A first-degree murder trial came to an unexpected end as the defendants pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter on Thursday.
Summer-Sky Henry and Cheyann Peeteetuce were charged with first-degree murder in the death of 30-year-old Megan Gallagher.
She was reported missing in September 2020. Two years later, police found Gallagher’s remains near St. Louis, Sask.
The Gallagher family cried in the courtroom, putting their arms around each other, as Henry and Peeteetuce made their pleas.
“I was sick to the stomach. I’ve got a strong stomach, but this one really got me,” Brian Gallagher, the victim’s father, told journalists following the guilty pleas.
“It hit me in the gut.”
Brian Gallagher said he was given no explanation for why the charge was downgraded.
“No idea,” he said.
While thanking police and lawyers, he admitted to a “silence that’s just the reality of the justice system.”
“How it gets derailed like this? ... It doesn’t make sense to me,” Brian Gallagher said, outside Saskatoon’s Court of King’s Bench.
“It’s bizarre.”
Crown prosecutor absent during pleas
Peeteetuce and Henry’s trial began on Jan. 6.
Justice Richard Danyliuk was presiding over the trial. Tyla Olenchuk and Carla Dewar represented Crown counsel.
On Tuesday, the murder trial was closed to the public — with family and journalists not allowed in the courtroom. Dewar was missing from the proceedings. Senior Crown Prosecutor Bill Burge travelled from Regina to join Olenchuk.
Dewar was absent during Peeteetuce and Henry’s guilty pleas, made in front of Justice Mona Dovell.
The mandatory minimum sentence for first-degree murder is life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Manslaughter sentences are left to a judge’s discretion — they can range from a probation order, to a life sentence. Manslaughter carries no mandatory minimum sentence unless a gun was used.
The case is scheduled to return to Saskatoon’s Court of King’s Bench on Jan. 22 for victim-impact statements.
The evidence heard during the proceedings is under a publication ban, as Thomas and Roderick Sutherland await their trials.
Nine people have been charged in Gallagher’s murder.
- Thomas Sutherland, charged with manslaughter, is awaiting trial
- Roderick Sutherland, charged with first-degree murder, is awaiting trial
- Robert ‘Bobby’ Thomas has been sentenced on second-degree murder.
- Ernest Whitehead has been sentenced on a charge of offering indignity to human remains
- Jessica Badger has been sentenced on a charge of offering indignity to human remains
- John Sanderson has been sentenced on a charge of offering indignity to human remain
- Robin Jon’s charges of unlawful confinement and aggravated assault were stayed.
