Canadian True Crime - The Good Doctor [1]

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

SASKATCHEWAN[Part 1 of 2]A 23-year old woman shows up at a hospital in Regina saying something “very bad” happened to her at another hospital the night before. The bizarre story that unravelled over the following decade would be described by some as a battle of David Vs Goliath. Others would say it was taken straight from science fiction.* Additional content warning: this series includes some details of sexual assault, including of an underage person. Please take care when listening.The intention of this series is to take a detailed look back at a shocking crime sensationalized through headlines and how it impacted the community.Some names have been changed to respect the privacy of those involved.Part 2 available to all in a week.Listen ad-free and early:CTC premium feeds are available on Amazon Music (included with Prime), Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast, giving you access 24 hours early without the ads. Please note: case-based episodes will always be available to all, we will never put them exclusively behind a paywall.Canadian true crime donates monthly to those facing injustice. This month we have donated to Women’s Shelters Canada. Find a shelter near you by going to sheltersafe dot ca.Full list of resources, information sources and credits:See the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production funded mainly through advertising. You can listen to Canadian True Crime ad-free and early on Amazon Music included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast. The podcast often has disturbing content and Hi everyone, I hope you're well. This is part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 will be coming in a week and it's available right now for those subscribed to our premium feeds. This episode has been largely pieced together from court documents and the news archives, particularly the Regina Leader post. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved. An additional content warning, this series includes details of sexual assault, including of an underage person.

Please take care when listening. It was the evening of Sunday November 1st, 1992. A 23 year old woman showed up at a hospital in the city of Regina, Saskatchewan. It was the second hospital she'd visited in 24 hours. And as she would tell staff, this visit was the result of something that happened at the first hospital. The woman, who we'll call Cathy, was from the small town of Kipling, located about 150 kilometres south east of Regina. Named after the author, Rodyard Kipling, who passed through the area in 1907, the town of Kipling is largely built on agriculture, grain, livestock and The 23-year-old was dealing with several life challenges at the time. She'd just given birth to her first baby nine months earlier, and the father was no longer in the picture.

She was also recovering from a stroke. She was also in a coma. She was in a coma for a long time. She was in a coma for a long time. She was in a coma for a long time. She was in a coma for a long time. She was in a coma for a long time. She was in a coma for a long time. She'd just given birth to her first baby nine months earlier, and the father was no longer in the picture. She was also recovering from injury she'd sustained

from a fairly recent serious car crash. Going to the hospital was something Kathy had become very used to over the last year or so. But that evening, Kathy was at this hospital in Regina to report a sexual assault. She and her friend met with two rape counselors, underwent a pelvic exam, and she spoke with an RCMP officer.

She told them that the night before, which was Halloween, she was on shift at the counter of the local gas station when her ex-boyfriend came in and they argued. She wasn't over the relationship, but it seemed he was moving on with someone else. Kathy said she was deeply upset and angry, and as he went to drive off, she kicked the side of his pickup truck, denting the metal. She was so upset that she had to leave work to calm down. She headed for the local hospital in Kipling to speak with her close friend,

who she thought was on duty. Unfortunately, her friend wasn't working that night, but seeing that Kathy was hysterical and distraught, the duty nurse suggested that she see the doctor on call, Dr. John Schneeberger. Kathy agreed and the nurse phoned the doctor to come in. Dr. Schneeberger and Kathy were already familiar with each other and not just because he was one of only a few doctors in Kipling. He was the doctor who delivered her baby and the doctor who he was one of only a few doctors in Kipling. He was the doctor who delivered her baby and had been treating her after her car crash. Cathy assumed Dr Schneeberger would prescribe her a couple of pills to calm her down,

so she was surprised when he produced a long, imposing needle and said he was going to inject her instead. But she trusted her doctor's advice. Within seconds of the injection, Cathy became disoriented and numb and she fell forward. Dr. Schneeberger guided her to the examining table where she lay in a fetal position with her back to him. She would describe feeling like a piece of jelly and her brain was extremely foggy but the next thing she remembered someone was pulling down her jeans then tugging her underwear to the side. And then she felt someone touching her, inside her.

Terrified but barely conscious, Kathy tried to scream but she couldn't. It was like she was paralysed. She tried to turn to see who was behind her but she couldn't move. She had no control of her muscles. She would later describe it in a 2001 episode of Forensic Files, as similar to when a dentist freezes your gums and pulls your tooth out. Quote, you can't feel the pain from the tooth, but what you can feel is pressure of the tooth moving back and forth.

That's the only way I can describe it. End quote. Kathy drifted in and out of a fog until she was able to move her shoes. that's the only way I can describe it." End quote. Cathy drifted in and out of a fog until she was able to move her shoulder to glance behind her. She saw Dr. Schneeberger leaving the room. She lay there for an indeterminate period of time. And when she felt she was able to get up, she saw a sticky white substance on her jeans.

