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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: It feels like foreshadowing from a movie. To have the

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Speaker 2: last conversation ever between two sisters be a true farewell

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Speaker 2: is heartbreaking.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and and it's a deep dive into the unpublished

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Speaker 1: details behind their stories. In the summer of nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 1: a family of nine was murdered in their home by

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Speaker 1: a stranger in rural Canada. It was one of the

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Speaker 1: worst random mass shootings in the country's history. There's a

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Speaker 1: podcast that covers the whole story, called the Shell Lake Massacre.

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Speaker 1: The host, Britney Cafe, grew up not far from Shell

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Speaker 1: Lake and she has a very personal connection to the story.

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Speaker 1: She's close to one of the survivors. Before we get

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Speaker 1: into the story, let's just talk about how you found it.

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Speaker 1: How you discovered it to begin with.

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Speaker 2: So, I grew up in a small town in Saskatchewan

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Speaker 2: called Leoville, tiny little community that is surrounded by other

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Speaker 2: tiny little communities. And as I was growing up, there

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Speaker 2: was almost this ghost story that we would hear about

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Speaker 2: the Shell Lake massacre, which was an entire family that

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Speaker 2: was murdered in their own home. It's really like the

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Speaker 2: perfect fodder for a ghost story in a small rural community.

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Speaker 2: And as I grew up, I was always kind of

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Speaker 2: curious about this story. And then I got married to

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Speaker 2: my husband, whose great aunt happens to be Kathy Hill,

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Speaker 2: who is the sole surviving member of the Peterson family

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Speaker 2: who were the victims of the Shelley Massacre.

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Speaker 1: How do you approach somebody in your husband's family about

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Speaker 1: not only just talking about this story, but talking about

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Speaker 1: it on a podcast, Because from what I read, she

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Speaker 1: had said, I am done. I don't want to talk

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Speaker 1: to anybody else. It was like two thousand and two

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Speaker 1: or something where she just said, that's it, I'm done

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Speaker 1: talking about it. It is like an albatross around my neck.

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Speaker 1: Everybody knows me based on this story, and I am

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Speaker 1: so much more than just the terrible thing that happened

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Speaker 1: to my family. And then you come in.

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Speaker 2: It was an interesting phone call. I'll say that I

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Speaker 2: had just turned to work. I work at a radio

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Speaker 2: station in Saskatoon. I had just returned to work from

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Speaker 2: maternity leave, and I had this idea that I wanted

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Speaker 2: to tell the story of the Peterson family, not necessarily

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Speaker 2: the story of the Shell Lake massacre, but the story

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Speaker 2: of the family because through all of the books that

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Speaker 2: I've read about this, the things that I've seen online,

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Speaker 2: it tends to focus more on the way that they died,

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Speaker 2: which was brutal and horrific, and there wasn't a lot

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Speaker 2: of information about the type of people that they were

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Speaker 2: and the kind of life that they lived. So my

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Speaker 2: goal was to connect with people who actually knew the

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Speaker 2: Peterson family and could speak to the quality of their

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Speaker 2: character as well as shed some light on what exactly

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Speaker 2: happened to this family.

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Speaker 1: And this is I think something that I talked to

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Speaker 1: all of my college students about, which is putting the

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Speaker 1: victims first, which often we don't hear in true crime,

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Speaker 1: and you know, certainly trying to illuminate their lives so

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Speaker 1: that they are not relegated to being just victims or

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Speaker 1: just survivors. And that was Kathy's big complaint, is that

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Speaker 1: she was labeled as part of this family that was

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Speaker 1: almost that infamous at that point in that time, and

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Speaker 1: it was something that was weighing her down. Is the

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Speaker 1: sense that I got.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think often in true crime coverage, whether

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Speaker 2: it's podcasts or the media in general, the dignity of

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Speaker 2: the victims is something that's often forgotten. We want to

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Speaker 2: make it as salacious and as clickable as possible. And

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Speaker 2: to me, especially with these people because they're so closely

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Speaker 2: tied to people who I hold very close to my heart,

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Speaker 2: the dignity of the victims was at the forefront of

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Speaker 2: every decision I made. As I put this piece together,

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Speaker 2: I would kind of weigh like, is this fact going

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Speaker 2: to keep Jim peterson dignity intact? If not, it most

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Speaker 2: likely doesn't need to be out there. There are certain

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Speaker 2: things like the crime scene photos and stuff like that

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Speaker 2: that I've been able to gain access to through accessing

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Speaker 2: court records and case files from the police here in

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Speaker 2: Canada that what good would putting them out there do.

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Speaker 2: It's not going to add anything productive to the narrative.

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Speaker 2: It's just going to cause people pain. So I don't

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Speaker 2: see any value in adding that.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting to have that kind of a debate about

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Speaker 1: what to include. I have that with my books sometimes,

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Speaker 1: particularly with diaries. In one of my books in American Sherlock,

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Speaker 1: I had a case about a woman who may or

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Speaker 1: may not have been murdered by her husband in the bathtub,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to clearly illustrate that, at least in

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Speaker 1: this part of their lives, she was not documenting in

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Speaker 1: her diary that this was a terrible man, that they

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Speaker 1: were having any kind of marital troubles. And so I

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Speaker 1: was pulling excerpts that were actually really sweet, like they

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Speaker 1: were holding their kids hand together, and all of this

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Speaker 1: stuff that did not feel like it was exploitative. And

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Speaker 1: then I always have to double check and just think, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I just want to make sure this woman is not

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Speaker 1: someone who wanted her diary published in sixty thousand copies

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Speaker 1: of books. But at the same time, does it prove

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Speaker 1: something that's relevant to the story. And I think a

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Speaker 1: lot of people don't do that, and it sounds like

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Speaker 1: you did as a creator, you weighed all of that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, even coming from such a small community, I

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Speaker 2: knew as soon as people found out that I planned

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Speaker 2: on doing a podcast about this story, people would start

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Speaker 2: to talk. As soon as we made the announcement that

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Speaker 2: the podcast was coming on social media. There were a

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Speaker 2: lot of people in the community who were concerned about

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Speaker 2: the intentions behind this and whether it would just dredge

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Speaker 2: up really old, painful memories for everyone. So I made

