Forensic Files - Season 6, Episode 19 - Pure Evil - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: 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 playing]
Nestled along Canada's beautiful southwestern prairie is the tiny town of Kipling, Saskatchewan.
The population is so sparse, the farm animals outnumber the residents. In a town this size, everyone knows one another.
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
and break and enters, but fairly small in the scope of criminal cold work. NARRATOR: 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. No, I am not dealing with you anymore!
I can't even stand to look at you! NARRATOR: 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 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 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. NARRATOR: Instead, Dr. Schneeberger gave Candy a shot.
She says she went numb almost immediately. CANDY: 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 a croaking noise that a frog would make.
It was just-- it was so scary. NARRATOR: Candy isn't exactly sure what happened next,
but believes she was raped. CANDY: When a dentist freezes your gums, you can't-- and he's pulling your tooth out,
you can't feel the pain from the tooth, but what you can feel is pressure of the tooth
moving back and forth. And that's the only way I can describe it. NARRATOR: When she regained consciousness alone in the exam
room, Candy had the presence of mind to place her underwear in an airtight 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.
CANDY: I said, what 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 going to have a hell of a fight on my hands,
because here now he's already-- already covering up. NARRATOR: When Candy was released from the hospital,
she spoke briefly with her parents and told them of her suspicions. VIRGINIA: You could tell by the look on her face
that something terrible had happened to her, eh? I was really hoping it wasn't true, eh?
But when we saw her, we knew it was. NARRATOR: She then drove to Regina, a town 2 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. CANDY: That was part of my reasoning for going for the rape kit-- to find out if this really did happen,
or am I going nuts? Did my mind play some tricks on me? Or what the hell is going on here?
NARRATOR: Blood tests also revealed an unusual drug in Candy's system, a drug called Versed.
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,
or able to use your muscles. And then you become very tired, and then asleep. NARRATOR: 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. DANIELLE DASCHUK: The town looked up to the doctor. He was a good doctor.
And he would never do anything like that. It was impossible. NARRATOR: Also suspicious, was the fact
that Candy had said nothing to hospital nurses on the night of the alleged rape.
DEAN SINCLAIR: There were two nurses on shift that night. In fact, both of them were in that room, the room
that the rape allegedly occurred in, very shortly after. They saw nothing amiss.
NARRATOR: 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. CANDY: And I was in shock again. And I said, no. That's impossible!
That's impossible. How can this be? NARRATOR: 7 more years would go by before that question
was finally answered. When DNA tests showed the 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. 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. NARRATOR: Once again, Dr. Schneeberger's DNA
did not match the DNA on Candy's clothing or the rape test kit. CANDY: Of course I didn't believe them.
A lot of other people did believe them. And I guess it's hard. 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 wrong.
We totally believed her, eh? And we knew he was up to something. NARRATOR: Dr. Schneeberger defended himself
by saying the drug he injected into Candy that night in the hospital, Versed, can cause erotic hallucinations.
DEAN SINCLAIR: Versed 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 weeks before this incident.
NARRATOR: 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, where we really can't do anything.
DANIELLE DASCHUK: The town of Kipling was not kind at all to Candy. NARRATOR: She hired a private investigator who broke
into Dr. Schneeberger's car. 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.
CANDY: I knew it all along. It wasn't a shock that something was going to match.
But it was a bit of a relief, because at least we had that to prove to the police.
NARRATOR: 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. CANDY: If looks could kill, I would've 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 bitch.
You are ruining our lives. And I just sat in my chair thinking, oh, my God. You're so stupid.
You know? [laughs] You are so stupid. And if you don't watch it, it's going to happen to your kids
too. NARRATOR: 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. NARRATOR: 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. JEAN RONEY: The vein was larger, or appeared much larger
than I would have expected. And I thought that was a little unusual. NARRATOR: She tries another tube, but still has trouble.
JEAN RONEY: Sometimes the vacuum is poor, and then it would not pull the blood out of the individual's arm.
NARRATOR: Eventually, she was able to extract a sample. Afterwards, the nurse was puzzled.
And the lab determined that the sample was too degraded for DNA testing. Police broke the news to Candy.
CANDY: And I'm like, oh, my God. Whatever. Like, that's bull [bleep]. This is our last chance to get blood from him.
And you guys screwed up again. NARRATOR: 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. Here'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 believed in the science of DNA.
They had to follow the rules of the Canadian justice system. I call it the Canadian criminal system, [laughs]
because that's basically what it is. It's the criminals that have all the rights.
NARRATOR: On April 25, 1997, 5 years after the alleged rape, police got a break.
Startling new information was discovered inside the doctor's own home. Schneeberger's stepdaughter, 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. His wife discovered a box full of condoms, needles, and drugs,
including Versed, in the doctor's home office. I blame myself. I still blame myself.
CANDY: I screamed. I bawled. 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 to anybody else.
NARRATOR: Dr. John Schneeberger was arrested and ordered to undergo yet another DNA test.
Again, the procedure was videotaped. I also advised you that we have a warrant to obtain bodily
substances for the purpose of-- NARRATOR: 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. CANDY: 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 socked him one in the nose
to get that blood-- no problem. It was quite a happy day, because we knew we knew we
had him, that Candy was right. And everybody else who didn't believe her was wrong.
NARRATOR: 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.
NARRATOR: 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 this 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.
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, 5 years after the rape accusation, the blood
in the tube was old and dark, which explains why the technician was suspicious. Doctor 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 patient's blood for the DNA test, because he had no other way to defend himself.
DANIELLE DASCHUK: 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 had to grasp at 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 who was boss. When 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 and most involved,
and involving all the forensic evidence here, of any case that I had. NARRATOR: 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 6 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.
NARRATOR: While taping this interview, Candy received a telephone call in which she learned Dr. Schneeberger had been denied parole.
I won again! [laughs] That's so exciting! He lost. He lost both of his chances to get out
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,
and everybody was going to fall for his lies and bull [bleep] 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 lead us off the path.
So 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 playing]

In a search for the killer of two teenagers in Texas, a behavioral profile led to suspect Jason Massey - and hard science proved the profile was correct. Massey was executed by lethal injection on April 3, 2001.

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's fight for justice against Dr. Schneeberger reveals a complex case of alleged rape and DNA evidence in a small town.

Key points

The Allegation. A woman claims she was raped by her doctor, leading to a complex investigation.
DNA Test Results. DNA tests prove the doctor innocent, but the victim insists the tests were wrong.
Final Conviction. Dr. Schneeberger is found guilty of sexual assault and sentenced to prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

That's impossible! How can this be?

Candy's reaction to the DNA test results.

7:16WatchNov 24, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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