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NARRATOR: A small
Canadian farm town made national news when
a woman claimed she
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was raped by her own doctor. DNA tests proved the
doctor was innocent. The victim insisted
the DNA test was wrong.
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What does a high school
graduate know that the world's top scientists do not? [music playing]
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Nestled along Canada's
beautiful southwestern prairie is the tiny town of
Kipling, Saskatchewan.
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The population is so
sparse, the farm animals outnumber the residents. In a town this size,
everyone knows one another.
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SGT. BILL HAANSTRA: It's
a fairly quiet farming community with little crime. We may have up to five or
six sexual assaults a year
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and break and enters, but
fairly small in the scope of criminal cold work. NARRATOR: This is
the story of one
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of those alleged
sexual assault cases. It took place on
Halloween night in 1992.
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Depending on whose
story you believe, it was either a night
of lies and trickery,
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or an unfortunate
misunderstanding. A woman we'll call Candy, was
working at this gas station.
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Her boyfriend stopped by. They got into an argument. No, I am not dealing
with you anymore!
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I can't even stand
to look at you! NARRATOR: Candy drove
to see her girlfriend who worked at the Kipling
Memorial Union Hospital.
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She wasn't there. Candy appeared upset. A nurse suggested
she see a doctor. Dr. John Schneeberger
was on call that night.
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He was also Candy's doctor, and
had even delivered her baby. Candy says Dr. Schneeberger
recommended a sedative.
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I wasn't really
hysterical anymore. But what I told him was
that I was so mad at Danny,
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that I felt like killing him. But I didn't actually
mean that I was going to go out and kill him.
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I was just describing
how angry I was. I had just expected
that he would give me
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a couple pills or something
just to relax my muscles, calm me down. NARRATOR: Instead, Dr.
Schneeberger gave Candy a shot.
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She says she went numb
almost immediately. CANDY: I had no control
over my muscles.
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It's like all my muscles left,
and I was just this piece of jelly falling over. I tried to scream.
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As I was falling
over, nothing would come out except for a croaking
noise that a frog would make.
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It was just-- it was so scary. NARRATOR: Candy isn't exactly
sure what happened next,
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but believes she was raped. CANDY: When a dentist
freezes your gums, you can't-- and he's
pulling your tooth out,
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you can't feel the
pain from the tooth, but what you can feel
is pressure of the tooth
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moving back and forth. And that's the only
way I can describe it. NARRATOR: When she regained
consciousness alone in the exam
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room, Candy had the presence
of mind to place her underwear in an airtight bag. Candy was too dizzy
to leave the hospital.
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The nurses insisted
she spend the night. She said nothing of
the alleged rape. The next day, she
confronted Dr. Schneeberger.
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CANDY: I said, what
the hell was that drug you gave me last night? And he asked me, why?
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Did it give you wild dreams? And then-- and then I
knew that, oh, my God. I was going to have a hell
of a fight on my hands,
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because here now he's
already-- already covering up. NARRATOR: When Candy was
released from the hospital,
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she spoke briefly
with her parents and told them of her suspicions. VIRGINIA: You could tell
by the look on her face
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that something terrible
had happened to her, eh? I was really hoping
it wasn't true, eh?
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But when we saw
her, we knew it was. NARRATOR: She then drove to
Regina, a town 2 hours drive
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away, and went to a
rape clinic for testing. There they found evidence of
semen on her panties, jeans,
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and on a vaginal swab. CANDY: That was part of
my reasoning for going for the rape kit-- to find
out if this really did happen,
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or am I going nuts? Did my mind play
some tricks on me? Or what the hell
is going on here?
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NARRATOR: Blood
tests also revealed an unusual drug in Candy's
system, a drug called Versed.
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JACK MULLOCK: They use it
as a preanesthetic agent to induce anesthesia. You start to go numb and not
feel the power of your muscles,
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or able to use your muscles. And then you become very
tired, and then asleep. NARRATOR: When Candy
formally accused
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Dr. Schneeberger of rape,
many residents of Kipling believed Candy was lying. Dr. Schneeberger was a respected
member of the community.
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He had never been accused of
anything like this before. Some believed Candy,
as a single mother,
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was either
romantically interested in the married
doctor, or her motive was to get some sort
of financial settlement
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to end the controversy. DANIELLE DASCHUK: The town
looked up to the doctor. He was a good doctor.
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And he would never do
anything like that. It was impossible. NARRATOR: Also
suspicious, was the fact
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that Candy had said
nothing to hospital nurses on the night of
the alleged rape.
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DEAN SINCLAIR: There were two
nurses on shift that night. In fact, both of them were
in that room, the room
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that the rape allegedly
occurred in, very shortly after. They saw nothing amiss.
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NARRATOR: To end
the controversy, Dr. Schneeberger
willingly agreed to give blood for a DNA test.
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The DNA in the blood drawn
from Dr. Schneeberger did not match the
biological material
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from Candy's rape test kit. CANDY: And I was in shock again. And I said, no. That's impossible!
