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Schoenborn to be granted day passes in the Tri-Cities

The B.C. Review Board said Schoenborn will continue to be allowed escorted outings into the community
schoenberg

The mother of three children murdered by their father says she fears for her life after the B.C. Review Board on Friday reaffirmed a three-year-old decision that he could occasionally be released from his Coquitlam institution.

Tri-City resident Darcie Clarke reacted on her website to the “horrible news” that her former husband, Allan Dwayne Schoenborn, will continue to be permitted escorted day passes into the community.

The panel’s disposition also states Schoenborn is to have no direct or indirect contact with Clarke.

Still, Clarke wrote in her statement, which is posted at 4darcie.ca, she believes Schoenborn “will move ahead with his threats against me because, as he has said, I am ‘unfinished business.’”

In 2008, Schoenborn was found not criminally responsible for the stabbing death of their daughter, Kaitlynne, 10, and the smothering deaths of her younger brothers, Max and Cordon, in their family home in Merritt.

Schoenborn said at trial he was experiencing psychosis at the time.

Clarke pointed her finger at politicians and the B.C. Review Board for allowing the escorted day leaves. “Let me ask you: Would you want a triple child killer to spend time with you or your family in the community? If you answered ‘yes,’ you are lying. If you answered ‘no’ then what are you doing to fix our broken legal and mental health systems?”

She also criticized Dr. Johann Brink of the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam, where Schoenborn has been housed since being found not criminally responsible.

Schoenborn’s leaves are at the discretion of Brink.

“This is the same man who wanted to give Allan full release in 2011 after just one year in custody,” Clarke wrote. “This is the man who has said victims do not have the right to know what is happening with an NCR (not criminally responsible) accused.”

She added, “Allan’s own doctors do not believe he will be ready for years – if ever – to have such leave. The only people who were pushing for these freedoms were Allan, his lawyers and the hospital administrator, Dr. Johann Brink, and now the three members of the B.C. Review Board.”

jcleugh@tricitynews.com