Emotional uncle tells Allan Schoenborn's high-risk hearing family still lives in fear
"I'm in constant fear for my sister's safety and for her life," says Darcie Clarke's brother
The mother of the three children killed by Allan Schoenborn lives in a constant state of terror and emotional turmoil according to her brother.
"I'm in constant fear for my sister's safety and for her life from the accused," said a tearful Mike Clarke of his sister Darcie Clarke.
"With Mother's Day being yesterday, she was quite an emotional basket case. I don't think I could deal with what she had to deal with."
Clarke was testifying in a New Westminster courtroom where the Crown is seeking to have Schoenborn designated a high-risk accused.
Schoenborn was found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder in the 2008 stabbing and smothering deaths of his children Kaitlynne, 10, Max, 8, and Cordon, 5, in Merritt.
'All I heard was screaming'
Clarke also became emotional recounting the frantic call he received from his mother the night the children died.
"I picked up the phone and all I heard was my mom screaming: Al killed the kids. The kids are dead." he sobbed.
If labelled high-risk Schoenborn would lose privileges including access to escorted day passes. As well, his review hearings would take place once every three years, instead of every year.
Outside court Clarke told reporters having to relive the horror of the deaths every year during Schoenborn's annual review is preventing the family from healing.
'Pulling the scab off'
"Just as the wound is starting to close somebody is pulling the scab back off again." he said. "My family right now is just in disarray with what's going on, with what we have to do every day — fighting to keep Al locked up, fighting the courts, fighting the hospitals.
"Yes I'm hoping he's deemed high-risk accused. I don't think he should ever be released back into society ever again."
The high-risk accused designation was brought into law in 2014 to protect the victims of crimes committed by a person found not criminally responsible. Schoenborn is being held at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam.
The hearing will run to the end of the week, and then will reconvene in June.
With files from Stephanie Mercier