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That's impossible. How can this be? NARRATOR: 7 more years would
go by before that question
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was finally answered. When DNA tests showed
the Dr. Schneeberger was innocent of the sexual assault
on his 20-year-old patient,
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most people in
Kipling tried to put the whole thing behind them. But Candy, the alleged victim,
would not let the issue die.
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All during the next
year, she insisted that someone, somehow, had
tampered with the first DNA
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test at the hospital. So Dr. Schneeberger agreed
to a second DNA test in August of 1993.
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His blood was drawn
by a registered nurse. The test was monitored
by the police.
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And the vials were
taken directly to the forensic laboratory
at police headquarters.
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They watched the
needle actually penetrate the doctor's arm. NARRATOR: Once again,
Dr. Schneeberger's DNA
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did not match the DNA on Candy's
clothing or the rape test kit. CANDY: Of course I
didn't believe them.
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A lot of other people
did believe them. And I guess it's hard. How? You've got-- DNA
is the new thing.
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And it's supposed to be
so right and so perfect. We knew there was
something wrong.
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We totally believed her, eh? And we knew he was
up to something. NARRATOR: Dr. Schneeberger
defended himself
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by saying the drug he
injected into Candy that night in the
hospital, Versed, can cause erotic hallucinations.
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DEAN SINCLAIR: Versed
can account for all sorts of hallucinations, possibly. But it can't produce semen.
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And according to
the complainant, the last time she
had had intercourse was weeks before this incident.
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NARRATOR: With no other
evidence, in 1994, the police closed their
investigation into this matter.
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The doctor has already
given two samples. And those two
samples were tested. And they came up as being--
having a DNA profile.
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And the profile
didn't match the semen that was left at the scene. So now we're stuck, where
we really can't do anything.
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DANIELLE DASCHUK:
The town of Kipling was not kind at all to Candy. NARRATOR: She hired a private
investigator who broke
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into Dr. Schneeberger's car. On the headrest, he
found strands of hair, but there were no
roots attached.
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So they couldn't be
used for DNA testing. Also in the car, was a tube
of lip balm, presumably
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used by Dr. Schneeberger. At her own expense,
Candy asked a private lab to test the epithelial cells
on the end of the lip balm.
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Those epithelial cells would
contain enough DNA for testing. And when they did, Candy
finally got her first piece
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of positive news. The DNA from the lip
balm matched the DNA from Candy's rape test kit.
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CANDY: I knew it all along. It wasn't a shock that
something was going to match.
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But it was a bit of a relief,
because at least we had that to prove to the police.
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NARRATOR: But there
were two problems. First, there was no proof
that the cells were Dr.
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Schneeberger's. Second, the evidence
couldn't be used in court, since the
investigator broke into the car
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without a warrant. But if the cells on the lip balm
were those of Dr. Schneeberger,
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why did the DNA from his lips
differ from his blood sample? To find out, Candy filed a civil
suit against Dr. Schneeberger
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and brought charges against him
with the local medical society. At the hearing, Candy sat
directly across from Dr.
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Schneeberger's wife. CANDY: If looks could
kill, I would've been dead. Lisa was sitting across
the table from me.
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And she just sat
there with her arms crossed, just glaring at
me, like, you little bitch.
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You are ruining our lives. And I just sat in my chair
thinking, oh, my God. You're so stupid.
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You know? [laughs]
You are so stupid. And if you don't watch it, it's
going to happen to your kids
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too. NARRATOR: All of this
pressure prompted Dr. Schneeberger to agree
to yet another DNA test.
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This time, the procedure
was videotaped by police and performed at
their forensics lab.
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The doctor appears
friendly and helpful. The technician wants to
take blood from his finger,
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but the doctor politely
refuses, saying he has a disease that would
cause his hands to bruise.
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That's how we usually
take the sample. We don't need much blood. NARRATOR: Since this
is a voluntary test,
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the doctor can't be forced to
do anything against his will. So the technician inserts
a needle into his left arm
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instead. Nothing comes out. JEAN RONEY: The vein was
larger, or appeared much larger
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than I would have expected. And I thought that
was a little unusual. NARRATOR: She tries another
tube, but still has trouble.
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JEAN RONEY: Sometimes
the vacuum is poor, and then it would
not pull the blood out of the individual's arm.
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NARRATOR: Eventually, she
was able to extract a sample. Afterwards, the
nurse was puzzled.
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And the lab determined
that the sample was too degraded for DNA testing. Police broke the news to Candy.
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CANDY: And I'm like, oh, my God. Whatever. Like, that's bull [bleep]. This is our last chance
to get blood from him.
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And you guys screwed up again. NARRATOR: Even the
police were suspicious when DNA from Dr.
Schneeberger's lip balm
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matched the DNA from
Candy's rape test kit. But since Dr.
Schneeberger had passed
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two prior blood DNA
tests, officials were hesitant to charge him. Because of his submitting
voluntarily to a DNA sample,
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it gave him the out
that, it wasn't me. Here's a DNA sample
showing it is not. The only person who had an
opportunity, limited as it was,
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was her doctor. But we believed in
the DNA testing. I mean, we believed
in the science of DNA.
