A B.C. man has been sentenced to four years in prison for killing his girlfriend more than five years ago – a crime he confessed to undercover police officers during a so-called "Mr. Big" operation.
Shaun Wiebe pleaded guilty to manslaughter in May of 2023 and his sentence was handed down in Supreme Court in Vernon earlier this month, according to a decision posted online Tuesday.
The victim, Heather Barker, died on March 16 of 2018 after being taken off of life support at a local hospital because she would not have been able to survive the injuries Wiebe inflicted on her, the court heard.
"No sentence imposed upon Mr. Wiebe will undo the harm caused by his actions … nor bring back his victim, Heather Barker, to her family and friends, nor give them comfort. His violence against her that night was horrific and is inexcusable," Justice Alison J. Beames wrote in her sentencing decision.
THE CRIME
According to an agreed-upon statement of facts submitted to the court and summarized by the judge, Wiebe – who was in a "downward spiral" and abusing alcohol and steroids at the time – accused Barker of stealing from his business, a pharmacy at which she worked.
Barker's denials, according to the decision, did not persuade Wiebe, and a "physical struggle" ensued after he demanded to see inside of Barker's purse.
"He then grabbed her hair, threw her to the ground, jumped on her and repeatedly struck her head on the floor. He described to the undercover officers that he was enraged and seeing red. He told the undercover officers that she said to him to stop and she told him that he was going to kill her, and that is the last thing he remembers her saying. He did eventually stop," a summary of Wiebe's confession says.
Police and paramedics were dispatched to the home after a 911 call from Wiebe's sister. The court heard that Wiebe called his sister in Saskatchewan to report that Barker had stopped breathing.
"It was his sister’s husband who called 911 while Mr. Wiebe was on the line with his sister. A 911 operator broke into the call and provided direction to Mr. Wiebe to start CPR, which he did," the judge's decision says.
The court decision does not say if Wiebe was arrested or questioned in connection to Barker's killing.
THE UNDERCOVER OPERATION
In January of 2021 – nearly three years after Barker was killed – the Vernon RCMP announced that Wiebe had been charged following what they described as a "comprehensive and exhaustive investigation."
The sentencing decision sheds more light on what that meant.
After Barker's death, Wiebe sold his business and left Vernon for Saskatchewan, returning to live on the family farm where he was raised.
"That is where he was residing when the Mr. Big operation commenced in hopes of eliciting a confession from Mr. Wiebe. The Mr. Big operation culminated, after over 90 different scenarios, in Mr. Wiebe admitting his role in the death of Ms. Barker," Beames wrote.
This type of undercover operation, designed to target a suspect and elicit a confession, involves officers posing as members of a fake criminal organization. The officers convince the suspect that a confession to past wrongdoing is necessary in order to gain the trust of the organization's leader. The confession, once given, is used as evidence.
In the case against Wiebe, the confession obtained through the Mr. Big sting was described as "central" to the Crown's evidence. If Wiebe had proceeded to trial, the judge noted that the admissibility of the confession could have – and likely would have – been challenged. Further, Beames said there "certainly was a risk" it would have been thrown out.
THE SENTENCE
Wiebe's guilty plea was one of the main mitigating factors cited by the judge in the sentencing decision.
"It does give a certainty of outcome to a case that would otherwise have had a very uncertain outcome," Beames said.
Adding to the uncertainty, Beames said, was the fact that the deadline for the case to be tried in accordance with Wiebe's right to be tried in a reasonable time was fast approaching at the time of the plea. Continuing the proceedings "might have resulted in the charges against Mr. Wiebe being stayed such that there would never have been a trial," the decision notes.
The key aggravating factor cited in the decision was the relationship between Wiebe and Barker and the vulnerability of the victim.
"This offence was committed against his intimate domestic partner in a place that was her home, and on her bed, where she ought to have been able to feel, and to be, safe," the judge wrote.
"She was in a vulnerable condition, considerably smaller than Mr. Wiebe and highly intoxicated, and therefore even less able to defend herself from his attack than she otherwise would have been."
Barker's three daughters, her parents, her brother, her ex-husband, her former mother-in-law and two close friends all provided victim impact statements.
"All of them spoke lovingly of Ms. Barker and all spoke of the grief and the enormous loss they have suffered as a result of having had Ms. Barker taken from them by the incomprehensible acts of violence inflicted upon her," Beames said.
"Who would not feel great sympathy for the losses suffered by the family and friends of Heather Barker, and most particularly by her children and her parents? The courage exhibited by Ms. Barker’s daughters in writing and then reading in court their statements was moving."
The proposed four-year sentence was the recommendation of a joint submission by the Crown and Wiebe's defence and the judge found she had no legal reason to depart from it.
