‘THE CHAPTER IS CLOSED’:
Saretzky sentenced to 75 years without parole for murders
CROWSNEST PASS KILLER WHO MURDERED TWO ADULTS AND A CHILD IS SENTENCED TO 75 YEARS IN PRISON WITHOUT CHANCE OF PAROLE AS COMMUNITY IS ENCOURAGED TO HEAL AND MOVE ON.
LETHBRIDGE • It may be the darkest stain on the history of Crowsnest Pass, but the Derek Saretzky saga is now over, a judge proclaimed Wednesday in handing the killer the harshest sentence available.
“The chapter is closed,” Justice William Tilleman said, in handing Saretzky three consecutive periods of 25 years of parole ineligibility.
Crown prosecutor Photini Papadatou added the residents of the closeknit community in southwestern Alberta can now move on.
“It’s time for the community to heal and put themselves back together again,” Papadatou said following Saretzky’s sentencing hearing.
“What options do we have other than to move forward?” she said, when asked about the difficulty the community will have in erasing the Saretzky case from its memory.
“This community came together to address a horrendous act and they did so with dignity and equanimity.
“And I think, to me, it has restored my faith in both justice and the community and how they dealt with possibly one of the worst cases that this province has ever seen.”
Saretzky, 24, showed no outward emotion as Tilleman ordered him to serve a minimum 75 years before he can seek full freedom from jail before the Parole Board of Canada. Because he was 22 when arrested for the murders of Hanne Meketech, Terry Blanchette and Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette, Saretzky will be 97 when he can apply for full parole.
Papadatou and co-prosecutor Michael Fox sought the maximum punishment and Tilleman obliged.
Defence lawyer Patrick Edgerton sought the minimum parole eligibility for first-degree murder of 25 years, but the Court of Queen’s Bench judge said the facts of the case were too egregious to warrant such a sentence.
In written submissions filed last month, Edgerton said Saretzky’s relative youthfulness should be a factor in sparing him the harshest sentence available.
“If this honourable court were to conclude that the three periods of parole ineligibility should all run consecutively, this decision would, respectfully, impose a sentence that is unduly long and harsh,” he wrote.
“Sentencing Mr. Saretzky to a 75-year period of parole ineligibility would certainly be a ‘crushing sentence,’” he said, citing case-law against such punishment.
Saretzky was convicted by a Lethbridge jury on June 28 of three counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Coleman resident Meketech, 69, on Sept. 9, 2015, and the killings of Blanchette, 27, in his Blairmore home and the kidnapping and murder of his two-year-old daughter, Hailey, five days later.
Edgerton said unlike triple-murderer Douglas Garland, who was sentenced to 75 years of parole ineligibility earlier this year for the slayings of Calgary couple Alvin and Kathy Liknes and their five-year-old grandson, Nathan O’Brien, Saretzky’s age should have been a factor in Tilleman’s decision.
“Mr. Saretzky’s age is an important consideration,” Edgerton said. “Giving an inmate the possibility of living to their parole eligibility date is important.”
But Tilleman said Saretzky’s horrific crimes, which included strangling the little girl before dismembering her body and incinerating her remains, warranted a sentence that will in all likelihood see the killer die in jail.
“Before this disposal (of the remains) he committed the deranged and self-indulgent acts of drinking her blood and eating part of her heart,” the judge said.
“I have considered the argument made by defence counsel that a sentence lasting an inmate’s natural lifetime leaves them with little incentive to abide by prison rules. However, it goes without saying that Mr. Saretzky has demonstrated no regard for societal rules of any kind,” Tilleman said.
“There are terrible, incomprehensible things that happen in our lives. The murders of Hanne, Terry and Hailey fit that category,” he said.
“I ask all of you to focus, not on these horrible acts, but on the good of humanity and the community unification and solidarity to which you can now return.”