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On Monday the first-degree murder trials began for two women charged in connection with Megan Gallagher’s death.
Gallagher was last seen in Saskatoon on Sept 20. 2020 on video surveillance at a convenience store on Diefenbaker Drive.
Two years after she went missing, her remains were found along the South Saskatchewan River.
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The judge-alone trial for 31-year-old Cheyann Crystal Peeteetuce and 26-year-old Summer-Sky Henry is set for 39 days; they are among nine people that were arrested in the Gallagher investigation.
Justice Richard Danyliuk granted an interim publication ban-applied for by Crown prosecutor Tyla Olenchuk preventing any details presented within the trial from being reported on.
Megan Gallagher. (Facebook)
The publication ban will also protect the upcoming jury trials later this year for Thomas Sutherland and Roderick Sutherland, who are also charged in connection to Gallagher’s death.
In Danyliuk’s opening statement, he cited delays from both the Crown and defence, giving lawyers a deadline of Wednesday at 4 p.m. to make any last submissions for the trial.
“This trial is not going to be the subject of a delay application, and I will not allow myself and this court to be painted into a corner by lack of timeliness or preparedness,” he said, “I will do my utmost to ensure that this trial ends with a decision on its merits.”
Danyliuk said he did not want the trial to have the same outcome as the Taylor Kennedy case, which was stayed because it exceeded the 18-month window set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in its landmark 2016 decision R v. Jordan.
“I am here to say justice will be done,” Danyliuk said.
He then asked counsel to turn around and face the gallery where a row of Gallagher’s supporters sat, including her father Brian Gallagher and step-mother Debbie Gallagher.
“Make eye contact with some of the members of the gallery — these are the people we serve,” Danyliuk said.
“We owe a duty to the public who we serve. The justice system doesn’t exist for us … it exists for them,” he said. “It exists for those people out there and beyond the walls of this courtroom.”
On Dec. 6 at Saskatoon’s King’s Bench, 29-year-old Robert James Joseph Thomas was sentenced to life in prison for the second-degree murder of Gallagher.
Gallagher’s father Brian told 650 CKOM he felt some sense of relief when he heard the judge at the sentencing, and hopes the Thomas case sends a message that “there will be consequences” for violence against women.
— With files from 650 CKOM’s Lara Fominoff
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