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Speaker 2: a conscious effort to really be sensitive to people's and interestingly,

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Speaker 2: as I talked to the different people I was able

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Speaker 2: to speak with, be it Kathy or a reporter who

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Speaker 2: was one of the first people on the scene, the

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Speaker 2: neighbors who lived right next door and were some of

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Speaker 2: the first people to view the crime scene. It turned

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Speaker 2: into almost this healing journey for everyone along the way

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Speaker 2: to be able to tell their stories in the way

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Speaker 2: that they wanted them to be told, and now to

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Speaker 2: have it kind of immortalized their version of their own story,

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Speaker 2: to have their actual voices on it has been such

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Speaker 2: a powerful thing. One of the women that I spoke

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Speaker 2: with is ninety four year old Marjorie Seminar, who was

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Speaker 2: a next door neighbor to the Petersons and a good

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Speaker 2: friend of one of the victims. And I've had a

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Speaker 2: handful of her family members reach out since and just

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Speaker 2: comment on what a gift it is to have Marjorie's

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Speaker 2: own story, in her own words out there. So that's

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Speaker 2: been a pretty remarkable part of this for me.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes that would be my when people criticize true

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Speaker 1: crime as purely entertainment and you're exploiting, you know, people's

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Speaker 1: deaths and murders and there's nothing but sort of salacious

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Speaker 1: entertainment to offer, and I just say, that is not true,

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Speaker 1: and you're obviously not listening to the right true crime

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Speaker 1: or reading it or consuming it. That is not true.

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Speaker 1: And I think that this podcast is an illustration of that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we do get to talk about mental illness,

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Speaker 1: which is really valuable. You get to talk about an

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Speaker 1: area of the world I'm very unfamiliar with, and really

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Speaker 1: I think that what I had read about also is

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Speaker 1: just the way that these murders resonated not just through

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Speaker 1: this family to Kathy Hill, but also throughout the community

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Speaker 1: and the impact for people to be upset or cautious

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Speaker 1: maybe is a better word for a podcast that is

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Speaker 1: occurring almost sixty years after it happened. You would think

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Speaker 1: that this would have been not something that anyone blinked about,

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Speaker 1: but it just shows the impact on the community.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the story of the Shelleake Massacre is one that

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Speaker 2: has echoed through the prairies of Saskatchewan for nearly a century.

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Speaker 2: It's been almost sixty years. People have not forgotten, but

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Speaker 2: in my opinion, we weren't remembering the right parts of

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Speaker 2: this story. You know, Jim and Evelyn Peterson and their

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Speaker 2: children were people. They were regular farmers who had a

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Speaker 2: good life. They had no enemies in the community. They

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Speaker 2: were loved by their daughter, who still to this day

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Speaker 2: has such fond memories of them. And to be able

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Speaker 2: to give her a platform to share those memories and

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Speaker 2: something that her grandchildren and great grandchildren can go back

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Speaker 2: and listen to someday felt like such a gift for

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Speaker 2: me to be able to be a part of that.

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Speaker 1: Well, we've had an awful lot of build up here

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Speaker 1: about this story, so maybe we actually should get to

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Speaker 1: the story. This is more built than I usually have

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Speaker 1: on this show. We should get to the story. So

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Speaker 1: This is nineteen sixty seven and in an area I

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Speaker 1: have never ever been to. I adore Canada. This is

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Speaker 1: not an area I've been to, though, So tell me

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Speaker 1: a little bit what it was like. And in the

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Speaker 1: sixties no less.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're a bit further north in Saskatchewan than

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Speaker 2: I am right now in Saskatoon. Very very rural area,

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Speaker 2: tons of farms right now. The current population of Shell

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Speaker 2: Lake is about one hundred and eighty nine people, so

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Speaker 2: very small community. It would have been a little bit

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Speaker 2: bigger back in the sixties, but not by a ton.

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Speaker 2: So we go back and we get to know a

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Speaker 2: little bit about the Peterson family. Jim Peterson was a veteran.

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Speaker 2: He served in the Second World War and when he

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Speaker 2: returned from the war, he married Evelyn. They got married

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Speaker 2: in nineteen forty six and just a couple of years

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Speaker 2: later they started their family. They ended up having ten

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Speaker 2: children together, which very busy household of Kathy Hill was

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Speaker 2: their oldest child. She was followed by Jean, a sister

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Speaker 2: named Anne who unfortunately died in infancy, Mary, Dorothy, Pearl, William, Phillis,

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Speaker 2: Colin and Larry. Quite a big family.

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Speaker 1: Wow, And what is the age range when all of

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Speaker 1: this terrible stuff happens in nineteen sixty seven, what are

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Speaker 1: the ranges of the kids. Kathy's gone, right, she's married.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Kathy in nineteen sixty seven was nineteen

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Speaker 2: years old and baby Larry was only one, so there

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Speaker 2: was quite a vast range in the ages of their children.

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Speaker 2: But they lived a good life. They were a happy family.

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Speaker 2: They didn't have a ton of money, but Jim was

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Speaker 2: a very hard worker, a reliable guy. If you needed something,

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Speaker 2: he would be there for you to help you. He

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Speaker 2: loved his kids. Evelyn was very mild mannered, very quiet.

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Speaker 2: Kathy talks about how her mom was just kind of

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Speaker 2: in the background of their family, but that's the way

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Speaker 2: that Evelyn liked things. She would take quiet time in

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Speaker 2: the morning to go milk the cows. Just a simple,

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Speaker 2: happy life for the Petersons. They moved into a small

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Speaker 2: white farmhouse right near the highway in the early sixties,

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Speaker 2: so just a few years before the incident took place.

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Speaker 2: Prior to that, they had lived in a bigger house,

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Speaker 2: but it wasn't very warm in the winter, and in

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Speaker 2: Saskatchewan it gets very cold here in the winter. They

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Speaker 2: moved in the early sixties to this small white farmhouse

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Speaker 2: by the highway that Jim had actually lived in as

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Speaker 2: a child, and it was tiny. There were only two

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Speaker 2: bedrooms in this house, no indoor bathroom, So a family

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Speaker 2: of eleven living in a two bedroom house was pretty

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Speaker 2: twite squeeze.