Kathy was far too groggy and dizzy to leave the hospital so she was kept overnight. She didn't mention anything to the nurses about what had happened to her, she was still trying to sort things out in her own mind and Dr. Schneeberger had an excellent reputation and was a very powerful man at the hospital and in the small town of Kipling. She just didn't feel safe. The next morning, Kathy said she ran into Dr. Schneeberger

before she was released from the hospital. She asked him, what did you inject me with? He responded, why did you have wild dreams? He then went on his way without answering her question. When Cathy got home she took off her jeans and underwear and set them aside. She tried to go about her day, but found herself distracted by growing feelings of confusion and anger. She would say she felt like she was going nuts.

She told her parents and a friend what had happened and her suspicions about Dr. Schneeberger. They were all greatly alarmed. Cathy decided to get a rape kit done. She phoned the hospital in Kipling and asked where else she might be able to go to get one performed. Obviously she was not going back to the hospital in Kipling. A few minutes later her phone rang and she was surprised to hear none other than Dr. Schneeberger on the other end, asking her what had happened. All she would tell him is that, something really bad happened to me at the hospital. Dr. Schneeberger told her that the hospital did have a problem with wanderers, elderly patients who he said occasionally crawled into an occupied bed.

He offered to perform the rape kit himself. Cathy declined. So that evening, Cathy and her friend drove to a hospital in the city of Regina, just over an hour and a half from Kipling. She had a vaginal exam and a rape kit performed. She provided a urine sample, handed over her underwear and jeans, and gave her statement to a Regina RCMP officer. The test results found evidence of semen on her jeans,

underwear, and a vaginal swab. Kathy had said it had been weeks since she had consensual sexual intercourse, so there was no other possible explanation for it. Her urine sample tested positive for traces of midazolam, a benzodiazepine drug sold under the brand name Versed, which is given to patients via injection before a medical procedure to help them relax. Versed is not a drug that a doctor hands you a prescription for.

According to the Mayo Clinic, it's a potent sedative used to produce sleepiness or drowsiness and relieve anxiety before surgery or certain procedures. Quote, when midazolam is used before surgery, the patient will not remember some of the details about the procedure. Midazolam injection is also used as an anesthesia to produce loss of consciousness before and during surgery. loss of consciousness before and during surgery. Versed or Medazolam is only administered by a doctor or under direct supervision of a doctor and a patient's vital signs have to be monitored closely both during their procedure and after. The reason for this is that the drug can slow a patient's breathing or even stop it.

In addition, Versed can cause extreme drowsiness for up to 48 hours after the injection, and the patient may need help getting up. No one could figure out why Cathy had been injected with this drug. She was there because she was upset and hysterical. She didn't have any kind of medical procedure that night. There was also no evidence that anyone had been monitoring her vital signs as they should have. But now that the RCMP had these results, plus the result of the rape kit and a semen sample to find a match for, it was time to speak with Dr John Schneeberger.

According to court documents, two RCMP officers contacted Dr Schneeberger on November 6th of 1992, almost a week after the incident at the hospital in Kipling. They asked him a few questions about Kathy's allegations, but he asked to speak with his lawyer, so the conversation concluded. Three days after that, on November 9, Dr. Schneeberger and his lawyer returned to the station where he provided a written statement and allowed a full police interview. The doctor confirmed he did administer versed to Cathy that night for medical purposes, but denied sexually assaulting her.

His version of events was different to hers. He said she came to the hospital extremely angry and agitated and he heard her threaten to kill her ex-boyfriend, the one she'd just had a fight with. Dr. Schneeberger told the RCMP that he suspected Cathy might act on that threat, so he decided to administer the sedative to calm her down. The good doctor was shocked that he was being accused of drugging and sexually assaulting his own patient and told investigators he was not involved in whatever Cathy claimed had happened to her. He was acting as her doctor and everything was above board. When Dr Schneeberger was asked to voluntarily provide a blood and hair sample to exclude him

as a suspect, his lawyer stepped in and said they'll consider it. Two days later, the RCMP were advised that the good doctor had agreed to give them the blood sample. He said he was anxious to clear his name. Dr John Schneeberger showed up at the lab to give his sample in the presence of an RCMP officer. When the lab technician tried to find a vein, he intervened, asking if he could just do it himself.

