Saskatoon man who brutally murdered spouse loses appeal bid

A Saskatoon man who brutally stabbed his spouse 80 times has lost a bid to have his 2021 murder conviction overturned.

Blake Schreiner killed Tammy Brown, 39, at the couple's River Heights home on Jan. 29, 2019.

Schreiner, who was 37 at the time, was given a life sentence for second-degree murder with no chance of parole for 17 years.

While he admitted his crime to a both a 911 operator and police, his trial defence tried to establish that Schreiner suffered from schizotypal personality disorder, falling prey to conspiratorial imaginings after his sustained use of psilocybin.

In his appeal, Schreiner's lawyers argued that he did not receive a fair trial and that the presiding justice misapplied evidence his defence team submitted in an attempt to prove Schreiner was not criminally responsible (NCR) for the killing.

The appeal claims the trial judge inappropriately used the evidence to establish Schreiner's culpability in Brown's murder — particularly that the tragedy stemmed from a brewing custody dispute.

In the decision, Saskatchewan Court of Appeal justice Neal Caldwell said while some of Schreiner's statements during a psychiatric assessment may have been considered "protected" under Canada's criminal code, Schreiner triggered an exception to that rule by submitting them as evidence.

The appeal court also found no error in the trial judge's decision to give more weight to the evidence submitted by a Saskatchewan Hospital psychiatrist rather than Dr. Mansfield Mela, a psychiatrist retained by Schreiner.

"The trial judge was entitled to outright reject or give little weight to Dr. Mela’s diagnosis or, even if he had accepted it, to find that Mr. Schreiner was not, as a matter of law, suffering from a mental disorder, or not suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the homicide, as a matter of mixed fact and law," Caldwell wrote.

The appeal court also dismissed Schreiner's claim that 17 years of parole ineligibility was too severe.

During a recorded interview with a police investigator entered as evidence during his trial, Schreiner said Brown's last words were addressed to her children. "Mommy loves you," she said.

According to Schreiner's court testimony, he also contemplated killing his one-year-old daughter the night of Brown's murder but decided not to.

In his confession to police, Schreiner described how he made the couple's two children breakfast following Brown's killing. He eventually called 911 to report the crime himself later that morning.

At one point after Brown was killed, court heard how Schreiner's three-year-old son stepped in his mother's blood.

--With files from Laura Woodward