Cordon (left), Kaitlynne (center) and Max Schoenborn (right) were murdered by their father Allan Schoenborn in Merrit BC in April 2008. The Canadian justice system is allowing Schoenborn out for escorted leaves. His ex-wife is terrified. at large and a threat to himself and the public.
Photograph by: Neil McLeod, Special to The Province
The mother of three young children who were murdered by her ex-husband Allan Schoenborn is living in a prison of fear after learning the killer could soon be allowed out of a secure mental hospital and into her community on escorted passes.
Stacy Galt told Global News her cousin Darcie Clarke believes Schoenborn will try to escape his escort and do her harm.
“The fact they are even considering this just makes me sick,” Galt said in a Global interview broadcast Tuesday.
Schoenborn, now 42, was estranged from Clarke when he visited her Merritt home over few days in April 2008.
While she was out of the house, he stabbed, strangled and suffocated their children — daughter Kaitlynne, 10, and smothered sons Max, 8, and Cordon, 5.
But at his trial, the judge found Schoenborn not guilty of murder by reason of a mental disorder.
The B.C. Review Board ruled last week that after three years in custody he is now well enough to leave the Coquitlam mental hospital where he is being housed on escorted leaves, at the discretion of the hospital’s clinical director.
Schoenborn told the board he wants to go to a local coffee shop and to the Coquitlam pool.
Clarke lives in Coquitlam, said Galt.
“She feels that if he escapes, the first thing he is going to do is kill her mother … because he knows where she lives,” said Galt.
“He [then] would basically find [Clarke] … and kill her.”
Politicians and citizens are outraged over the board’s decision to give Schoenborn a chance to be allowed out in public.
Clarke has said in her victim-impact statements she believes Schoenborn is evil and capable of violence.
After killing the three children, Schoenborn posed their bodies, knowing Clarke, who had moved with the children to Merritt to escape him, would be the first to find the dreadful scene.
When he was tracked down 10 days later in a wooded area outside Merritt, he told his captor Kim Robinson he was surprised that Clarke had not committed suicide.
“She doesn’t feel safe,” said Galt.
“She’s broken, she can’t do anything.”
Galt also said that she has been encouraging Clarke to get out more and she recently got a membership to the same Coquitlam pool where Schoenborn wants to visit.
His prosecutor Lyle Hillaby told The Province last week Schoenborn is “cagey and not to be trusted.
“We don’t believe he was insane — he killed his own children in order to lash out at his wife.
“He is an angry and volatile individual,” said Hillaby.
