off for 40 years and had known Meketech since the late 1970s. He took possession of a new home near Meketech’s in August 2015 and often walked his dog by her home.

LaRose described Meketech as a “happy-go-lucky” person who loved dogs.

On Sept. 8, the day before Meketech’s body was discovered, he said as he walked by Meketech’s home around 8:30 p.m. his dog, Chance, became interested in her door.

“We were walking up the alley and she stuck her nose up underneath Hanne’s door,” he said. “I’d never seen her do that before.”

It happened again later that night during another walk.

LaRose’s sister Lisa Markowski then testified. She works at a diner in Coleman owned by her mother and knew Meketech for close to 35 years.

She said Meketech came into the diner every day at about 11 a.m. for morning coffee. On days she couldn’t make it, she would call the diner and come in for lunch.

She described Meketech as a talkative, friendly person with other patrons.

“She’d go from table to table and chat with everybody,” Markowski said.

Markowski said staff at the diner noticed when Meketech did not arrive at the diner on Sept. 9, and the fact she did not call was out of the ordinary. The trial continues Monday. Follow @JWSchnarrHerald on Twitter