The instigator of a home invasion that saw the culprits get more than they bargained for was sentenced Monday to a further two years and seven months in prison for her role in the escapade.
In total, Crystal Dawn Schielke, 23, was sentenced to three years and eight months but received credit for 13 months time served prior to sentencing during a hearing in Prince George provincial court.
In issuing the term, Judge Michael Gray agreed to a joint submission from Crown and defence counsels. He also told Schielke she should would have been sentenced to a significantly longer term if not for a handful of mitigating factors, including her decisions to immediately take responsibility for the crime and to plead guilty to four charges related to the incident, as well as the fact that she had no previous criminal record.
The court heard Schielke had been awake for 12 days binging primarily on methamphetamine when she and the friends she had been partying with hatched a plot to break into the 3600-block Blackburn Road home of a man she knew in search of cash to buy more drugs and the "moonshine" he had been making.
On the morning of Feb. 2, 2015, the man awoke to find someone wearing a black hoodie, sun glasses and a face mask, holding a pistol, which turned out to be an imitation, to his head. He recognized the assailant as Schielke by her voice from the time she had been seeing an old roommate of his.
She was followed by a masked man who bear sprayed him while the two demanded he tell them where he kept his money before he was bear sprayed a second time. They found $400 to $500 in cash and also made off with a hunting rifle.
One of the culprits tried to tie him up but became frustrated and hit him over the head with a wireless keyboard before taking off. That turned out to be not enough as the resident followed them out armed with a hatchet. He found a sedan stuck in the snow outside his home and broke the driver's side window. Using the hatchet's butt end, he broke the arm of a man who was behind the wheel. He then used the butt end to break the jaw of Schielke, who was sitting in the back.
A neighbour, meanwhile, had called the RCMP. Schielke and the vehicle's other occupant were arrested at the scene but at least three others had escaped in the victim's pickup truck after finding its keys in the house. One was apprehended five days later and found with the rifle, which had subsequently been sawed off while the others were also later located.
Shortly after she was handcuffed and while still at the scene, Schielke told police it was all her idea and she had put everyone up to it. She later said the same thing when she gave a statement to RCMP.
As for the man behind the wheel, he told police he had also been on a binge and had passed out in the car. He woke up to see the culprits run out of the house and yelling at him to drive and, in a panic, got the vehicle stuck.
In December 2015, Michael Campbell-Alexander was sentenced to a further eight months and three weeks in jail and Elliott Ryan Joseph to another 3 1/2 months, both sentences followed by two years probation, for their roles in the scheme.
The third person in the pickup truck was a minor who had been previously sentenced and whose identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban as is the identity of the man found in the car with Schielke.
Schielke pleaded guilty to one count each of robbery, break and enter and committing an indictable offence, using an imitation firearm in committing an indictable offence, and disguising her face with an intent to commit an offence.
Prior to sentencing, she apologized to the court, saying she is "very sorry for what happened."
Gray told Schielke that the courts take the crime of home invasion very seriously because it involves trespassing on somebody's home and "going beyond," because it involves committing a robbery and violence inside a house, "which is our refuge, our sanctuary."
The term's length means Schielke will be serving her time in a federal prison where she can access programs for rehabilitation considered better than those offered in the provincial system, the court was told.