The lab technician stepped back as the doctor collected two vials of his own blood, which was sent away for DNA comparison to the semen sample from Cathy's rape kit. Dr. Schneeberger also retained samples for himself, which were sent to an independent lab for testing. His reputation was on the line after all. At that point, the Kipling Detachment commander, Corporal John Hanstra, believed that there were reasonable and probable grounds to charge Dr. John Schneeberger

with sexual assault. It was a small hospital serving a very small town of just over a thousand people, and he was the only doctor on duty that night. But the Crown said not without DNA test results. This was 1992, and DNA testing was still relatively new. The results took months. In that time, word of the sexual assault allegations spread like wildfire

throughout the town of Kipling's small population. Most residents didn't believe a word of it. Dr. Schneeberger was a highly popular doctor, someone known to be active in the community, and he had an unblemished record. There had never been any allegations of the sort before. Meanwhile, Cathy had always had a reputation for being a hothead, someone who liked to party and who didn't have a lot of disposable income. Many residents recalled one incident where Cathy made a bit of a scene at a community

fundraising event for a local town swimming pool, getting into a loud argument with her boyfriend at the time and punching him. It was quite the public spectacle. And because the father of her nine-month-old baby was not in the picture, local townspeople had also projected the stigma of being a single, unwed mother onto her. There was a growing sentiment that Cathy was trying to get one over on the good doctor, and residents speculated that she must either be infatuated with him or she wanted his money.

Maybe even both. The results from both the independent lab and the RCMP lab showed that the blood sample taken from Dr John Schneeberger did not match the DNA of the semen sample taken from Cathy. When she was notified, she told investigators that it was impossible. She knew exactly who sexually assaulted her Most residents of Kipling knew this would be the result There was no way that Kathy's allegations could have been true But she didn't give up. She spent the next few months lobbying the RCMP She spent the next few months lobbying the RCMP, insisting that Dr Schneeberger had somehow arranged to have his vial of blood switched with someone else's sample before being tested. She accused the RCMP officer who supervised the sample of colluding with Dr Schneeberger, who was also his treating physician. At the very least, she said it had to be a conflict of interest for a patient to collect a blood sample from his own doctor.

As whispers of this new rumor started to permeate throughout the town, everyone was talking about it. Cathy had always been a hothead, so it wasn't really unexpected for her to react like this. But still, it was all very strange. Kipling Detachment Commander Corporal John Hanstra asked Dr. John Schneeberger for a second sample to test. The doctor readily agreed. He had already cleared his name and

he just wanted to put an end to all these new rumours once and for all. Corporal Hanstress supervised himself this time. They weren't going to take any chances with this sample. As the lab technician tried to find the vein, Dr Schneeberger again said, give that to me and grabbed the syringe, inserting it into his vein himself. He handed over two half-full vials of blood. Corporal Hanstra oversaw the vials as they were securely packaged and labelled and sent for testing a second time. Stephen John Schneeberger, known as John, was born in 1961 to a white family in the country now known as Zambia in South Central Africa. At the time, Zambia was known as Northern Rhodesia,

part of a rapidly failing British colony. When John was just a toddler, an election in Northern Rhodesia resulted in an African majority government. And within the next few years, the country declared independence from British colonial rule and became the Republic of Zambia. This of course spooked the white minority that lived there which included the family of John Schneeberger. They decided to move to South Africa which was going through similar changes as a result of African peoples fighting back against the British.

But there was a key difference. While Zambia became a republic under an African majority government, South Africa did the same under a white minority government that wanted to maintain white dominance. And the way South Africa did that was through policies of racial segregation and discrimination, apartheid. So for a white family looking to flee the newly independent Zambia, South Africa seemed like a far more attractive prospect

and a safer one. John Schneeberger's father was a doctor and a safer one. John Schneeberger's father was a doctor and his mother was a teacher, according to the Leader Post. He would say he grew up in an atmosphere of strict discipline, mostly dished out by his mother, because his doctor father was always at work. In grade five, John was enrolled in boarding school. He would describe it as regimented and run by a bell,

recounting a weekly event called Hit Parade, where misbehaving students were flogged on Wednesday nights. Despite this, he managed to do very well academically and decided to become a physician just like his father. After getting his undergrad, John completed his medical degree in 1984 and then his internship in South Africa. By 1987, the situation in South Africa was volatile, as the apartheid regime was now failing. Many residents decided to move abroad to avoid the civil unrest, violent clashes and increasing

political instability. At the same time, Canada had embarked on an aggressive recruiting campaign to attract doctors from South Africa to work in rural communities, notably in Western Canada and the prairies. Dr John Schneeberger was one of them. and soon found a job with a practice in Oxbow, a small town just north of the border to North Dakota in the United States. He immediately struck up a rapport with a woman who worked at the practice. We'll call her Michelle, and she was already married with two children. But John Schneeberger swept her off her feet with endless romantic gestures and she ended up leaving her husband. The couple got engaged in 1988 and moved about an hour north of Oxbow to the town of Kipling with her children. Michelle would describe John as her soulmate and best friend, the person she was going to grow old with.

