By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles on Twitter

Police officer says he didn’t know what he was walking into in Saretzky murder trial (WARNING: Story contains graphic details)

Jun 14, 2017 | 6:29 PM

LETHBRIDGE – A 17 year RCMP veteran was brought to silence on Wednesday (June 14), as he tried to control his emotions while testifying in the triple homicide trial of Derek Saretzky.

Saretzky is accused of first degree murder in the deaths of 69-year old Hanne Meketech, 27-year old Terry Blanchette and his two-year old daughter, Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette, in September of 2015.

Sgt. Stephen Browne started to choke up and had to pause, as he recounted going into Hailey’s bedroom on Sept. 14, 2015, and found blood on the carpet, but no sign of the child.

“I didn’t expect to walk into what I walked into,” Sgt. Browne told the jury, after explaining how he discovered Terry’s body in a blood-drenched bathroom in the Blairmore duplex. “It was obvious in my mind that this was a homicide.”

Sgt. Brown had already been in the Crowsnest Pass, after being called in as the team commander to investigate the murder of Meketech, whose body was discovered on Sept. 9 in Coleman.

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During that initial investigation, he responded to a suspicious death at the Blanchette house, after Terry’s father, Bill Blanchette, made the discovery.

Additional officers were called in and an Amber Alert was issued for Hailey, with Sgt. Browne saying all their efforts shifted to finding the little girl.

On Sept. 15, Sgt. Browne stated that their investigation pointed them to the apartment of Derek Saretzky, and he was involved in a search of the property for Hailey with other officers. He noted that Derek’s father, Larry Saretzky, had let them in.

Inside, he noted blood on a wall and several items inside the home, and as they completed the search, he testified that Larry came to them saying they needed to talk to his son, because he had done something bad, adding, “The devil was talking to him.”

As the officers approached Larry and Derek, Sgt. Browne says both were visibly upset and crying. He asked another officer to turn on her audio recorder, and began speaking to Derek, advising him that he was a suspect and that their primary goal was to find Hailey.

After pleading for Saretzky’s help to find the missing child, he said Saretzky responded that they had just seen her, going on to say, “She’s in heaven, her spirit is floating around.”

“Her body was in his sperm cells,” Sgt. Browne added of a comment Saretzky made to them.

He then walked away and had another officer take Saretzky into custody for the murder of Terry Blanchette.

From that point, the two teams started comparing similarities in the Meketech and Blanchette murder scenes, noting that there were a number of them, such as the blunt force injuries and stab wounds.

In the mind of Sgt. Browne though, Saretzky moved from a person of interest to a suspect in the murder of Meketech on Sept. 19, when he received a photo of a list found in Saretzky’s apartment. On that list, the words “Medicine Fresh” were written at the top, followed by several lines that had been crossed out, saying: “Hanne, sleepers for the dogs, Chy, Terry and The Hideous Baby.”

During the Crown’s opening statement to the jury, they noted that Hailey’s mother, Cheyenne Dunbar, was often called Chy.

Sgt. Jennifer Barnes also testified Wednesday, as she processed the Blanchette crime scene as a blood stain pattern analyst.

A series of photos, including a graphic image of Terry’s body, were shown to the jury, as Sgt. Barnes walked them through the house.

She pointed out numerous blood stains on Terry’s bed and floor in his bedroom, and discussed the bloody drag marks going from that room into the hallway and then into the bathroom, where she noted hundreds of blood spatter stains.

“A force applied multiple times to a blood source,” Sgt. Barnes explained of the scene in the bathroom, as images of blood were shown on the toilet, sink, wall, a cabinet and the door. When asked by the Crown if she could specify where each blood stain came from, she admitted that she couldn’t as there were too many in too small a space.

Sgt. Barnes was also tasked with examining blood on several exhibits seized from Saretzky’s apartment. She started by discussing a pair of cowboy boots, saying, “The boots were in proximity to a blood letting event.” She also noted that a sock and a pair of boxer-shorts had blood on them, and it was revealed that blood was a match to Saretzky.

The trial is set to continue Thursday morning (June 15), with the audio recording from Saretzky’s conversation with Sgt. Browne expected to be played in court.

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