When police arrived, Darcie Clarke was on the front porch of her Merritt home, screaming, crying and clutching a telephone, still on the line with a 911 operator.

Clarke called the emergency-response number because her children were dead.

It was April 6, 2008, the day Kaitlynne, 10, Max, 8, and Cordon, 5 were brutally murdered, allegedly by their father, Allan Schoenborn.

In B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops on Thursday, Justice Robert Powers heard the testimony of Merritt RCMP Const. Lurene Dillon, one of four officers who arrived at the trailer on Telemon Place in the Diamond Vale neighbourhood in Merritt.

"I saw a lady standing in the doorway on the porch of the home, with a phone in her hand," Dillon said. "This lady was screaming."

Dillon told the court she and fellow officer Jeff Dillon, who is her husband, tried to coax the visibly distraught mother from the porch, but Clarke repeatedly went in and out of the trailer, where her slain children lay inside.

It is believed Clarke had been away for the evening, leaving the children in the care of Schoenborn, who had arrived in Merritt one week prior to the murders.

When Clarke returned around 2:30 p.m. that day, she found her children's bodies, but their father was not in the home.

When the officers finally talked Clarke down the steps to the gate, Dillon said Clarke looked "scared and emotional" and stared at them with a "blank look on her face."

After some difficulty, Dillon said Clarke managed to open the front gate and her partner had to grab Clarke to keep her from falling to the ground.

"Her face was so white, I thought she was going to faint," Dillon said.

After getting Clarke into the back of the police car, Dillon stayed with her until her shift ended at 9 p.m.

It was during this time that Clarke claimed Schoenborn was responsible for the murders and gave the officer a physical description of him.

The following day, Dillon visited Clarke in hospital and said she was still deeply upset, barely able to calm herself.

Clarke did manage a few tempered moments, but would immediately start crying and screaming, "My babies, my babies!" Dillon said.

Clarke moved to the small town in the Nicola Valley six months before the killings.

Despite a restraining order stemming from a report of domestic violence restricting Schoenborn from contact with his wife, it is believed Schoenborn — a roofer from the Lower Mainland with a history of mental illness — had been staying with the family in Merritt for a week prior to the murders.

The public has only heard from Clarke in a letter to the editor of the Merritt Herald, and reprinted in Kamloops This Week, thanking the community for its support.

Clarke is expected to take the stand on Tuesday to testify in the trial.

Her husband has pleaded not guilty to killing their three children.