And her kids loved him too. In Kipling, Dr. John Schneeberger was in practice with two other physicians and specialized in family medicine, where according to the Leader Post, he quickly emerged as a popular doctor and citizen. He was considered an excellent physician. In fact, one ambulance driver would estimate that at least two dozen heart patients were alive because of Dr. Schneeberger. He was, of course, also known in the local community as

someone who gave his time to help those less fortunate. One Kipling resident would tell the Leader Post that if John Schneeberger wanted something done, it got done. He was involved in community aid efforts for disabled adults and tried to help two local young men turn their lives around when they got in legal trouble. He was also credited for spearheading a successful fundraising event for the town to get a local swimming pool, the same event where Kathy got into a loud public argument and punched her boyfriend in front of everyone, including John. including John. Two years after he moved to Kipling with Michelle and her two children, the loved-up couple got married. This was 1991, the year before Kathy accused him of sexual assault.

Michelle would remark that living in a place like Kipling, a small town where everyone knew everyone else, not a day went by when she wasn't stopped by someone on the street to tell her how lucky she was to be married to such a wonderful man. A friend of John's would say that he had so much charm and sophistication that his female patients pretended to be sick just to see him. Whether or not that is actually true is unknown, but it seems that he was considered similar to the stereotype of the hot doctor. They loved his South African accent and his gentle manner. Everything was going very well for Dr John Schneeberger. Not only was he earning very good money but he'd also earned the respect of the local community.

He purchased a lovely palatial family home for his new family to live in. He was by that point a permanent resident of Canada and in May of 1992 he began the process to apply for Canadian citizenship. But just five months later it all came crashing down when his patient Cathy accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her. It was a very tense time for his new wife Michelle as the alleged incident became a primary topic of conversation in Kipling and then as John agreed to take his first blood test, Michelle stood by him never wavering in her support. When the first DNA test results came back negative as a match to her husband, Michelle remarked how ridiculous it all was.

Just a few weeks after that, in February of 1993, Dr John Schneeberger had a meeting with a citizenship judge, the final step in his process to become a Canadian citizen. The judge had sworn in thousands of new Canadian citizens and knew other South African doctors who were familiar with John Schneeberger and spoke of him in glowing terms. The judge was familiar with his reputation as a popular resident of Kipling, known for both his medical skills and his community work. And he made a very good first impression on her. She approved the application and signed his papers.

John Schneeberger was now a Canadian citizen. But the celebration didn't last long because Kathy just couldn't accept the results of his first blood sample. She had been contacting the RCMP at regular intervals, insisting that he had swapped it or tampered with it and urging investigators to take further action. At the RCMP's request, John agreed to give a second blood sample, determined to put an end to the latest upswell of rumours spreading around the town. The results were in.

For the second time, Dr Schneeberger's blood sample was not a DNA match to the semen sample taken from Cathy's rape kit. And once again, she was devastated. It just didn't make sense to her. Not long after that, in 1994, the RCMP officially closed her complaint file. Kipling residents at large were now outraged. By this point, the beloved Dr. Schneeberger had been promoted to the hospital's chief of medicine, giving him even more standing in the community. But many believe from the start that Kathy, the unwed single mother known for making a scene, had lied and their anger only grew

now that she had insisted on two separate tests, both of which proved his innocence. And despite all of this forensic evidence she was still sticking to her allegations. Dr Schneeberger's wife Michelle wondered why Kathy was doing all of this to her family. Now 25 years old, Kathy already had a reputation as a woman who had a temper and tended to lash out when slighted, but now her name was absolute mud in the small community. Malicious rumors were spread about her and her intentions. Not only was she obsessed with the good doctor, but she was clearly also a gold digger after his money.

But she remained adamant that he drugged her in the hospital examination room, sexually assaulted her and did something to tamper with his blood sample so he could get away with it. The fact that Cathy continued to insist there was no other possibility led her to being socially ostracized in Kipling, the town where she was born and raised. So she decided she had to move away to Regina. Cathy may have been run out of town, but she was no sitting duck. She was determined to clear her name and find out the truth once and for all. By this point it was 1996, more than three years after her fateful hospital visit. Cathy's parents had scraped the money together to hire a lawyer and launch a civil suit, according to the 2007 book Sour Milk by Barb Paholic and Jana G. Pruden.

A private investigator was also hired, charged with one important task, obtain a DNA sample from Dr. John Schneeberger discreetly. It was critical that he remain in the dark with no idea what was happening to ensure the integrity of the DNA sample, but also because it was an illegal operation that could get them in serious trouble. The private investigator managed to get into John's car without him knowing and looked around for anything that might have his DNA on it. A swab from a stick of used chapstick was taken to hopefully get a trace of saliva and it was sent to a new independent lab for testing and comparison.

And this time the results were different. The semen sample from Cathy's rape kit was a positive DNA match to the trace of saliva from the chapstick found in Dr DNA match to the blood sample that had been taken from his own arm. These results could only mean two things. That Dr John Schneeberger just happened to have chapstick in his car that had been used by the person who sexually assaulted Cathy. Or that the chapstick was his and he had somehow found the blood sample in his car that had been used by the person who sexually assaulted Kathy, or that the chapstick was his and he had somehow found a way to switch his blood sample with someone else's before it was tested. There was only one way to find out.