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Speaker 1: And Evelyn was a homemaker. She obviously had only enough

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Speaker 1: time to take care of the kids. It sounds like

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Speaker 1: that's a handful. Yeah, that's right. So Evelyn was a homemaker.

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Speaker 1: She stayed home, took care of the house, took care

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Speaker 1: of the kids. And Jim was a farmer, so he'd

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Speaker 1: be out working in the fields. They also had quite

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Speaker 1: a few animals. They had horses, cows, they had a

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Speaker 1: dog named Skippy. They just lived a good Saskatchewan farm life.

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Speaker 1: That's the best way I can really sum it up.

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Speaker 1: No crime. I can't even imagine a stolen cow every

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Speaker 1: once in a while from a stranger. I mean, what

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Speaker 1: happens with a town of less than two hundred people

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Speaker 1: in the sixties.

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Speaker 2: Not a lot. There was not a lot of crime

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Speaker 2: going on at the time. There was no RCMP detachment,

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Speaker 2: which that's our police in Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,

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Speaker 2: so There was no police detachment in Shell Lake. The

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Speaker 2: nearest one would have been in spirit Wood, and they

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Speaker 2: usually only had one person on duty at a time.

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Speaker 2: It was a very small detachment. So that was Saskatchewan

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Speaker 2: in the sixties. As we head later into nineteen sixty,

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Speaker 2: we head to nineteen sixty seven, Kathy Hill got married.

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Speaker 2: She married Lee Hill, who is my husband's great uncle.

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Speaker 2: That's where my connection with Kathy comes in. Her sister Jean,

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Speaker 2: was a bridesmaid at her wedding. Her mom helped her

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Speaker 2: do her hair and get ready. Her dad wore his

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Speaker 2: nicest suit. She tell the just a beautiful story about

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Speaker 2: her wedding and her memories from that day. Two days later,

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Speaker 2: her husband, Lee and her packed up their vehicle and

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Speaker 2: got ready to head off to Chetwyn, British Columbia, which

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Speaker 2: was about sixteen hour drive long haul. Kathy was moving

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Speaker 2: away from home. Her husband had gotten a job and

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Speaker 2: she was ready to leave. As they were packing up

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Speaker 2: the vehicle and saying goodbye to her family, Kathy vividly

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Speaker 2: recalls her sister Jean, who was seventeen at the time,

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Speaker 2: saying goodbye to her, and Jean was crying and saying

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Speaker 2: to Kathy that she thought she'd never see her again,

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Speaker 2: and Kathy kind of reassured her, like, we'll see each

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Speaker 2: other again. It's fine, Jeane. And that was the last

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Speaker 2: time that the two sisters spoke.

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Speaker 1: When you talked to Kathy about that, So Kathy the

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Speaker 1: lone survivor of this, she's just simply out of the

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Speaker 1: house at this point when you talk to Kathy about

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Speaker 1: all of this, is that the moment that she remembers

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Speaker 1: as the most before she finds out what happens, is

264
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Speaker 1: the moment that is sort of the most heartbreaking or

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Speaker 1: was there a conversation with her mom or an image that.

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Speaker 2: Moment with Jeane definitely seems like it stands out to Kathy.

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Speaker 2: A lot of things from that time are really a

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Speaker 2: blur for her. It's hard to remember. It's almost like

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Speaker 2: she's just pushed so much of this so far out

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Speaker 2: of her mind. But that last conversation with Jeane, and

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Speaker 2: almost looking back, it feels like foreshadowing from a movie,

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Speaker 2: Like you couldn't write a line like that. To have

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Speaker 2: the last conversation ever between two sisters be a true

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Speaker 2: farewell is heartbreaking.

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Speaker 1: Now, remind me, what is the space between when Kathy

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Speaker 1: and Lee leave the farmhouse to when this happens.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Kathy left on July ninth, nineteen sixty seven, and

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Speaker 2: August fifteenth, nineteen sixty seven is when the murders took place.

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Speaker 2: So a little over a month after she left home

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Speaker 2: and started her new life as a newlywed, this took place.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about what happens on August fifteenth. And

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Speaker 1: I guess just set the scene for me. Is it nighttime?

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Speaker 1: When I say August? Is that warm? And my definition

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Speaker 1: of warm is different than yours, I'm pretty sure? So

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Speaker 1: what is the night like when this happens.

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00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:55,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fairly warm in Saskatchewan at that time of year,

287
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Speaker 2: at little bit of mist in the air perhaps, but

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Speaker 2: in general, a pretty It would have been a pretty

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00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:05,760
Speaker 2: nice night. I'll actually take you to. Later on in

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Speaker 2: the morning of August fifteenth, a neighbor named wil Drew

291
00:17:10,440 --> 00:17:14,399
Speaker 2: Lang was set to come over that day to spend

292
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Speaker 2: some time with Jim and help him get some work done.

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Speaker 2: Jim and Wildrew had actually set up together. They had

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Speaker 2: planned to empty out some feed bins because Jim wanted

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Speaker 2: to sell some grain to send his daughter Jean to

296
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Speaker 2: track and field camp in Dunder and he needed to

297
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Speaker 2: earn some extra money. So at about eight in the

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00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:36,919
Speaker 2: morning on August fifteenth, nineteen sixty seven, Wildrew came to

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Speaker 2: the Peterson farm and he noticed that Jim and the

300
00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:45,080
Speaker 2: family wasn't awake yet. Nobody was awake. The farmyard and

301
00:17:45,119 --> 00:17:48,120
Speaker 2: the house were quiet, and Wildrew assumed that they must

302
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Speaker 2: have just slept in. So he decided to do his

303
00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:53,960
Speaker 2: friend of favor and he started emptying the grain bins

304
00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:58,520
Speaker 2: by himself. About an hour passed and Wildrew started to

305
00:17:58,560 --> 00:18:02,879
Speaker 2: get very suspicious. The house was still completely silent, which

306
00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:07,000
Speaker 2: for a family with that many children and that young

307
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Speaker 2: of children, they're not going to be that quiet that

308
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Speaker 2: late into the morning. So will Drew set down the

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Speaker 2: shovel and started to approach the home. He noticed that

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Speaker 2: the front door was slightly a jar. As he walked up,

