KAMLOOPS – The trapper who found a “skin-and-bones” Allan Schoenborn in the hills outside Merritt told a judge Wednesday he was astounded to hear him say he killed his kids because he loved them.
Wearing a black dress shirt over a camouflage T-shirt, a blunt-talking Kim Robinson told the court Schoenborn admitted four or five times he killed his daughter Kaitlynne, 10, and sons Max, 8, and Cordon, 5, with his bare hands to “save them from a life of humility.”
“I said, “˜What the f— are you talking about?’” Robinson told the judge.
“He said, “˜I had to kill them. If you loved them, you would have killed them too,’” said the trapper, occasionally glaring at Schoenborn in the prisoner’s box.
“He was adamant he killed his kids because he loved them.”
Schoenborn seemed worried Robinson, who was armed with a rifle, was going to shoot him.
“He asked three to four times if I was going to kill him,” Robinson testified. “I said if I’d seen him killing his kids I’d have blown his brains out, no doubt about it.”
Robinson said Schoenborn posed no threat to anyone by the time he and Pat McCoy found him huddled along a fence line on Hamilton Hill, 10 days after the man’s children were killed.
“He was sketchy-looking, skinny like he was either a friggin’ druggie or he’d been starving a couple of weeks,” Robinson testified.
Schoenborn seemed surprised to learn that Darcie Clarke, the children’s mother, was still alive and had not killed herself, Robinson said.
“He asked, “˜Isn’t she dead?’” Robinson testified. “He was surprised she wasn’t dead. I saw agitation when I said that.”
Outside the courthouse, Robinson pulled no punches when asked by reporters what he thinks about the accused man wanting to be found not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder.
“That’s bull—. He’s an a–hole. He’s not insane.”
Earlier in the day, Clarke told the judge she never thought Schoenborn would ever hurt their children.
On the contrary, she told police. He was a good father who played with them all the time, liked to build them things and was involved in their lives.
Yet, when asked by investigators in the hours and days after she found her children dead who was responsible, she had an instant answer.
“(Schoenborn) came right to mind,” Clarke testified.
Clarke readily agreed with all of defence lawyer Peter Wilson’s suggestions that Schoenborn was a good father whom the children loved.
“You said he was great as a dad and was close to all three children,” asked Wilson.
“Correct,” Clarke answered.
“You never thought he would hurt any of the kids? It never entered your head he would ever hurt any of them, true?” the lawyer continued.
“True,” she agreed.
But in her statement to police, Clarke said she had no idea what was going through his mind, as his behaviour was often irrational.
“I stopped trying to figure out what’s going on in his mind a long time ago,” she said. “He’s just irrational. Sometimes he was very irrational.”
Schoenborn is charged with three counts of first-degree murder. The Crown says the murders were “revenge killings” carried out by Schoenborn as the couple’s marriage broke down. The defence will argue Schoenborn was mentally ill and did not understand what he was doing.
The B.C. Supreme Court non-jury trial before Justice Robert Powers continues today.
Comments