A Vernon, B.C., man who was charged with the 2018 killing of his former girlfriend years after her body was found has now admitted to his role in her death.
Shaun Ross Wiebe, 45, waived his right to a trial earlier this year and on Monday, May 1, and pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
A representative from the BC Prosecution Service said he was previously released on bail and will return to court for a sentencing hearing on June 5.
Wiebe was charged in 2021 and there’s been little information about what happened that day in March 2018. What’s known is that Heather Barker, 37, was found unresponsive inside her Cordon Place home, in the Rise neighbourhood of Vernon, in March of 2018. The mother of three was taken to Vernon Jubilee Hospital, where she died.
In 2018, a construction worker, working across the street from Barker’s home, told Global News he witnessed something unusual days before her death when a woman came out on the deck.
“I heard some yelling. It kind of sounded like she said, ‘Help me,’ and then the guy came out,” Jacob Sparling said in 2018. “Then, I was told, she was brought back inside.”
When Wiebe was arrested for manslaughter, he was also facing a second allegation that predated the killing. Court documents indicated he assaulted Barker and caused her bodily harm the month before her death.
Online records show Wiebe also had his registration with the College of Pharmacists of B.C. suspended in December 2019, just over a year and a half after Barker’s death.
The college said at the time that Wiebe was being suspended until an investigation could be completed because there was initial evidence that Wiebe suffered from a substance addiction that made him unfit to practice.
— with files from Megan Turcato