Relatives testify to Blake Schreiner's mental decline before he killed Tammy Brown

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On Jan. 29, 2019, Schreiner stabbed Brown 80 times in the bedroom of their once-shared home on Kootenay Drive, in the city’s north end. He testified last week that he was convinced Brown was trying to kill him and frame him as a pedophile.

Schreiner, 39, is on trial in Court of Queen’s Bench, charged with first-degree murder.

Defence lawyer Brad Mitchell is arguing that Schreiner had a mental disorder when he killed his spouse, and should be found not criminally responsible — legally defined as being “incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act” or of knowing it was morally, not just legally, wrong.

“This entire case is about the Crown suggesting that this is a domestic problem while the defence’s case is no, there was no motive, this is a mental health situation,” Mitchell summarized in reaction to a Crown objection.

Schreiner’s sister, Melissa Schreiner, testified she noticed her brother was depressed before he left Saskatoon in December 2018, without telling anyone. She said they begged him to come home, and told him they would get him help.

Then there were the comments Schreiner made about his two-year-old son wanting to put him in a hole, or hang him with a rope, the women said.

Schreiner’s aunt testified about her nephew exposing his penis to her during a visit in December 2018. She said she asked him if he was drunk or high and he replied, “‘Auntie, I don’t know. There’s something wrong with my head.'”

Donna Schreiner said her son told her he thought Brown was having an affair and trying to poison him. After he killed Brown, he called her from jail and talked about seeing Brown and discussing what to do with their kids, she said.