Kathy took these results to the RCMP, who requested that Dr Schneeberger voluntarily provide a third blood sample to clear this up once and for all. The 35-year-old doctor readily agreed and showed up to the lab to give his sample in November of 1996. This time the RCMP wanted to take no chances, so the sample was taken at their own forensics lab, with a video camera set up to record the entire thing. They even brought in a serology expert, a person who deals with identification and characterization of biological, evidentiary samples. This serology expert, Gene Roney, asked Dr. Schneeberger to present his finger to draw blood from because they only needed a small amount to get a DNA profile. But he shook his head.

Dr. Schneeberger said he had a rare medical condition that caused easily bruised fingers, which as a doctor he obviously didn't want. He instructed Jean to draw the blood from his left arm. Because this was another voluntary sample, not one that had been ordered by the court, Jean had to follow his lead. But she was safe in the knowledge that it was a controlled setting and all captured on video. Dr. Schneeberger had a prominent vein near his elbow, but when she stuck the needle in, it was a struggle to get blood to actually flow from it. She assumed there was an issue with the vacuum container

not pulling the blood out properly. After trying a couple of times, she finally got a small sample and Dr Schneeberger rolled down his sleeve and left the lab. But this time there was a problem. The lab wasn't able to get any DNA from the sample to test against Cathy's rape kit and they couldn't very well ask Dr. Schneeberger to volunteer for a fourth sample because they didn't take enough blood. It was incredibly frustrating for everyone, including Cathy. She continued to insist that something was going on behind the scenes and although the RCMP tended to agree, there

wasn't much they could do. Cathy would say that the RCMP had to follow the rules of the Canadian justice system. She chuckled as she added, quote, I call it the Canadian criminal system because that's basically what it is. It's the criminals that have all the rights. John Schneeberger and his wife Michelle had been through some stress the previous years thanks to Cathy's allegations and rumours that started soon after they were married. But it didn't affect their marriage. Michelle already had two children from her first marriage who were now teenagers and by this point she had given birth to two more daughters with John.

She always saw him as the man of her dreams and there was no question that he should be believed when he insisted he had nothing to do with Kathy's allegations. John had voluntarily submitted to three RCMP blood tests, and every one had failed to link his DNA to Kathy's rape kit. Michelle was hopeful that their family could now put that debacle behind them. Unfortunately, her relief would be short-lived. In April of 1997, Michelle's teenage daughter approached her and said, I have something to tell you. The daughter, who we'll call Sarah, took her mother into her bedroom and showed her a condom wrapper. She said she believed John, her stepfather, had drugged and assaulted her there. She told her mother that the night before, John told her he would remove a wart from her foot at home. He told her to lie across her bed as he needed to numb the area before he removed the wart

and proceeded to insert a syringe into a vein on her foot. Sarah said she passed out and when she came to she found a Trojan condom wrapper in her sheets. 15 year old Sarah told her mother, quote, Mom, he's done this to me before. Michelle was devastated to hear this and asked Sarah why it took so long to tell her. The 15 year old said she didn't know how her mother would react because it was clear she was in love with her new husband.

Michelle believed her daughter and immediately thought of Cathy. if I had believed her, none of this would have happened to my daughter. That night when John came home, Michelle confronted him about Sarah's accusations and to say she was not satisfied with his explanation is an understatement. She would say he behaved erratically and accused the teenager of holding a grudge against him, calling her a liar. But Michelle knew her daughter. Sarah was not one to lie. And she knew now that Cathy hadn't been lying either. She told him, quote, You did it, didn't you? He replied, are you trying to tell me

I should be getting a lawyer? Michelle said it would probably be a good idea. She stayed awake all night and woke John up at dawn. She ordered him to get out. Their marriage was over. He left. She then took Sarah to be examined by a doctor, a female doctor. This doctor noticed the needle puncture wound above a vein in Sarah's left foot. The teenager told her that her stepfather said it was to numb the area before he removed a wart on her foot, but instead she got dizzy

and passed out. This female doctor said it made no sense at all for Sarah to have been given a general sedative for a minor procedure that only called for a local anaesthetic at most. Michelle and Sarah went to the RCMP detachment to file a formal complaint. About a week later, John's mother arrived at the house to collect files from his office in the basement. While she packed, Michelle started sorting through a bunch of boxes herself. She grabbed a blue, stationary box and looked inside. The box contained needles and syringes, condoms and vials of drugs, including Versed. Michelle remembered seeing it before. In 1993, the year after Cathy's allegations, Michelle and John were on a road trip and

