Saretzky disputes sentencing in triple murder conviction, files an appeal

Triple murderer Derek Saretzky is hoping for a new trial.

The convicted 24-year-old filed a notice of appeal, via lawyer Balfour Der’s office, Thursday to the Alberta Court of Appeal in Calgary seeking a “new trial” and “the imposition of a fit sentence.”

In court documents filed, the grounds of appeal for the conviction include the statement “the trial judge erred in law by finding that the statements of the Appellant to the authorities were admissible as evidence.”

For the appeal to the sentence, the grounds of appeal refer to the consecutive parole ineligibility periods violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and is “therefore unconstitutional and of no force and effect. The trial judge thus erred in law by ordering three consecutive 25-year parole ineligibility periods.”

On Aug. 9 in Lethbridge, Justice William Tilleman deemed parole ineligibility to be consecutive for Saretzky — meaning three terms of 25 years before he is eligible for parole — 75 years in total. This followed the guilty verdict in June.

In 2015, Saretzky murdered 69-yearold Coleman resident Hanne Meketech, and then he murdered Blairmore resident Terry Blanchette and Terry's daughter, two-year-old Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette.

Saretzky was also handed a five-year concurrent sentence for offering an indignity to human remains for acts committed against Dunbar-Blanchette and the destruction of her body in a rural fire pit.

The sentence means Saretzky, now 24, will be nearly 100 years old before he is eligible for parole.

An appeal date has not yet been announced.