Forensic Files - Season 6, Episode 18 - Bad Blood - Full Episode | Forensic Files

a small canadian farm town made national news when a woman claimed she was raped
by her own doctor dna tests proved the doctor was innocent the victim insisted the dna test was wrong
what does a high school graduate know that the world's top scientists do not [Music]
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] nestled along canada's beautiful southwestern prairie is the tiny town of
kipling saskatchewan the population is so sparse the farm animals outnumbered the residents
in a town this size everyone knows one another it's a fairly quiet farming community
with a little crime we may have up to five or six sexual assaults a year and breaking enters but fairly small in the
scope of criminal code work [Music] this is the story of one of those alleged sexual assault cases
it took place on halloween night in 1992. depending on whose story you believe it was either a night of lies and
trickery or an unfortunate misunderstanding a woman we'll call candy was working at
this gas station her boyfriend stopped by they got into an argument i am not dealing with you anymore i can't even
stand to look at you [Music] candy drove to see her girlfriend who worked at the kipling memorial union
hospital she wasn't there candy appeared upset a nurse suggested she see a doctor
dr john schneeberger was on call that night he was also candy's doctor and had even delivered her baby
candy says dr schneeberger recommended a sedative i wasn't really hysterical anymore but
what i told him was that i was so mad at danny that that i felt like killing him
but i didn't actually mean that i was going to go out and kill him i was just describing the
how angry i was i had just expected that he would give me a couple pills or something
just to relax my muscles calm me down instead dr schneeberger gave candy a shot she says she went numb almost
immediately i had no control over my muscles it's like all my muscles left and i was just
this piece of jelly falling over i tried to scream as i was falling over nothing would come
out except for like a croaking noise that a frog would make it was just it was so scary
candy isn't exactly sure what happened next but believes she was raped when a dentist freezes
your gums you can't and he's pulling pulling your tooth out you can't feel the the pain from the tooth but what you
can feel is pressure of the tooth moving back and forth and and that's that's the only way i can
describe it when she regained consciousness alone in the exam room candy had the presence of
mind to place her underwear in an air-tight bag candy was too dizzy to leave the
hospital the nurses insisted she spend the night she said nothing of the alleged rape the
next day she confronted dr schneeberger i said the hell was that drug you gave me last
night and he asked me why did it give you wild dreams and then and then i knew that oh my god i was
gonna have a hell of a fight on my hands because here now he's already already covering up eh
when candy was released from the hospital she spoke briefly with her parents and told them of her suspicions
you could tell by the look on her face that that something terrible had happened to
her i was really hoping that wasn't true eh but when we saw her we knew it was she then drove to regina a town two
hours drive away and went to a rape clinic for testing there they found evidence of semen on
her panties jeans and on a vaginal swab that was part of my reasoning for going for the rape kit
to find out if this really did happen or is am i going nuts did my mind play some
tricks on me or what the hell is going on here blood tests also revealed an unusual drug in candy's system a drug
called versed they use it as a pre-anaesthetic agent to induce anesthesia you start to
go numb and not feel the power of your muscles you're able to use your muscles and then you become
very tired and then asleep when candy formally accused dr schneeberger of rape many residents of kipling believed candy
was lying dr schneeberger was a respected member of the community he had never been
accused of anything like this before some believed candy as a single mother was either romantically interested in
the married doctor or her motive was to get some sort of financial settlement to
end the controversy the town looked up to the doctor he was a good doctor and he would never do anything like that it
was impossible also suspicious was the fact that candy had said nothing to hospital nurses on
the night of the alleged rape there were two nurses on shift that night in fact both of them were in that room
the room that the the rape allegedly occurred in very shortly after they saw nothing amiss
to end the controversy dr schneeberger willingly agreed to give blood for a dna test
the dna in the blood drawn from dr schneeberger did not match the biological material from candy's rape
test kit and i was in shock again and i said no that's impossible that's impossible how can this be
seven more years would go by before that question was finally answered when dna tests showed that dr
schneeberger was innocent of the sexual assault on his 20 year old patient most people in kipling tried to put the whole
thing behind them but candy the alleged victim would not let the issue die all during the next year she insisted