she recalled rifling through their car's first aid kit looking for headache medication. When she found a vial of Versed, John told her he had no idea how it got there. Now she knew. Michelle gathered up all the medications and paraphernalia and turned it over to the RCMP. Not long after that, she searched their cabin at Lake Kenosie and found more injectable medications hidden under the crawlspace. She handed those over too. Dr. John Schneeberger was arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault of a minor, administering a stupefying or overpowering drug to facilitate the assault

and administering a noxious substance to endanger human life. That noxious substance was Versed, which carries a high risk of respiratory failure and requires a patient to be constantly monitored with access to emergency resuscitation equipment. Sarah said she believed she'd been injected with it at her home, which effectively put her life in danger. As an underage victim of sexual assault, the media did not publish Sarah's name or that she was John's stepdaughter. She was unanimously referred to simply as one of his patients who was underage. Dr Schneeberger was released on bail. The news of his arrest motivated investigators to look back at Kathy's allegations. The RCMP went to a judge with the evidence of the first three blood samples that did not match the semen, the saliva

from the chapstick that did, and the areas of overlap in the details given by both Kathy and now Sarah. They requested new DNA samples from John, but this time they weren't giving him the choice to give it voluntarily. Two RCMP officers showed up to his office with a court order from the judge. According to the Leader post, John became frantic and phoned his lawyer to ask if he had to comply with the request. He did indeed. They took blood from his finger, a swab from his cheek, and 25 samples of his hair and sped it to the lab. All the samples were a DNA match to the semen sample from Cathy's sexual assault. By this point it was now January of 1998, six years after that assault, and John was arrested again.

He was charged with aggravated sexual assault and administering a stupefying or overpowering drug to facilitate it, this time in relation to Kathy. But now, investigators had a mystery to solve. They had to figure out what happened with the three blood samples. How could it be that DNA extracted through John's blood was not a match to DNA from his hair or saliva. A DNA expert had confirmed that there was no natural or scientific reason that might explain this. The only possibility left was that the blood from the three samples wasn't actually his at all. But that begged other questions. Whose blood was it? And how was he able to pass it off as his own blood

three separate times? RCMP investigators had to go back to the drawing board. They started contacting other former patients of Dr. John Schneeberger from key moments in the timeline, as well as his former colleagues at both the hospital and his medical practice. One of his patients had a very interesting story to tell. The patient, Danny, said he'd been admitted to the hospital in Kipling complaining of dehydration and stomach pain in November of 1992, about two weeks after that Halloween evening where Kathy was sexually assaulted at the same hospital.

Danny said that during his stay, lab technicians took three separate blood samples from him for testing. He was released after 48 hours. The lab technicians took three separate blood samples from him for testing. He was released after 48 hours. A few months later, he said he was contacted by Dr. John Schneeberger, who requested Danny meet with him at his medical practice office. Intrigued, Danny agreed, and Dr. Schneeberger told him that the government of Saskatchewan had been conducting a study about stomach problems and Danny was one of several residents who had been unknowingly used as a guinea pig. The doctor then handed him a check

for $35. Danny said he didn't understand what the check was for, but Dr. Schneeberger offered to cash it right there for him if he signed the back of it. Danny did as instructed, and Dr. Schneeberger gave him $35 cash from his own wallet. Investigators compared Danny's story to key dates in their investigation. On November the 6th of 1992, the RCMP told John that he had been accused of sexual assault.

Three days later, on November the 9th, the RCMP requested that John provide a blood and hair sample. He said he'd get back to them about that. Two days later on November 11th, John's lawyer told the RCMP that he had agreed to provide a blood sample. There was no mention of the hair sample request and because it was voluntary the RCMP didn't push it. Three days later on November 14th, patient Danny was admitted to hospital where three samples of his blood was taken. He was released two days later on November 16th, which just happened to be the exact same day Dr John Schneeberger gave his first blood sample. As for the mysterious meeting several months later where Dr. Schneeberger gave Danny a $35 check from his own wallet, there was no evidence of any medical study taking place at the time,

let alone one that used hospital patients as guinea pigs without their knowledge or consent and offered them payments afterwards. Danny volunteered to provide a fresh blood sample, which was tested against the samples voluntarily given by Dr. Schneeberger. It was a match. The exact same blood. So now, both the RCMP and the Crown Prosecution knew for sure that John had been passing someone else's blood off as his own. It was Danny's blood. He was charged yet again, this time for willfully attempting to obstruct the course of justice

by providing false blood samples. But there was one last unanswered question. Those blood samples may have been proven false, but they had been taken directly from Dr Schneeberger's vein with lab technicians present. How was he able to do it? No one knew it yet, but it would all come out as part of the trial. Ever feel like there's just not enough time in the day? Between household chores, errands, exercise, the commute, finding time to enjoy a good book seems impossible. That's where Audible comes in and it's a total game changer. Audible has the best selection of audiobooks and more in any genre you're feeling like listening to, from bestsellers, true crime,