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00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:23,919
Speaker 2: he called out for Jim a handful of times, and

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00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:26,960
Speaker 2: there was no response. So he made his way up

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Speaker 2: the front steps of the home and pushed the door

314
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Speaker 2: just slightly more a jar, just enough for him to

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Speaker 2: step in. And as he stepped in, he noticed the

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Speaker 2: body of Jim Peterson laying face down on his stomach,

317
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Speaker 2: on the floor of the entryway to the home. He

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Speaker 2: was covered in blood. There was a pool of blood

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Speaker 2: beneath him, and there was like a smeared trail of

320
00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:56,240
Speaker 2: blood on the linoleum in the kitchen. So will Drew

321
00:18:56,480 --> 00:19:00,240
Speaker 2: immediately noticed that Jim wasn't moving. He was sure that

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Speaker 2: his friend was dead, and he backed out of the

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00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:07,920
Speaker 2: home and jumped into Jim's station wagon and drove into

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Speaker 2: Shell Lake to call the RCMP because there were no

325
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,479
Speaker 2: phones in the homes at the time, so he needed

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Speaker 2: to leave and get the police to come.

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Speaker 1: And he had no inclination right then whether he had

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Speaker 1: been shot or stabbed or anything. He just saw blood

329
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Speaker 1: and very smartly left, which is what the police would

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Speaker 1: have told him to do. Anyway. What is the time

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Speaker 1: span between when the RCMP shows up and when Wildrew

332
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Speaker 1: had made that discovery.

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Speaker 2: It was a pretty quick turnover. Will Drew sped back

334
00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:41,360
Speaker 2: to Shell Lake called the RCMP in Spiritwood. It's only

335
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:44,320
Speaker 2: about a fifteen to twenty minute drive between Spiritwood and

336
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Speaker 2: Shell Lake, so the RCMP made their way there fairly quickly.

337
00:19:47,840 --> 00:19:50,040
Speaker 2: As soon as Wildrew made the call to the RCMP

338
00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:53,080
Speaker 2: and Shell Lake, he headed back to the Peterson home

339
00:19:53,280 --> 00:19:55,520
Speaker 2: just so he could kind of keep watch over the house.

340
00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:59,080
Speaker 2: And as he was driving back, he noticed a friend

341
00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:02,200
Speaker 2: and neighbor of the peters Since, mister Alvin Seminar out

342
00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:05,359
Speaker 2: in his yard. They lived right down the highway from

343
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:07,640
Speaker 2: the Petersons. They were the next house. They were very

344
00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:11,760
Speaker 2: close with the family. So wil Drew waved down Alvin

345
00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:16,280
Speaker 2: and told him, like, there's something going on. I'm sure

346
00:20:16,320 --> 00:20:18,960
Speaker 2: that Jim is laying dead in his entry way. I

347
00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:21,639
Speaker 2: need you to come with me and help me because

348
00:20:21,680 --> 00:20:24,600
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do. I was lucky enough

349
00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:28,480
Speaker 2: to speak with Alvin's wife, missus Marjorie's Seminar, and I

350
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:31,280
Speaker 2: also spoke with his daughter Gail and his son Dennis,

351
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Speaker 2: and all of them, all these years later, have such

352
00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:39,080
Speaker 2: vivid memories of that entire day. Dennis was only ten

353
00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:42,040
Speaker 2: years old at the time, and he was out with

354
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Speaker 2: his dad when Wildrew stopped and waved them down, and

355
00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:49,560
Speaker 2: he can remember his dad telling him to run and

356
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:52,960
Speaker 2: put Jim's horses in because the horses were out in

357
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Speaker 2: the field. There were a bunch of things that were

358
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:58,360
Speaker 2: just a miss that day that the Seminars had noticed

359
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:02,159
Speaker 2: from the moment they woke up, really, so Dennis remembers

360
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:05,920
Speaker 2: running to put the horses back in and mister Siminar

361
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:09,800
Speaker 2: headed with Will Drew to the Peterson home to meet

362
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Speaker 2: the police as they arrived.

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00:21:12,040 --> 00:21:15,200
Speaker 1: But as we know of right now, it's just Jim

364
00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:17,680
Speaker 1: Peterson who's dead, and he's sort of in the entryway.

365
00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:19,840
Speaker 1: But this is not a big house, and nobody else

366
00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:22,720
Speaker 1: is making a sound. So I'm assuming that these two

367
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:25,880
Speaker 1: men are incredibly nervous about what they're about to get

368
00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:29,080
Speaker 1: into because they realize that there are what nine more people?

369
00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:30,720
Speaker 1: Is that how many more people are going to be

370
00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:31,280
Speaker 1: in the house?

371
00:21:31,359 --> 00:21:35,119
Speaker 2: Ultimately, Yeah, so there are nine other people in the house.

372
00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:38,720
Speaker 2: Evelyn and the children are still, as far as they know,

373
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Speaker 2: in the house. Nobody has stepped foot further than the

374
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:43,840
Speaker 2: entryway into the house. So all we know at this

375
00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:48,160
Speaker 2: point is that Jim Peterson is dead, and that changes

376
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:52,000
Speaker 2: very quickly when Corporal Barry Richards with the Spirit with RCMP,

377
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:56,080
Speaker 2: arrives on the scene. I was able to obtain a

378
00:21:56,119 --> 00:21:59,800
Speaker 2: copy of corpor Richards's statement from the RCMP case file,

379
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 2: which was actually released to me shortly after the first

380
00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:06,200
Speaker 2: episode of the podcast dropped. They released the entire case

381
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 2: file to me, So through that I was able to

382
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:12,840
Speaker 2: see Corpor Richard's statement where he recounts exactly what it

383
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:15,320
Speaker 2: was like for him to go through that house.

384
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:21,000
Speaker 1: So the RCMP shows up and Wilfrid and Alvin were

385
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:23,520
Speaker 1: outside just kind of keeping watch. They had not gone

386
00:22:23,520 --> 00:22:24,960
Speaker 1: back in. I'm assuming right.

387
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:28,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's correct. Will Drew and mister Siminar stayed outside.

