[Shelley]

Source: Sympatico News

A father suspected of fatally stabbing his three children looked like "skin draped over bones" when he was finally caught outside Merritt, B.C., says a local hunter who helped find the man after a nine-day search.

Allan Dwayne Schoenborn, 40, was apprehended near a wooded area on the outskirts of the town, about two kilometres southeast of an information booth.

"He was curled up in a ball like a whipped little man. His dog came after me and my big ugly dog was trying to kill him," said hunter Kim Robinson, referring to his bull mastiff.

"I tied my dog up and the guy woke up, thinking his dog was in a wreck. I didn't shoot his dog, because it was just doing what it was supposed to do. The guy asked me, 'Are you going to shoot me?' And I said, 'Why would I shoot you?'"

Another local resident and his dog were the first to spot Schoenborn early Wednesday morning, and the man immediately went to inform police. But on his way he met Robinson, who had been searching for the suspect himself.

"(Robinson) had been in regular contact with the investigators and had offered his expertise and knowledge of the back-country area around Merritt," RCMP Staff Sgt. Scott Tod told reporters Wednesday afternoon.
Robinson contacted a nearby investigator and spent roughly 15 minutes with Schoenborn, before an officer arrived at the scene and arrested the suspect.

Tod said Schoenborn was not harmed during his capture.

"He was arrested without incident," he said. "He was immediately taken to hospital as a precautionary measure, where he was examined by a physician and treated for dehydration."

Merritt is now being held in custody at the Merritt RCMP detachment headquarters.

Nine-day manhunt

Investigators had searched for the father since April 6, when his three children were found slain in their mobile home.

"Just finding the suspect is going to help people feel a lot more comfortable moving around in the community," Merritt Mayor David Laird told CTV Newsnet.

The mother of the children, Darcie Clarke, had alerted police after finding the victims: Kaitlynne, 10, Max, eight, and Cordon, five.

The investigation had been controversial, with RCMP saying when they discovered the children that they had no suspect in the killing, and no one was in custody.

It wasn't until more than 20 hours after the victims were found that the RCMP identified the prime suspect as Schoenborn.

Gary Derksen, a neighbour of the children, said Schoenborn's capture Wednesday will put many in the community at ease.

"I think a lot of people are going to be relieved," he said "There were a lot of people on edge about the whole thing, about him being out in the woods or not knowing where he was."

RCMP say Schoenborn was arrested at his children's school a few days before the killings and was charged with uttering threats. A justice of the peace released Schoenborn on bail, unaware of a peace bond that restricted Schoenborn's contact with his wife.

Schoenborn was arrested two other times the week before the children's deaths.


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I am so glad they caught this creep!

[pinksugar]

random.

It's good that he's caught I guess

[internetchick]

I will never be able to wrap my mind around being able to kill your own children.

[Adrienne]

How horrible. I could never get over this. How can you murder your own flesh and blood and to top it off, young helpless children. Things like this literally make me cry.

I feel for the mother. I couldn't imagine coming home to my slain children.