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Dr. John Schneeberger went on trial the following year, 1999, on charges relating to one incident involving his former patient Kathy and multiple incidents involving his teenage stepdaughter Sarah. He pleaded not guilty and requested a judge-only trial. Dr. Schneeberger had already been reprimanded by the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons for not following safe and proper procedures in relation to injecting Versed into Cathy that night

without the proper monitoring. And pending trial, his medical licence had also been suspended. The prosecution's case in relation to Cathy was that when she came to the hospital that night, emotionally distraught, he failed to care for her. Quote, instead, he injected her with a potentially dangerous drug, raped her and left her alone in a darkened room. He was willing to risk her safety

to obtain sexual gratification. The prosecution stated that when Dr. Schneeberger learned Cathy had reported it to the authorities, he obstructed the course of justice by providing false blood samples in an effort to get away with his crime. He was described as an intelligent but manipulative man who couldn't control his sexual impulses.

Kathy, by this point 30 years old, testified about her visit to the hospital that Halloween evening after the argument with her ex-boyfriend and how Dr. John Schneeberger was the doctor on call that night. Instead of giving her some pills to calm her down, he gave her an injection, which caused her to go into a semi-conscious state. She said she was sexually assaulted and when she was able to move a little so she could glance

behind her, she saw Dr. Schneeberger leaving the room. The defense tried the usual tactics to discredit Kathy and started off the cross-examination by asking her if she was in love with John Schneeberger. The leader post noted that angry murmurs could be heard by those observing in the gallery. Kathy responded that while she had thought Dr. Schneeberger was attractive, she did not want a physical relationship with him. And in the year before her sexual assault, she said she actually started to dislike him, although she didn't specify why. The defense suggested to Kathy that if she really disliked Dr Schneeberger, it certainly didn't stop her from seeing him on a regular basis that year. But Cathy wasn't exactly catching up with Dr Schneeberger for social dinners. This was the year he delivered her baby and she attended more than 20 medical appointments

with him for her car crash injuries. It was bad faith questioning and it made Cathy angry and upset, but she never backed down. The defense asked her why, if she claimed she'd been sexually assaulted in a hospital room, she would agree to stay in that same hospital overnight. At this point she replied, quote, Well, we'll drug you and let you explain how it feels. In relation to Sarah, John Schneeberger's teenage stepdaughter, the prosecution stated that the doctor began drugging and sexually assaulting her when she was 13 years old in 1994. That happened to be the same year that the RCMP closed Cathy's complaint file about Dr John

Schneeberger after the first two blood tests cleared him. It was also the same year that Michelle gave birth to her first child with John. Sarah, by that point 18 years old, testified about the multiple times she believed her stepfather John sexually assaulted her, some incidents at the medical clinic, some at home and some involving an injection. She said she noticed that he started to take an interest in her when she went through puberty, recalling an early incident when her stepfather suggested she come to his medical office to discuss taking birth control. He took a blood sample from her but then inserted a second syringe which he said was a saline solution. Sarah said she immediately began to feel dizzy

and John guided her to the exam table. Quote, I remember he lay on top of me on the examining table I could feel him inside me. She said she heard a rubber snapping sound. She lost consciousness Sarah described incidents that involved injections that made her memories foggy, like the most recent incident in her bedroom during the wart removal consultation that motivated her to tell her mother. For the others that didn't involve an injection, Sarah was clear on the details as she described sexual touching by her step-father. Sarah's mother was a woman who was a woman of color, For the others that didn't involve an injection, Sarah was clear on the details as she described sexual touching by her stepfather. And according to the book Sour Milk by Barb Paholik and Janergy Pruden, quote, it was not for a medical exam.

He had put his fingers into her body and asked the frightened teen about orgasm. The prosecution also presented evidence to show that John Schneeberger had access to Versed. The RCMP investigation had uncovered that in the year before Sarah confided in her mother Michelle about John's behaviour, the hospital in Kipling had ordered three or four times more vials of Versed than other similar sized hospitals. There was just no explanation for it. A nurse testified that she saw John looking in the injectable drug cabinet and a few hours later,

she came back to find an unexpectedly empty box of Versed. In January of 1997, three months before Sarah came forward with her allegations, John signed a medical form ordering Versed and morphine for his wife Michelle, saying she was having a painful back spasm. Michelle testified that she was not given the Versed. A later interview with Christy Blatchford for the National Post reveals that John's wife Michelle had seen a number of possible red flags that she didn't put much stock in at the time. She said she noticed John was always treating Sarah for something by giving her a needle,

whether it be for a headache, a stomach ache or just because she was tired or upset. Michelle said her husband always reassured her that injection was the best and fastest way to get the medication into Sarah so she'd get better. Michelle testified that she told that she was the doctor and that she was the best at getting the medication. She was told that she was the best at getting the medication. She was told that she was the best at getting the medication. She was told that she was the best at getting the medication. She was told that she was the best at getting the medication. She was told that she was the best at getting the medication.

