Witness recalls the night Megan Gallagher was tortured, killed in Saskatoon garage

CONTENT WARNING: The following story contains graphic depictions that might be disturbing to some readers.

It was a drug and alcohol fueled garage party that became more sinister the night Megan Gallagher was murdered.

The trial of Roderick Sutherland, who is charged with manslaughter, unlawful confinement and offering an indignity to human remains, continued Thursday at Saskatoon’s Court of King’s Bench.

According to the agreed statement of facts, Gallagher was killed in a garage on Weldon Avenue, where Sutherland lived between Sept. 20 and Sept. 21, 2020. Her body was then placed in the back of a truck and then thrown off the St. Louis Bridge into the South Saskatchewan River.

Robert James Joseph Thomas, 30, took the stand as a Crown witness to recall the night Gallagher died.

Thomas, who is serving a sentence of life in prison for the second-degree murder of Gallagher, said he didn’t know Gallagher personally but met her at Sutherland’s garage one night because his aunt Cheyann Crystal Peeteetuce wanted him to meet her.

He said Sutherland’s garage was a place he’d frequent, and when he arrived, a group of people were “drinking, doing drugs, (and) having a good time.”

Thomas testified that at one point during the night, the mood had changed, and he had wondered if Gallagher was there to set him up.

He told the jury he thought this because he was held hostage for four days a month prior, was stabbed 18-20 times and got away by “pure luck.”

Anthony Boensch, who was the lead investigator of Gallagher’s case and a retired member of the Saskatoon Police Service, testified that he was aware of an incident in Aug. 2020 where Thomas was unlawfully confined, tied up, stabbed, tortured and burned at a house on Avenue G South.

The court also heard that the letters IP were carved on Thomas’ body during that incident.

Defence lawyer Blaine Beaven asked Boensch if what happened to Gallagher was retaliation or revenge because of what happened to Thomas.

“It was because of her association, her loose association, with the people that were responsible for what happened to (Thomas),” Boensch said.

Thomas said Peeteetuce and Summer-Sky Henry asked Sutherland to use his garage to question Gallagher.

Thomas’ testimony said he had left the garage with Gallagher’s bank card, which she willingly gave and used it at McDonald’s and a nearby lounge for alcohol.

He testified that Gallagher was tied up to an office chair with extension cords when he left, and upon return, she was tied up to another chair in a makeshift room using spare doors from the garage.

Thomas also told the jury that Sutherland had knuckle busters and had hit Gallagher, telling him, “I got your back,” and that Gallagher admitted to setting Thomas up.

Crown prosecutor William Burge asked Thomas if he had hurt Gallagher at any point, and Thomas replied that he had elbowed her twice to make her stop “being loud.”

Thomas said in his testimony that he had asked Henry to wrap Gallagher’s body with plastic wrap, but said “she wrapped her face.”

Thomas said he went outside the room to talk to Peeteetuce, and they had planned to drop Gallagher off on the side of the highway, but when he saw Gallagher again, she was dead.

He testified that he had wrapped Gallagher’s body in a blue tarp and didn’t see her body when he returned to the garage a few days later.

The trial for Sutherland is set to continue Oct. 14. He is one of nine people who were arrested in connection with her death.

Peeteetuce and Henry were handed seven-year sentences for manslaughter for their part in Gallagher’s death earlier this year.