Dr. Schneeberger: DNA Deception, Trial, and Deportation

Dr. John Schneeberger is a former Saskatchewan family physician who was convicted in 1999 of sexually assaulting two patients and his teenage stepdaughter, and of obstructing justice by surgically implanting a tube of another man’s blood in his arm to defeat DNA testing. The ruse fooled investigators three times over four years. He served four years of a six-year sentence, lost his Canadian citizenship, and was deported to South Africa in 2004.

A Trusted Doctor in a Small Town

Schneeberger was born in Zambia, raised and medically trained in South Africa, and emigrated to Canada with his family in 1987.¹ He settled in Kipling, a farming town of about 1,100 people in southeastern Saskatchewan, and became a family physician at the local hospital. Residents described him as kind and caring, and he helped raise funds for a public swimming pool. In 1991 he married a local woman, Lisa Dillman, who had a daughter from a prior relationship.²

The 1992 Assault and a Failed Investigation

On Halloween night 1992, a woman identified in court records under the pseudonym Candice Foley went to the Kipling hospital emergency room. Schneeberger administered Versed (midazolam), a powerful sedative that left her unable to move or call for help, and then raped her in the examining room. Foley reported the assault to the RCMP. Police drew a blood sample from Schneeberger, and DNA analysis showed no match to semen recovered from the victim.³

The town turned against Foley. As a single mother working at a gas station, she occupied the lowest rung of Kipling’s social hierarchy, and many residents assumed she was lying. Police tested Schneeberger’s blood again in 1993, and once more in 1996. Each time the result came back negative. By 1994, the investigation had effectively stalled.⁴

How He Fooled the Blood Tests

Schneeberger had implanted a 15-centimeter Penrose drain, a thin flexible surgical tube, into his own arm. He filled it with blood drawn from another male patient and used anticoagulants to keep the foreign blood from clotting.⁵ When lab technicians inserted a needle to draw blood, they hit the tube instead of his vein, withdrawing someone else’s blood entirely. The deception worked three separate times across four years.³

He later admitted the scheme in court. A judge said his willingness to go to such lengths showed he “has no respect for the justice system and would go to almost any lengths” to avoid accountability.⁶

How the Truth Came Out

Foley refused to give up. She hired a private investigator, Larry O’Brien, who broke into Schneeberger’s car and retrieved a used tube of ChapStick from the ashtray. A laboratory analyzed the trace DNA on the lip balm and found a perfect match to the semen from Foley’s rape kit.⁵⁷ Obtained through a break-in, the ChapStick evidence wasn’t admissible on its own, but it confirmed Foley had been telling the truth.

The case broke fully in April 1997. Schneeberger’s 15-year-old stepdaughter found a condom wrapper in her bed and told her mother that her stepfather had been assaulting her. “Mom, he’s done this to me before,” the girl said.² Dillman searched the house, found hidden drugs and medical supplies, evicted Schneeberger, and contacted the RCMP. This time officers obtained blood, saliva, and hair samples under controlled conditions. The hair and saliva matched the semen from Foley’s 1992 rape kit.⁵

Charges, Trial, and Sentence

Schneeberger was charged with aggravated sexual assault of his stepdaughter, sexual assault of Foley, administering a noxious substance, and obstruction of justice. He was also charged in connection with a second patient he had assaulted in 1994 and 1995.⁷³

Judge Ellen Gunn found him guilty of sexually assaulting the patients and his stepdaughter, and of obstructing justice for the blood-tube scheme. He was acquitted on the charges of using a sedative during the 1994 and 1995 assaults and found not guilty of endangering a life with improper use of drugs.³⁸⁶ The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan, which had suspended his license around 1997, revoked it.⁹⁷

The Fight Over Prison Visits

Schneeberger and Dillman had two biological daughters, aged five and six when he was imprisoned. Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Gene Maurice ordered Dillman to bring the girls to visit their father at Bowden Institution in Alberta once a month.² Dillman fought the order and was fined $2,000 for contempt after refusing to allow overnight visits before sentencing. A May 2001 prison visit was aborted after the children became upset, and protesters gathered outside the institution. MP Bob Mills introduced Bill C-231 in Parliament to prevent courts from ordering children to visit convicted sex offenders in prison.¹⁰ Schneeberger eventually relinquished his visitation rights voluntarily.¹¹

Parole, Loss of Citizenship, and Deportation

Schneeberger waived his first parole hearing in June 2001.¹² He appeared before a British Columbia parole panel in April 2003, which rejected his application, ruling that he remained a “high risk to reoffend.” Dillman testified that he “cannot be trusted.”⁸

The federal government moved to strip his citizenship, which he had obtained in 1993 while already under criminal investigation for the Foley assault. He had concealed the investigation on his application. In August 2003 the Federal Court granted summary judgment declaring that Schneeberger “obtained his Canadian citizenship by false representation or by knowingly concealing a material circumstance.” His appeal was quashed by the Federal Court of Appeal in November 2003, and the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed his application for leave to appeal in May 2004.¹³

After serving four years of the six-year sentence, Schneeberger was released on parole. An immigration board hearing in Regina declared him an “undesirable alien” and ordered his deportation.¹ He was deported to South Africa in 2004.¹⁴

What Happened After South Africa

On October 1, 2004, Schneeberger applied to the Health Professions Council of South Africa to be readmitted as a practicing doctor. He withdrew the application on October 17 before the council reached a decision.¹⁵ There is no public record of his subsequently registering to practice medicine in South Africa. His story was dramatized in the 2003 television movie I Accuse.⁷

1
Mail & Guardian. Disgraced SA Doctor Expelled From Canada
2
The Globe and Mail. The Endless Nightmare of Lisa Dillman
3
CBC News. Sask Doctor Sentenced for Rape
4
Forensic Files Now. What Happened to Dr. John Schneeberger
5
Forensic Tales. Case of Dr. John Schneeberger
6
CBC News. Doctor Denied Bail
7
Crime Magazine. Rapist MD
8
CBC News. Doctor Who Drugged, Molested Patients Denied Parole
9
CBC News. Schneeberger’s Licence to Be Reviewed in February
10
Parliament of Canada. Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, Meeting 3
11
CBC News. Jailed Father Gives Up Right to See Girls
12
CBC News. Schneeberger Takes a Pass on Parole Hearing
13
Supreme Court of Canada. Schneeberger v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Docket 30124
14
IOL. Schneeberger Deported to South Africa
15
IOL. Deported Doctor’s Return Met With Resentment