Bre McAdam
Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Before Marty Glenn Schira was accused of secretly tracking at least nine people in Saskatoon by hiding GPS devices on their vehicles, he spent 13 years in prison for abducting and raping a Saskatchewan woman at gunpoint.
An Alberta provincial court sentencing decision from 2004 outlines how Schira used a sawed-off rifle to force a 21-year-old woman into his truck while she was out for a walk in Rosetown in 2003.
He tied her up and drove her to his Calgary apartment, stopping to rape her along the way. He continued to assault her at his apartment until she was able to escape.
According to news articles citing his parole board decisions, Schira was denied statutory release — a mandated release date for most offenders who have served two-thirds of their sentence — in 2012. The board upheld that decision again in 2013 after Schira assaulted a correctional officer at Bowden Institution, the Alberta prison where he was being held.
In both decisions, the board ruled that Schira was “too dangerous to release.”
In January, Schira, 46, was arrested in connection with an ongoing criminal harassment investigation involving GPS trackers after a man discovered two devices secretly attached to his truck in September 2024.
The investigation led police to search Schira’s Pleasant Hill neighbourhood apartment in the 2000 block of 20th Street West, where six more tracking devices were found.
“However, based on information obtained during the course of the investigation, police believe there are additional trackers outstanding, and are asking the public to contact police if they locate one on their vehicle,” the news release stated.
Police said the devices are usually wrapped in black tape and attached to bumpers. They urged anyone who finds one to leave it intact until a report is filed.
Schira didn’t appear by video when his case was briefly spoken to on Wednesday in Saskatoon provincial court. He will remain in custody until his next scheduled appearance on March 12.
He now faces a total of 36 charges: nine counts each of criminal harassment and intimidation by persistently following, and six counts each of mischief by interfering with property, fraudulently using a computer system with the intent to commit mischief, and fraudulent concealment.
According to the most recent court information, the allegations involve nine different victims, and the offences stem from between October 2020 and this January.
In one case, Schira is accused of “using electronic means” to follow two people for five years.
During his 2004 sentencing, court heard he was having paranoid delusions about being stalked by a private investigator who was breaking into his apartment, but Schira never explained how it related to abducting and raping a stranger.
Since he’s no longer under the Correctional Service of Canada’s jurisdiction, a spokesperson would not confirm when Schira was released from prison.
He initially received a 14-year sentence after pleading guilty to using a firearm to confine and kidnap, and sexual assault with a weapon. The judge required him to serve at least half of his sentence before he could apply for parole.
The sentence was appealed and reduced by a year to account for pre-sentence custody. It would have approximately ended in 2017.