388
00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:30,680
Speaker 2: They did not go back in the house. They waited

389
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:33,960
Speaker 2: for Corpor Richards to show up, and he was the

390
00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:38,080
Speaker 2: first one in the home. In his statement, he recounts

391
00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 2: how he walked in and noticed, yes, Jim Peterson is here.

392
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:48,399
Speaker 2: He's not moving, he's dead. He stepped over mister Peterson

393
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,440
Speaker 2: and turned into the living room of the home, where

394
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:56,680
Speaker 2: he immediately noticed eleven year old Dorothy on a cot

395
00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:01,640
Speaker 2: in the living room. He walked closer and could tell

396
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,720
Speaker 2: that she was dead as well, So he turned to

397
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 2: enter one of the bedrooms, which is where the rest

398
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:12,920
Speaker 2: of the Peterson children slept. In one bed, he saw

399
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:16,159
Speaker 2: seventeen year old Jean along with nine year old Pearl,

400
00:23:17,119 --> 00:23:20,040
Speaker 2: and in the next bed he saw thirteen year old

401
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:23,640
Speaker 2: Mary with her brothers, five year old William and three

402
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:27,400
Speaker 2: year old call In as he was standing in the room,

403
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:30,679
Speaker 2: he didn't see movement. There were no sounds, and he

404
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:34,560
Speaker 2: thought everyone in here is dead. He stood looking around,

405
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:37,439
Speaker 2: and suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he

406
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:42,080
Speaker 2: saw the tiniest bit of movement next Jeane, and he

407
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:46,160
Speaker 2: noticed that there was a little girl laying face down

408
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 2: on the mattress, trying not to move and not to

409
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:52,960
Speaker 2: make any noise. And it was four year old Phyllis.

410
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 2: Phyllis was still alive and in the house, but at

411
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 2: that time, Corpora Richards had not finished his search of

412
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,120
Speaker 2: the home. He didn't know if the person who had

413
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 2: done this was still there. He didn't know where the

414
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 2: mother and the baby were, so he left Phyllis and

415
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:10,159
Speaker 2: carried on with his search. He walked back through the

416
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 2: living room, through the kitchen, and into Jim and Evelyn's bedroom.

417
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:16,880
Speaker 2: No one was there. There was only an open window.

418
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: Wait, I was not expecting that, really, just an open window.

419
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 1: So Evelyn and the baby are missing.

420
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:25,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, the mother and the baby are not in the house.

421
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:29,879
Speaker 2: Corpor Richards made his way outside and told Will Drew

422
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 2: and Alvin what he had found in the house. And

423
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 2: he told them there's one little girl still alive in

424
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 2: the house, and he asked these two burly farm men

425
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 2: if one of them would come back in and help him,

426
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,439
Speaker 2: because he was obviously scared to go back in, and

427
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 2: both of the men told him no, they couldn't do it,

428
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 2: and they wouldn't do it because they were scared too. Yeah,

429
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 2: So corpor Richards walked back into the house, back into

430
00:24:56,080 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 2: the children's bedroom, and he recounts how so he tapped

431
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 2: little Phyllis on the shoulder three or four times, and

432
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 2: she very slowly raised herself up on her elbows and

433
00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 2: turned her head toward him. And when she made eye

434
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,120
Speaker 2: contact with him and realized that he was someone who

435
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:16,959
Speaker 2: was there to help her, not to hurt her, she asked,

436
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 2: where are you going to.

437
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 1: Take me now?

438
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 2: And he didn't respond. He just pulled back the bloody covers,

439
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 2: picked her up and carried her out of a house

440
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 2: of horrors?

441
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 1: Does he hand her Phyllis over to one of the

442
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 1: men and then goes on a search to find the

443
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:35,879
Speaker 1: mother and the baby in this family?

444
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, he handed Phyllis over to Alvin Siminar, and thankfully

445
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:44,360
Speaker 2: Alvin's wife Marjorie was on her way over Dennis once

446
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 2: he had finished chasing in the horses had gone over

447
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 2: to the house and Alvin told him, you need to

448
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 2: go get your mom. So Dennis ran back home and

449
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 2: his mom made her way to the house, and by

450
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 2: the time Marjorie arrived at the house, Phyllis was out

451
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 2: and in Alvin's arms, covered in blood. So Corpora Richards

452
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 2: instructed Marjorie, take this little girl and get her out

453
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,919
Speaker 2: of here. She can't be here. So Marjorie bundled up

454
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 2: Phyllis and Marjorie still remembers how Phyllis was so soaked

455
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 2: in blood that just from Marjorie taking her into her arms.

456
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,959
Speaker 2: Marjorie was soaked in blood, and she bundled her up,

457
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 2: put her in her car, and brought her back to

458
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 2: their house. You know, in this intense state of shock,

459
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 2: she was trying to wrap her mind around everything that

460
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 2: was going on. The only thing that she could think

461
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 2: to do was wash the blood off of this little girl.

462
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:40,159
Speaker 2: So Marjorie sat Phyllis up on her kitchen counter and

463
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 2: took a washclock to this little girl and cleaned the

464
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 2: blood of her family members off of her. Marjorie's memory

465
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 2: of this is so vivid and so distinct, which was

466
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 2: so impactful for me to hear this ninety four year

467
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 2: old woman recount the most horrific experience of her life,

468
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 2: and it stayed with her so vividly.

469
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 1: And she's checking for injuries, and there don't appear to

470
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: be any injuries at all on the four year old

471
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 1: on Phyllis.

472
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 2: No Phyllis seems to be completely unharmed. So once Phyllis

473
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 2: has gone with Marjorie, Corporal Richards he actually has to

474
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 2: leave the home because again there's no phones, so he

475
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:23,199
Speaker 2: had to head to Shell Lake again to use the

476
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,159
Speaker 2: phone to call for backup. A mass murder of this

477
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 2: magnitude had not happened in Canada, so he called for

478
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:34,919
Speaker 2: backup immediately, and because back then with the phone system

479
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:38,119
Speaker 2: there would be a phone operator, word had started to

480
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 2: spread that something was going on at the Petersons and

481
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 2: that it was very bad, and the rumor mill kind

482
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 2: of started churning immediately. People in Shell Lake and in

483
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 2: the surrounding areas started speculating right away that because Evelyn

484
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 2: wasn't there, it must have been a murder suicide, or

485
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 2: maybe a jilted lover of Kathy who had just gotten married,

486
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 2: which was completely true and really hurtful to the entire family,

487
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 2: And Marjorie said too. As soon as she heard those

488
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 2: rumors that maybe it was Evelyn, she knew there was

489
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 2: no chance. Evelyn was the most mild, loving mother and

490
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 2: there was no way she could have done this. So

491
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 2: as reinforcements began to arrive, they noticed something behind the house,

492
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:29,159
Speaker 2: and they found the bodies of Evelyn and baby Larry

493
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 2: behind the house, just outside of that open window, near

494
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 2: a rain barrel. It's assumed at that point that Evelyn

495
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 2: had taken the baby, who was sleeping in a crib

496
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 2: in her room, and climbed out the window with baby

497
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: Larry and in an attempt to escape the house.