that someone somehow had tampered with the first dna test at the hospital [Music]
so dr schneeberger agreed to a second dna test in august of 1993. his blood was drawn by a registered
nurse the test was monitored by the police and the vials were taken directly to the
forensic laboratory at police headquarters they watched the needle actually penetrate the doctor's arm
once again dr schneeberger's dna did not match the dna on candy's clothing or the rape test
kit of course i didn't believe them a lot of other people did believe them and i guess it's hard you know how
you've got dna is the new thing and it's supposed to be so right and so perfect we knew there was something
something wrong that like we totally believed her right and we knew he was up to something
dr schneeberger defended himself by saying the drug he injected into candy that night in the hospital versed can
cause erotic hallucinations versa can account for all sorts of hallucinations possibly but it can't
produce semen and according to the complainant the last time she had had intercourse
was uh weeks before this this incident with no other evidence in 1994 the police closed their investigation into
this matter the doctor has already given two samples and those two samples were tested and they came up as being
having a dna profile and the profile didn't match the semen that was left at the scene so now
we're stuck we really can't do anything the town of kipling was not kind at all to candy
she hired a private investigator who broke into dr schneeberger's car [Music] on the headrest
he found strands of hair but there were no roots attached so they couldn't be used for dna testing
also in the car was a tube of lip balm presumably 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 those epithelial cells would contain
enough dna for testing and when they did candy finally got her first piece of positive news
the dna from the lip balm matched the dna from candy's rape test kit i knew it all along it wasn't a shock
that something was going to match but it was a it was a bit of relief because at least we had that
to prove to the police but there were two problems first there was no proof that the cells were dr
schneeberger's second the evidence couldn't be used in court since the investigator broke into the
car without a warrant but if the cells on the lip balm were those of dr schneeberger
why did the dna from his lips differ from his blood sample to find out candy filed a civil suit against dr
schneeberger and brought charges against him with the local medical society at the hearing
candy sat directly across from dr schneeberger's wife if looks could kill i would have been
dead lisa was sitting across the table from me and she just sat there with her arms
crossed just glaring at me like you little [ __ ] you are ruining our lives and i just sat in my chair thinking oh
my god you're so stupid you know you are so stupid and if you don't watch it it's gonna happen to your kids too
all of this pressure prompted dr schneeberger to agree to yet another dna test this time the procedure was videotaped
by police and performed at their forensics lab the doctor appears friendly and helpful
the technician wants to take blood from his finger but the doctor politely refuses saying
he has a disease that would cause his hands to bruise that's how we usually take the sample we
don't need much blood since this is a voluntary test the doctor can't be forced to do
anything against his will so the technician inserts a needle into his left arm instead nothing comes out
the vein was larger or appeared much larger than i would have expected and i thought that was a little unusual
she tries another tube but still has trouble sometimes the vacuum is poor in them and
would not pull the blood out of the individual's arm eventually she was able to extract a
sample afterwards the nurse was puzzled [Applause] and the lab determined that the sample
was too degraded for dna testing police broke the news to candy and i'm like oh my god
whatever like that's [ __ ] this is our last chance to get blood from him and you guys screwed up again
even the police were suspicious when dna from dr schneeberger's lip balm matched
the dna from candy's rape test kit but since dr schneeberger had passed two prior blood dna tests officials were
hesitant to charge him because of his submitting voluntarily to a dna sample it gave him
the out that it wasn't me there's a dna sample showing it is not the only person who had an opportunity
limited as it was was her doctor but we believed in the dna testing i mean we we believed in the
science of dna they had to follow the rules of the canadian justice system i call it the canadian criminal system
because that's basically what it is it's the criminals that have all the rights on april 25th
1997 five years after the alleged rape police got a break startling new information
was discovered inside the doctor's own home schneeberger's step-daughter his wife's
biological child claimed that the doctor assaulted her too for several years the youngster says her stepfather had
been coming into her room at night and giving her injections [Music] his wife discovered a box full of
condoms needles and drugs including verse ed in the doctor's home office i blame myself i still blame myself i
screamed i bawled i i was pretty disgusted because all of these years i mean i'm fighting to get
