Testimony at the triple murder trial of Derek Saretzky continued on Friday with investigators playing more of the recorded interviews officers had with the accused after his arrest in 2015.
Saretzky is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the September 2015 deaths of Hanne Meketech, 69, Terry Blanchette, 27, and two-year-old Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette.
** WARNING – GRAPHIC CONTENT FOLLOWS **
On Friday, the jury watched as Saretzky led police to where the remains of Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette were and a number of the members broke down as the accused re-enacted the murders.
Emotions got the better of a number of the jurors and the Crown needed to call a brief recess so they could regain their composure before continuing.
Once proceedings began once more, Saretzky was seen in the video directing police to a property owned by his family, located just outside Blairmore.
He brought them to a campsite firepit where he told them he’d strangled the little girl and drank her blood.
In another interview, Saretzky claimed that a demon had taunted and teased him into committing the acts.
He said the devil told him to kill Terry Blanchette too, saying he was a terrible father.
Grisly details about the killings came out at the proceedings on Thursday, with Saretzky admitting that he killed Blanchette with a crowbar and then slit his throat to drain his blood. After dismembering Hailey, he told the court that he ‘ate a bit of her heart to try and strengthen himself’.
In a third confession, played to the courtroom on Friday afternoon and recorded months after the initial arrest, Saretzky admitted to killing Meketech as practice before the murders of Terry and Hailey Blanchette. The accused said he hit Meketech over the head with a baseball bat before stabbing her.
The 24-year-old pleaded not guility to causing an indignity to Hailey’s body and not guilty to all three first-degree murder charges.
The trial is scheduled to continue on Monday.
Derek James Saretzky - Agreed Statement of Facts by CTV Calgary on Scribd