498
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: When are they thinking this happened in the middle of

499
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: the night, because all the kids were in bed and

500
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: then Jim heard something and that's how he ended up

501
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,080
Speaker 1: near the front door, but everybody else stayed in bed.

502
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, they assume it had only happened a few hours later.

503
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 2: They right away police. I'm honestly, considering how long ago

504
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 2: this crime happened. I'm very impressed with how the RCMP

505
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 2: handled this case. They were incredibly thorough. They brought in

506
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 2: as many different units as they could. They had forensics.

507
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:20,920
Speaker 2: In their dusting for fingerprints, they actually pulled up pieces

508
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 2: of the linoleum that had pretty distinct bootprints in blood.

509
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 2: They lifted the entire piece of linoleum in hopes that

510
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 2: they would be able to find someone with a bootprint

511
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 2: that matched. They went around the home looking for cartridges,

512
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 2: which interestingly, they only found a handful of cartridges, so

513
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 2: they could tell that whoever had done this had gone

514
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 2: around the home picking up cartridges. Trying to cover their tracks.

515
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 2: They brought in canine units to search the area. They

516
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 2: did really everything in their power that they could at

517
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 2: that time, but they were getting nowhere.

518
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: If they don't recover a weapon. Are they looking at

519
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: the cartridges and saying it's probably this type of gun.

520
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: Could they get that far a rifle or shotgun or

521
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: pistol or anything like that.

522
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, they could tell generally what type of gun it was.

523
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 2: The issue was everyone in the area had guns at

524
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 2: that time. This was not an uncommon thing for a

525
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 2: farmer to have a rifle by the door, so it

526
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 2: almost seemed like a wild goose chase of sorts. The

527
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 2: police started questioning pretty much everyone in the area who

528
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 2: had anything to do with Jim Peterson and eventually anyone

529
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:36,719
Speaker 2: in the area, even if they had nothing to do

530
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 2: with Jim Peterson. My grandparents actually lived just over an

531
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 2: hour away from Shell Lake, and my grandma and grandpa

532
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 2: can remember getting a knock at their door and it

533
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 2: was the RCMP asking to look around the yard, look

534
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 2: at any guns that they had. It was a massive

535
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 2: search that in those first few days after the crime

536
00:30:57,200 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 2: really led them nowhere.

537
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: Well, let's go back to Kathy real quick. She is gone.

538
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: She's been gone for a little over a month with

539
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: Lee and sixteen hours away. At what point between when

540
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: Will Drew discovers them, our CMP shows up. Is Kathy

541
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: then notified of everything that's happened. Is this before her

542
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 1: mother and her little brother are discovered or is it after?

543
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 2: So Kathy actually didn't have a phone in her new home,

544
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 2: so no one was able to reach Kathy for nearly

545
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 2: a day after the murders took place. Eventually, Lee, her

546
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 2: husband's aunt, and his brother Ken arrived. Lee's aunt had

547
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 2: a phone at her home, so she had gotten a

548
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 2: call from someone in the area who told her what

549
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 2: had happened, and they were tasked with going to Kathy

550
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 2: with this news and telling her what had happened. Interestingly,

551
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 2: there was some misinformation like a game of telephone and

552
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 2: a few things get lost along the way. They had

553
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 2: been told that Kathy's entire family had been killed, that

554
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:07,479
Speaker 2: there were no survivors. So after hearing this news and

555
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 2: quickly packing up and getting in the car to head

556
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,719
Speaker 2: back home to Shell Lake, they turned on the radio

557
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 2: and that is when Kathy found out that one child

558
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 2: had survived the massacre.

559
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: Wow.

560
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 2: So listening to a radio broadcast that there had been

561
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 2: a mass murder in Shell Lake, a manhunt is underway

562
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 2: and one child has survived. But she didn't find out

563
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 2: which child was the survivor until they were actually back

564
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 2: in Shell Lake.

565
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: Wow. And going back to the crime scene, is there

566
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: a moment when I know the rumor mill had been

567
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: churning for a little bit that maybe this was murder suicide?

568
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 1: After Evelyn and the baby are discovered outside the window,

569
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: is there a moment when our cmp speculates that maybe

570
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: this is Jim and he is a family annihilator would

571
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: be the term we would use. Is that ever on

572
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: the table at all for them?

573
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 2: No, it's not. Because they did such a thorough search

574
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 2: and there was no weapon in the house. There was

575
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 2: no weapon near them, which you know is a good thing.

576
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 2: I suppose that all of their weapons had been put

577
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 2: away and it wasn't cause for speculation. They didn't waste

578
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 2: much time after they found Evelyn and Larry, speculating that

579
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 2: someone within the home was responsible. They immediately concentrated their

580
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 2: efforts on looking for someone else out there who could

581
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 2: have done this.

582
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 1: So this is a rifle, they determine, right, it's a rifle.

583
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: Is this a rifle that would need to be loaded?

584
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: I mean, how many shots did they know that this

585
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: person could fire before having to stop and reload.

586
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a rifle that would have needed to

587
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 2: be reloaded. There were dozens of shots fired through the

588
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 2: course of this, so they knew that the person at

589
00:33:55,320 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 2: least reloaded this weapon once, which points to some type

590
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 2: of intent, some type of maliciousness with this crime. But

591
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 2: still they were really getting nowhere. So time continued to

592
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 2: go on, and people would come in now and then

593
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 2: to different detachments with tips, or they'd call in with

594
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 2: a concern about some person in the community that they

595
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 2: thought police should look into, and they did their due diligence.