the truth out but also to make sure that it didn't happen anybody else dr john schneeberger was arrested and
ordered to undergo yet another dna test again the procedure was videotaped i also advise you that we have a warrant
to obtain bodily substances the doctor was withdrawn and silent police took several samples hair saliva
then blood taken from his finger not his arm and this time a surprise dna from all three samples matched dna
found on candy's vaginal swab oh that was wonderful that was what i had wanted all along i mean i had even
offered to go chop an arm off i would have stalked him one in the nose to get that blood no problem
it was uh quite a happy day because we knew we had him that candy was right and everybody else
that didn't believe was wrong but a big question remained unanswered how did dr schneeberger fool the
previous blood dna tests it was a puzzle how those samples had come to be different
than the last finger even if we knew there was something different there was no way that we could
prove anything especially since the nurses and police all witnessed the needle being inserted
into dr schneeberger's arm while the blood was drawn on the stand dr schneeberger would reveal
his secret in november of 1999 dr john schneeberger went on trial in saskatchewan for the rape of his patient
candy and his own stepdaughter on the witness stand he said he surgically inserted a plastic
tube under the skin into his left arm filled with blood from one of his patients
this is why he insisted that the blood be drawn from his left arm rather than anywhere else
[Music] if you look closely at the videotape of that blood test you'll see that the doctor is careful to
pull his sleeve 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 protruding from his arm but by the time the third test was done
five years after the rape accusation the blood in the tube was old and dark which explains why the technician was
suspicious dr schneeberger however denied raping candy he claims candy broke into his
home stole a used condom and used that biological sample to frame him he said he used his patients blood for
the dna test because he had no other way to defend himself when that came up at trial that he thought candy
broke into his house and stole samples or whatever it was laughable it was absolutely laughable
that he was had to grasp it straws like that 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 in southern saskatchewan best defense
lawyer wow i showed him who his boss you run across strong-willed individuals sometimes the strong-willed individuals
are right and sometimes they're wrong and this particular strong-willed person was right and she was right all along
and she was determined to see that what happened to her didn't happen to anyone else this would be right up
around the top as far as being the most bizarre the most involved and involving all the
forensic evidence here of any case that i had dr schneeberger was found guilty of
sexually assaulting candy as well as drugging her and obstructing justice he was also convicted of sexually
assaulting his stepdaughter and was sentenced to six years in prison 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 it was
just when the test came back negative and she had to fight and it was just a constant
battle while taping this interview candy received a telephone call in which she learned
dr schneeberger had been denied parole i won again that's so exciting ah he lost he lost both both of his
chances to get out for day parole and vulper all oh my god is that great anyway i was so worried that he was gonna get
out and everybody was gonna fall for his lies and [ __ ] again but they didn't they didn't they're smarter than the
rest oh my god do you guys know how exciting this is for me it's like celebration
you have to remember that the dna also led us off the path so my when i lecture on this particular
case to younger police officers i say to them remember the dna does give you something but it has to be
supported with cooperative evidence it was very frustrating not being able to have all the answers but
it finally did come together after 7 years and 24 days [Music] [Music] you

In rural Canada, Dr. John Schneeberger is accused of sedating and sexually assaulting one of his female patients and his step daughter. DNA tests demonstrate that the doctor is innocent, but the patient insists that he sedated and raped her.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Candy accused Dr. Schneeberger of rape; DNA tests initially cleared him, but later evidence led to his conviction.

Key points

The Allegation. A woman claims she was raped by her doctor, igniting a national controversy.
DNA Tests Exonerate the Doctor. DNA tests prove Dr. Schneeberger's innocence, leaving the town divided.
A Shocking Revelation. Years later, a new allegation surfaces against Dr. Schneeberger from his stepdaughter.
The Trial. Dr. Schneeberger's trial reveals shocking secrets about his methods to evade justice.
Justice Served. Dr. Schneeberger is found guilty of sexual assault and sentenced to prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I was really hoping that wasn’t true eh.

Candy expresses her hope that her suspicions about the doctor are false.

4:59WatchNov 24, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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