William Blanchett drove up to his son’s house on a warm September morning, planning nothing more than a quick visit. He saw Terry’s car in the driveway and assumed he was home with little Haley. No one answered the door, so he left to get gas, texting and calling without a response. A knot of worry began to tighten in his stomach.
He turned around and headed back. The front door was unlocked, which wasn’t unusual. Terry often left it that way. But what William found inside made his blood run cold.
There was blood on the floor. Terry’s comforter lay crumpled in the hallway. Haley’s bedroom door was wide open. He switched on the bathroom light and saw his son lying on his back, wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by a pool of his own blood.
There was a massive cut across Terry’s neck. William lunged forward and lifted him, but the body was already cold. He searched for Haley everywhere, but she was gone. At 11:12 a.
m. , William called emergency services. He told them his son was dead and his granddaughter was missing. RCMP investigators rushed to the scene and found a gruesome trail of blood smears that started in Terry’s bedroom.
It was clear Terry had been attacked in his bed, then dragged through the house to the bathroom. What stopped them cold was the blood on Haley’s crib and on her doll. The killer had approached the toddler with bloodied hands and taken her just moments after leaving Terry to die. The autopsy painted a brutal picture.
Dr. Tara Jones found 30 separate blunt force injuries and 12 wounds from a sharp object. Terry’s skull had been fractured in multiple places. The deep gash across his throat measured about 25.
5 by 5. 5 centimeters, severing both jugular veins, both carotid arteries, the thyroid cartilage, the esophagus, and even slicing into a vertebra. Terry was still alive when his throat was cut. The intent wasn’t merely to kill him.
It was to make him suffer. Meanwhile, police scoured the neighborhood and found nothing. At 2:14 p. m.
, they confirmed the worst fear: Haley had been abducted. An Amber Alert was issued across Alberta, then expanded to British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Montana. Around the same time, a neighbor of Terry’s told police he had woken at 3:20 a. m.
to sounds of someone kicking metal sheeting in his driveway. He saw a white commercial van parked at an elderly neighbor’s house, which was odd since the 85-year-old neighbor didn’t drive. Then he heard something even more disturbing: the faint whimpering and screaming of a child. He thought he heard a woman’s voice trying to soothe the child.
Before he could get a closer look, the van sped off into the night. That same morning, Larry Zerretky and his brother realized a van from their dry cleaning business had been moved on the day of the murder. Larry contacted the RCMP immediately. The person of interest he pointed to was his own son, 22-year-old Derek Zerretky.
On September 15th, Derek was arrested in Blairmore. Superintendent Tony Hamorei confirmed the arrest, stating it was “in association with both the homicide and disappearance of Haley. ” The police wouldn’t comment on Haley’s mother, Cheyenne Dunar, or any possible involvement she might have had. During questioning, Staff Sergeant Michael McCaulay pressed Derek repeatedly.
Derek denied everything at first. Then he broke. “I believe she’s gone,” he said. “She’s in a better place now because God has his course.
”
“Is she alive, Derek, or is she dead? ” the sergeant asked. “She’s not alive. ”
“Where is she?
”
“The devil made me turn her into ashes. ”
He described dismembering the two-year-old’s body and committing acts of cannibalism. “I ate a little bit of her heart. It made me stronger for a bit.
Just a little bit. I drained her blood. I drank most of it. ”
He tried to justify it by claiming God told him Haley probably wouldn’t have had a good life.
But everyone who knew Terry Blanchett knew that was a lie. Terry was a cook at the Pure Country Bar and Grill in Frank. His manager, Tammy Tracy, said he never missed a day of work and was a devoted father. “He did anything for his daughter.
He lived for her,” she said. Friends and family described him as the most outstanding single dad they had ever seen. His two days off each week were entirely for Haley, and every extra dollar went to her. Derek also admitted to murdering Terry, revealing horrifying details without a trace of remorse.
He even claimed he felt sorry for Haley’s family. When asked why he did it, he said Terry was a terrible father, a description so false it seemed like a cruel joke. Later that same day, the RCMP located Haley’s body in a rural area near Blairmore. Her remains were found at a family property roughly seven kilometers from town, near a fire pit that was still smoldering.
The cause of death could not be determined because her remains had been severely burned. The Amber Alert was canceled. The next day, Derek Zerretky was officially charged with two counts of first-degree murder. But the investigation uncovered something else.
Derek was an acquaintance of Terry’s and had once been close friends with Cheyenne. She was devastated. “It tears me apart knowing friends would do something like that,” she said. She hadn’t spoken to him in three years and didn’t even know he and Terry knew each other.
Derek, meanwhile, claimed he had dated Cheyenne after Haley was born and that he felt like he’d been the girl’s stepfather, at least “kind of. ”
Authorities also linked him to a third murder. On September 9th, 2015, 69-year-old Hannah Mechak was found dead in her home. She had suffered five blunt force injuries to the head and two stab wounds to the neck.
Investigators found a list at Derek’s apartment that read: “Medicine fresh, Hannah, sleepers for the dogs, shy, Terry, and the hideous baby. ” Derek later admitted to killing Hannah, describing how he broke into her home, struck her head with a baseball bat, and stabbed her. When asked if it was practice for the next murder, he answered, “Yeah, I guess so. ”
At his trial in June 2017, Derek’s aunt, Carmelia Sitzky, testified that she had seen her nephew at church on September 8th, 2015, the first time in years.
He was smiling, then suddenly seemed sad and lonely. She invited him to supper, but he was clearly not himself. She urged him to turn himself in, asking if what he had done was serious enough to land him in jail. Derek replied, “Not unless they figure out it’s me.
”
The very next day, she drove him to the family ranch near Blairmore, where he showed particular interest in the wood pile near the fire pit. That was where Haley’s remains were eventually found. On June 28th, 2017, after just over three hours of deliberation, a jury found Derek guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of committing an indignity to human remains. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 75 years.
His appeal was unanimously rejected in November 2020. The community of Coleman, Blairmore, and the entire Crows Nest Pass region was devastated. Candles were lit in memory of Terry and Haley at vigils, and Hannah was remembered for her kindness and love of animals.
The three victims were laid to rest, mourned not for the horror inflicted upon them, but for the joy they had brought into the world.