596
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 2: They followed up on all of these tips, but there

597
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 2: was a lot to go through and days go on.

598
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 2: Eventually we are at August nineteenth, nineteen sixty seven, which

599
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,760
Speaker 2: is the day of the funeral for the Peterson family.

600
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:42,240
Speaker 2: And to see photos and hear people describe this funeral,

601
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 2: this is an event that is something that is like

602
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 2: emblazoned into the memory of everyone who was there to

603
00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 2: see this massive grave, one massive grave with timbers stretched

604
00:34:55,280 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 2: across and eight coffins neatly lined up in a There

605
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 2: were eight because it was decided that baby Larry should

606
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 2: be buried in the arms of his mom Evelyn, just

607
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 2: like they had died. So these eight caskets lined up,

608
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 2: and over fifteen hundred people attended the service, which you

609
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 2: think the population is less than two hundred people, So

610
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 2: to have that many people come from across the province

611
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 2: to mourn this family and the killer still hasn't been

612
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 2: arrested is horrific.

613
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,920
Speaker 1: Now I know that this funeral is pivotal. It's a

614
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: pivotal moment for a couple of different reasons. But let's

615
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the impact. From when does

616
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 1: the funeral, how long after the murders, how long does

617
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:45,680
Speaker 1: that take place.

618
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 2: The murders occurred on August fifteenth and the funeral was

619
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:49,439
Speaker 2: August nineteenth.

620
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:53,879
Speaker 1: In this time period, what is our CMP What are

621
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 1: they advising people in this area to do. Is it

622
00:35:57,080 --> 00:35:59,760
Speaker 1: arm themselves, which we know they were probably doing that anyway,

623
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: making sure your doors are locked, don't go out at night,

624
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: or is there any guidance for people who have never

625
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 1: experienced anything more than maybe a theft here and there

626
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:09,359
Speaker 1: and that's it.

627
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's basically exactly what they wanted them to do.

628
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:17,839
Speaker 2: Lock your doors. This was a time in these rural communities.

629
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 2: If someone pulled up, you assumed that they needed help

630
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 2: from you. Your door was open. People were very welcoming.

631
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:28,280
Speaker 2: It wasn't like it is today. So RCMP did warn people,

632
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 2: you know, keep your door locked. There are so many

633
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:33,799
Speaker 2: stories of men who would sleep with a gun right

634
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 2: next to the bed because just in case someone came,

635
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 2: they wanted to be able to protect their family. The

636
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 2: seminars actually told me a story about how after this

637
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:45,879
Speaker 2: had happened, they were sitting in their home. Their entire

638
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 2: family gathered around the table, and they came up with

639
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 2: a plan of what they would do if somebody came

640
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 2: into their house. What should the kids do? What would

641
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 2: Alvin and Marjorie do? And to think of having something

642
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 2: sit so close to home that I would have to

643
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 2: sit around the table with my children and come up

644
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 2: with a plan of how to escape a mass murderer

645
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 2: is horrific.

646
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: Now, let's talk about speculation, because we do have four

647
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 1: days of speculation here. What are the locals thinking now

648
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:20,240
Speaker 1: that a murder suicide appears to be off the table

649
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:22,560
Speaker 1: because of the lack of a weapon. Are they thinking

650
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:24,879
Speaker 1: either this has to be a local because it's such

651
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 1: a remote area, or are they thinking, no way, is

652
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: this a local. Nobody's crazy enough to do this. This

653
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:32,760
Speaker 1: definitely has to be from one of the bigger cities

654
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: of a thousand people rather than two hundred people.

655
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 2: The general sense that I got was just it was

656
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 2: like mass confusion. Everyone was scared and they didn't understand

657
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 2: first of all, how this could happen at all, and secondly,

658
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 2: how it could happen to the Petersons. They were such

659
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:54,160
Speaker 2: a well liked family in the area. Jim truly had

660
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 2: no enemies, which police quickly learned as they were interviewing

661
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 2: people looking for any reason that someone could possibly have

662
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 2: a grudge against him or a member of his family.

663
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 2: There was nothing that made sense, so based on my

664
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 2: conversations with everyone, it was just confusion and terror filling

665
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 2: the community for those days.

666
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:20,800
Speaker 1: So let me ask you some basic police questions. Anything taken.

667
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:25,439
Speaker 2: There were a couple of wallets taken, but the Petersons, again,

668
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker 2: they weren't a wealthy family. They didn't have a lot

669
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 2: to take, So nothing of substantial value taken from the home.

670
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 1: And it doesn't appear like anyone in the home had

671
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: been sexually assaulted or assaulted in any way.

672
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 2: No, not at all. They were all shot to death.

673
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 2: That's the only sign of any violence was the gun shots.

674
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 1: So Jim didn't have any signs of defensive wounds. It

675
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 1: didn't seem like he fought back. Was he just ambushed

676
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 1: as soon as he went to the front door area.

677
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:58,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jim did have some defensive wounds, but not anything

678
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:01,479
Speaker 2: that would have attributed to his death. Essentially, it looked

679
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 2: like he did fight back. Is that because of the

680
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 2: smears on the linoleum as well, they could tell that

681
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 2: there was a bit of a scuffle. But Jim had

682
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:14,279
Speaker 2: been shot multiple times and that's what led to his death, So.

683
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,879
Speaker 1: It sounds like Jim was the first one to die,

684
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:18,799
Speaker 1: and then what the eleven year old Dorothy on the

685
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 1: cot because it was right off the living room.

686
00:39:21,320 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what's assumed is that Jim, followed by Dorothy,

687
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 2: the rest of the children, and Evelyn and Larry somewhere

688
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:30,320
Speaker 2: in the mix as well.

689
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: She heard the shots, probably maybe from the other children,

690
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:36,319
Speaker 1: and you know, was the last one. So okay, now

691
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 1: we're at the funeral with this terrible scene that you've

692
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 1: painted of this massive grave and all of the coffins

693
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,759
Speaker 1: being lowered into it and the populace coming out that

694
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: is like twenty five thousand times bigger than the population

695
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:52,240
Speaker 1: of the town. Then what changes, because something does happen

696
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,840
Speaker 1: in this time four days after these horrible murders take place.

