A convicted wife killer, who boasted to police eight years ago he “enjoyed ever bit” of the brutal slaying, has died in Innisfail Health Centre.
Barry Bryan Schacker, 65, a farmer from Thorhild – 100 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, had been serving an indeterminate sentence in Bowden Institution for the second-degree murder of 55-year-old Catharine Schacker. The indeterminate sentence for Schacker, handed down after his guilty plea to Court of Queen's Bench Justice John Gill in March 2007, meant that his parole was to be reviewed every three years.
Rita Wehrle, assistant warden at Bowden Institution, said Schacker passed away Dec. 1 at the Innisfail hospital. She would not say what the cause of the killer's death was but added there will be a full RCMP and coroner's investigation into his passing.
“It will probably be a number of months before all the probes are completed,” said Wehrle, who said she could not comment on whether Schacker died of natural causes. “Whenever an inmate dies in the correctional services there are a lot of reviews that have to take place at different levels. It is not something that is going to happen overnight.
“It does take some time for all the i's to be dotted and the t's to be crossed on deaths in custody,” added Wehrle.
During Schacker's sentencing hearing eight years ago the court was told that during a videotaped police interview after the slaying, a laughing, foul-mouthed Schacker told an RCMP officer he was not sorry, “not a bit,” for killing his wife.
“I'm sorry I finished it off too soon. Yes, I'm very, very sorry,” said Schacker. The killer added he was angry because he had had “better things” planned for his late wife. Schacker went on to say he wanted to brand the family's “XO” cattle-branding marking on his wife's buttocks, one letter on each side.
Laughing over his plot to kill his wife, he told police he had hatched the plan three months before the slaying, adding he “enjoyed every bit” of the vicious crowbar attack. He added the attack “felt wonderful” but wished it went on “a lot longer.
“I loved it. I didn't think I was a killer, but I'm a killer,” Schacker told police.
Crown prosecutor Steven Koval told court Schacker killed his wife, a former nurse, after getting angry over her daughter and granddaughter staying at the couple's farm.
Police found Schacker later that day unconscious in his vehicle, which was parked in a field near Smoky Lake, with a pill container nearby and arrested him.
Catharine Schacker died in hospital the next day.
Schacker's lawyer Peter Royal told court his client “just snapped” and hadn't planned the attack despite telling police earlier he had concocted a plan for several months prior.
