Shaun Ross Wiebe.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK/ Shaun Wiebe
May 01, 2023 - 11:20 AM
Vernon pharmacist Shaun Ross Wiebe has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in relation to the 2018 death of his 37-year-old partner.
At the Vernon courthouse today, May 1, Wiebe, who is not in custody, appeared by video from Saskatchewan and pleaded guilty to the charge.
No details were given in court as to what happened during the incident that left his 37-year-old partner, Heather Barker, unresponsive at his Vernon home in the Rise neighbourhood. The mother of three later died in hospital.
The incident took place in March 2018, and at the time neighbours told several media outlets they heard yelling and shouting coming from the house.
Almost three years later, in 2021, Wiebe was charged with manslaughter and assault causing bodily.
None of the details surrounding Barker's death were discussed in court and it's still now known what took place.
Wiebe ran the pharmacy at the Vernon Target store before it closed down and then he opened up Wiebe’s Pharmacy on 35 Street in April 2015. That business closed months after Barker's death.
In December 2019, he lost his pharmacist licence because, according to the B.C. College of Pharmacists, the 45-year-old suffered a substance addiction that rendered him unfit to practice.
"The (College of Pharmacists) was of the view that the registrant’s continued practice poses a risk to the public, and that this risk cannot be addressed at this time with conditions or limits. Therefore, nothing short of suspension at this time will adequately protect the public," the regulator said in 2019.
Wiebe graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in 2002 and then moved to Vernon.
Outside of a ticket for distracted driving and failing to remain on the scene of an accident in 2017, he doesn't appear to have a criminal record.
Wiebe is scheduled to be sentenced in earlier June.
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