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They had to follow the rules
of the Canadian justice system. I call it the Canadian
criminal system, [laughs]
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because that's
basically what it is. It's the criminals that
have all the rights.
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NARRATOR: On April 25, 1997, 5
years after the alleged rape, police got a break.
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Startling new information
was discovered inside the doctor's own home. Schneeberger's stepdaughter,
his wife's biological child,
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claimed that the doctor
assaulted her too. For several years, the
youngster says her stepfather
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had been coming into
her room at night, and giving her injections. His wife discovered a box full
of condoms, needles, and drugs,
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including Versed, in the
doctor's home office. I blame myself. I still blame myself.
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CANDY: I screamed. I bawled. I was pretty disgusted,
because all of these years,
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I mean, I'm fighting
to get the truth out, but also to make sure that it
didn't happen to anybody else.
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NARRATOR: Dr. John
Schneeberger was arrested and ordered to
undergo yet another DNA test.
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Again, the procedure
was videotaped. I also advised you that we
have a warrant to obtain bodily
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substances for the purpose of-- NARRATOR: The doctor was
withdrawn and silent. Police took several samples--
hair, saliva, then blood--
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taken from his
finger, not his arm. And this time a surprise--
DNA from all three samples
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matched DNA found on
Candy's vaginal swab. CANDY: Oh, that was wonderful. That was what I had
wanted all along.
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I mean, I had even offered
to go chop an arm off. I would have socked
him one in the nose
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to get that blood-- no problem. It was quite a happy day,
because we knew we knew we
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had him, that Candy was right. And everybody else who
didn't believe her was wrong.
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NARRATOR: But a big question
remained unanswered. How did Dr. Schneeberger fool
the previous blood DNA tests?
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It was a puzzle how those
samples had come to be different than the last finger.
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Even if we knew there
was something different, there was no way that
we could prove anything.
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NARRATOR: Especially since
the nurses and police all witnessed the
needle being inserted
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into Dr. Schneeberger's arm
while the blood was drawn. On the stand, Dr. Schneeberger
would reveal his secret.
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In November of 1999,
Dr. John Schneeberger went on trial in
Saskatchewan for the rape
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of this patient, Candy,
and his own stepdaughter. On the witness stand,
he said he surgically
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inserted a plastic
tube under the skin into his left arm, filled with
blood from one of his patients.
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This is why he
insisted that the blood be drawn from his left arm
rather than anywhere else.
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If you look closely at the
videotape of that blood test, you'll see that the doctor
is careful to pull his sleeve
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only so high, so as not
to reveal the incision where he inserted the tube. And for a brief moment,
you can see the tube
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protruding from his arm. But by the time
the third test was done, 5 years after the
rape accusation, the blood
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in the tube was old and
dark, which explains why the technician was suspicious. Doctor Schneeberger,
however, denied raping Candy.
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He claims Candy broke into
his home, stole a used condom, and used that biological
sample to frame him.
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He said he used his patient's
blood for the DNA test, because he had no other
way to defend himself.
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DANIELLE DASCHUK: When
that came up at trial that he thought Candy broke into
his house and stole samples,
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or whatever. It was laughable. It was absolutely
laughable that he had to grasp at straws like that.
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It was just laughable. I was a bulldog on the stand. I kicked his lawyer's ass. And he's supposed to
be the best lawyer
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in southern Saskatchewan,
best defense lawyer. Wow. I showed who was boss. When you run across
strong willed individuals,
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sometimes the strong willed
individuals are right. And sometimes they're wrong. And this particular strong
willed person was right.
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And she was right all along. And she was determined to
see that what happened to her
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didn't happen to anyone else. This would be right up
around the top as far as being the most bizarre
and most involved,
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and involving all the
forensic evidence here, of any case that I had. NARRATOR: Dr.
Schneeberger was found
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guilty of sexually assaulting
Candy, as well as drugging her, and obstructing justice.
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He was also
convicted of sexually assaulting his
stepdaughter, and was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
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I'm so proud of Candy. If it was me, I
don't know if I could handle the whole-- everything
that she went through.
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It was just-- when the
test came back negative, and she had to fight, and it
was just a constant battle.
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NARRATOR: While
taping this interview, Candy received a
telephone call in which she learned Dr. Schneeberger
had been denied parole.
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I won again! [laughs] That's so exciting! He lost. He lost both of his
chances to get out
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for day parole and full parole. Oh my, God! Isn't that great? Woo-hoo! [sighs] Anyway, I was so worried
that he was going to get out,
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and everybody was going to fall
for his lies and bull [bleep] again. But they didn't.
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They didn't. They're smarter than the rest! Oh, my God. Do you guys know how
exciting this is for me?
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It's like celebration. You have to remember that the
DNA also lead us off the path.
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So when I lecture on
this particular case to younger police
officers, I say to them,
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remember the DNA does
give you something, but it has to be supported
with cooperative evidence.
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It was very
frustrating not being able to have all the
answers, but it finally did come together after
7 years and 24 days.
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[music playing]