She was told that she was the best at getting the medication. She was told that she was the best at getting the medication. She was told that she was the best her boyfriend commented on the frequent bruises on her arms that she started to think about it herself. She also said that the morning after, when she often complained of nausea as a result of the injections, her stepfather would try to convince her mother Michelle that Sarah must have been taking drugs herself. Sarah was greatly upset by this since she was an honors student and never knowingly tried any drugs. Her mother Michelle also

described a difference in their parental approaches. She didn't believe in physical punishment but John did so would often slap her two older children. Her best friend was quoted in the same article saying that John definitely ran the show in the household. Quote, he was very dominant, they did what he wanted, when he was the boss. But at the time, the town of Kipling was besotted with him. Michelle was too.

The Crown of Kipling was besotted with him. Michelle was too. The charges against Dr. Schneeberger in relation to Kathy included attempting to obstruct the course of justice by providing false blood samples in an effort to get away with sexual assault. The Crown prosecution had to prove that it was possible for him to have found a way to pass someone else's blood as his own on three separate occasions in a supervised environment.

The problem was that the investigation did not uncover exactly how he did it. So the Crown had no choice but to present a cardiovascular surgeon to testify about one possibility. Dr John Burgess took to the witness box and held up a flexible plastic tube called a vascular graft and explained that they're often inserted into patients with blocked arteries to ensure that blood continues to flow around the blockage. The doctor testified that it was possible for a person to use a scalpel to cut into their skin and use forceps to create an opening in the muscles where the tube could rest, using a local anesthetic of course. He said the procedure would be rather painful.

The tube would be inserted and once inside, filled and emptied of blood, as long as the ends of the tube were pinched off. The problem was, this was just one possibility, and an outlandish one at that. The Leader Post called it bizarre, a theory taken straight from science fiction. And the prosecution presented no eyewitness testimony that even suggested that's what Dr. John Schneeberger actually did. There was some circumstantial evidence though. John's wife Michelle testified that the same month police asked him to voluntarily give a second blood sample, she saw him with a bloody towel wrapped around his arm and lateral cuts above his elbow. He told her that he cut them he had stitches above his left

bicep because a piece of glass fell on him. His estranged wife Michelle also testified that after the second blood test cleared John and the RCMP closed Cathy's complaint file, he became suspicious that he was under investigation again. One day when he was working at the medical clinic, a man approached the office with an offer to enter a raffle to win a diamond ring. Entry was as simple as putting a form into an envelope. John put his entry in and licked the adhesive strip, but he apparently thought better of it later, wondering if perhaps the man could have been a private investigator after a sneaky DNA sample. He became very paranoid. After that, Michelle said she saw him using water to wet the adhesive strip on envelopes

rather than his own saliva. He told her, quote, "'You can just never be too careful "'when people are accusing you of things you didn't do.'" In November of 1996, after John agreed to give a third blood sample, Michelle saw a nickel-sized wound on his left bicep. He told her he'd pinched his arm on a folding exam table. Michelle said that when John wore white shirts, there would often be blood stains on them.

She also testified about what happened after her daughter accused John of drugging and sexually assaulting her, and he was arrested and immediately released on bail. He sobbed and pleaded with her to believe that he was innocent of all the charges. He tried his old romantic gestures, sending her gifts and writing her emails. She was done with him and the marriage by then, but she shared her two youngest children with him and he wanted to see them, so a visit was scheduled.

Michelle testified that as the visit came to an end, John suddenly became distraught and showed her two syringes. He sobbed as he asked her to help him. She testified that she knew he wanted her to help him take his own life. She wasn't interested. She put their daughters in the car and drove away. That's where we'll leave it for part one. Thanks for listening. In part two, Dr. Schneeberger takes to the witness box to defend himself and gives a testimony that shocks everyone in the courtroom, including the prosecution. And there's so much more to the story after that and Beyond

the Trial. Part two will be released to all in a week and if you're subscribed to our premium feed on Amazon Music included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast, it's available right now without any of the ads. See the show notes for details. As always, we'll be posting news clippings and photos mentioned in this episode on the Canadian True Crime Facebook and Instagram pages. The podcast donates monthly to those facing injustice. This month we have donated to Women's Shelters Canada, an organization that supports over

600 shelters across the country for women and children fleeing violence. You can find a shelter near you by going to ShelterSafe.ca. Audio editing was by Eric Crosby who also voiced the disclaimer. Research was by Hayley Gray. Our senior producer is Lindsay Eldridge and Carol Weinberg is our script consultant. Narration, additional research, writing and sound design was by me and the theme songs were composed by We Talk of Dreams. I'll be back soon with part two. See you then. You