RCMP video with accused played at trial
Interview with triple-murder suspect includes graphic, disturbing details
Details of cannibalism and dismemberment in a triple-murder case became known publically Thursday, as a video between an RCMP officer and the accused Derek Saretzky was shown in a Lethbridge courtroom. The video with Staff Sgt. Michael McCauley and Saretzky was recorded at the Crowsnest Pass RCMP detachment on Sept. 15, 2015, the day after Terry Blanchette’s body was found and while the Amber Alert for two-year-old Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette was still active.
Note: Story contains very graphic content, possibly disturbing to some readers.
Testimony on Thursday came from four Mounties: McCauley, two others who were present during Saretzky’s arrest and another forensics officer.
Saretzky is on trial for the 2015 Blairmore murders of Blanchette, his daughter, two-year-old Dunbar-Blanchette, and the Coleman murder of 69-year-old Hanne Meketech, as well as an indignity to a body. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
McCauley, a 15-year veteran now stationed in Fort Saskatchewan, conducted suspect interviews in the Crowsnest Pass in 2015. The first video recording begins at 12:54 p.m. Sept. 15, 2015. In court Thursday, Saretzky sat in the prisoner dock, his back to media, while the video was played.
“I want to make sure you feel comfortable to speak freely,” McCauley says in the video.
“It feels like I’ve got a hex on me,” Saretzky says in the video. “I want to be strong and healthy and not frowned upon. I just feel bad because I don’t know what happened. I’m not guilty. I stopped taking my medications. Everything has been a real blur since then.”
Saretzky described being bullied and not having any friends. He also told McCauley about dating Cheyenne, Hailey’s mother, for several months after Hailey was born.
Things spiralled from there, he said. Saretzky told McCauley that voices in his head tell him he doesn’t like people, including Blanchette.
“It feels like the devil is making fun of me,” Saretzky says. “Making me feel like I’m a joke. Like a clown.”
“Dead or alive, at this point we just need find her,” McCauley says, referring to Hailey.
“She’s not alive,” Saretzky says. “The devil made me turn her into ashes.”
“Did the devil make you have sex with her?” asks McCauley. “No,” Saretzky replies.
“I ate a bit of her heart to try to strengthen mine,” he says in the video. “I drank her blood. Most of it.”
Some jury members were covering their faces Thursday as that part of the video played. Saretzky then details that he choked Hailey with a shoelace, and cut off her head, arms and legs with a knife.
He also told McCauley in the video what happened with Blanchette. Saretzky found him lying in bed, awake. He says he hit him with a crowbar, then he choked him with a rope, then slit his throat. Saretzky says he didn’t drink Blanchette’s blood.
“I didn’t drain enough,” he says in the video.
“Think I’d have a chance if I plead insanity?” he later asks McCauley in the video.
The Crown’s third witness Thursday was Cpl. Chad Koroluk of RCMP Major Crimes. The 10-year Mountie was first called to Coleman to investigate the Hanne Meketech murder.
On Sept. 14, Koroluk was called to the Blanchette case. In court, he discussed video surveillance relating to the Prestige Cleaners van, obtained from a hotel in the Crowsnest Pass.
Koroluk also discussed an audio recording from Sept. 15, 2015, that was then played to court. It began with RCMP Const. Amanda Wilkinson, who also testified Thursday, stating she is recording the conversation between the three RCMP members, and Larry and Derek Saretzky.
“Let’s start with ‘is she alive?’” Wilkinson is heard saying, referring to Hailey.
“She’s in heaven,” Saretzky is heard saying. “Her body is in my sperm cells.”
The recording continues in the police cruiser and into the Crowsnest Pass RCMP detachment. Saretzky tells Koroluk of a prescription to Seroquel for sleep, but says he hasn’t taken it for several months. Koroluk is then heard describing to Saretzky the process of selecting a lawyer.
Thursday’s first witness was RCMP Cpl. Guylaine Thibault, a 12year veteran. She’s spent the past seven years based in Calgary with the RCMP forensics unit.
She showed a presentation of photos taken at Saretzky’s mother Sheri Megli’s house, where he lived part time. Thibault described a backpack found with torn pages from “The Killer Book,” as well as a hammer, a machete and latex gloves located.
The trial continues today with McCauley back on the stand and two more confession videos anticipated.