697
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:59,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So just a few hours after the funeral,

698
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 2: Kathy goes back to her mother and father in law's home.

699
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:05,720
Speaker 2: She has her four year old sister Phyllis with her,

700
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 2: and there's a knock at the door and it's the

701
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 2: police coming to inform Kathy that they have made an arrest.

702
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:19,840
Speaker 2: About ten minutes before the funeral began, the lead inspector,

703
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 2: Brian Sawyer got a phone call from the kind of

704
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 2: de facto headquarters that they had set up in the

705
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 2: Shelleake Community Hall. He got a phone call letting him

706
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 2: know that they had found a gun that matched the

707
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:38,319
Speaker 2: cartridges that had been shot and boots that matched the

708
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 2: bootprint that they had lifted from the linoleum thanks to

709
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 2: a tip from a man in Lease. He had gone

710
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 2: to the RCMP and said, I have this neighbor who

711
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 2: has a son who just got out of the mental

712
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 2: institution a few weeks ago. He really likes hunting, he

713
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 2: really likes guns. I think you should look into him him.

714
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 2: So they did, and ten minutes before the funeral, they

715
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 2: found out that Victor Ernest Hoffman seemingly is the person

716
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 2: who killed the Peterson family.

717
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 1: I mean, not to state the obvious, but couldn't you

718
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 1: throw a rock and hit a guy in Canada even

719
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: today that wears boots and has a rifle and you know,

720
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:23,359
Speaker 1: likes to hunt. And the mental institution part is neither

721
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 1: here nor there, I think, But is that really all

722
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: they had to go on?

723
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 2: That's all they had to go on. So they arrested Victor.

724
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 2: It was during the funeral that they actually had gone

725
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 2: and arrested him, and shortly after being brought into custody,

726
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 2: Victor gave a full confession and detailed exactly what took

727
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 2: place inside of that house.

728
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,239
Speaker 1: I mean, I had said that's shaddy evidence, but he confesses.

729
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: Of course, we know there are false confessions here, but

730
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,359
Speaker 1: let's assume that this is all real. Victor's telling us

731
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: the truth. It's a real confession. Do we want to

732
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 1: now talk about Victor and how he ended up in

733
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:02,919
Speaker 1: a mental institution to begin with?

734
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, Victor Ernest Hoffman was only twenty one years

735
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 2: old in nineteen sixty seven. He is a person who

736
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 2: had struggled with his mental health for years, for practically

737
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 2: his entire life. He was only six years old when

738
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:24,759
Speaker 2: he claims that he started experiencing severe hallucinations. He would

739
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 2: see what he believed to be the devil, this huge

740
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 2: black figure that would tell him to do things. Victor

741
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 2: also claimed that by the time he was ten, he

742
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:39,439
Speaker 2: started experiencing urges to kill almost daily.

743
00:42:39,719 --> 00:42:41,799
Speaker 1: And he talks to his parents about all of this.

744
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:43,839
Speaker 1: Is that right or how does this come out when

745
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: he's this age?

746
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, he hid it when he was younger. He had

747
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 2: some issues in school some issues with his behavior, but

748
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 2: he managed to hide these urges quite well, shockingly well

749
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:00,400
Speaker 2: for a child of that age. As Victor entered his

750
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 2: late teens and his early twenties, things really started to escalate.

751
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:10,320
Speaker 2: His hallucinations became much more severe, and he started talking

752
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:15,160
Speaker 2: a ton about religion, which wasn't something that their family

753
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 2: usually talked about. He would claim that he was getting

754
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 2: messages from God, that he was seeing the devil more

755
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 2: and more, that he would get in fights with angels.

756
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 2: Things just continued to escalate. There was an incident on

757
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 2: the family farm where Victor attempted to run his brother

758
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 2: over with one of the farm trucks, barely missed his brother,

759
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 2: and kind of the incident that really set things in

760
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 2: motion for the family was his mom, Stella. Victor's mom, Stella,

761
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 2: was in the kitchen one day preparing a meal and

762
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 2: she heard rifle shots outside, so she ran out and

763
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 2: she found Victor in a field looking up at the

764
00:43:55,920 --> 00:44:00,760
Speaker 2: sky firing his rifle. So she ran to war him,

765
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 2: and he looked toward her and said, Mom, I shot

766
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:07,319
Speaker 2: the devil. And that was kind of the point that

767
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 2: Stella really realized there's something seriously, seriously wrong here. She

768
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 2: got the gun away from Victor, and he kind of

769
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 2: went into a frenzy and got in his vehicle and

770
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 2: drove away. The family hid all of the guns on

771
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 2: the property as quickly as they could, because they didn't

772
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,440
Speaker 2: know what he would do if he came back and

773
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 2: got his hands on another weapon. Victor did come back,

774
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 2: and when he did, he told his parents that he

775
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 2: thought he needed to speak to a pastor. And his

776
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 2: parents they did the very best they could with the

777
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 2: information that they had. We have to remember that this

778
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:46,359
Speaker 2: was nearly sixty years ago. We didn't know as much

779
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 2: as we know about schizophrenia now. They didn't know the

780
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 2: signs to watch out for or how to get him help.

781
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 2: So this pastor comes and speaks with Victor. There's no

782
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 2: record of what exactly was said during that conversation, but

783
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:02,719
Speaker 2: as soon soon as they finished speaking, the pastor went

784
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 2: to Victor's parents and said, your son is incredibly sick

785
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 2: and you need to get him to a doctor. He

786
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 2: needs help right now. So the very next day, Robert

787
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:16,879
Speaker 2: and Stella Hoffman brought their son Victor to the Saskatchewan

788
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 2: Hospital in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and he was admitted and

789
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 2: diagnosed with schizophrenia shortly after. So that was May of

790
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven that he was admitted.

791
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 1: Now, is this a hospital that you know of that

792
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: has a good reputation? Do they know what they're doing

793
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 1: for the time period for nineteen sixty seven?

794
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 2: Going through Victor's records at the time in nineteen sixty seven,

795
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 2: there were different medications available for schizophrenia, but it seems

796
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:49,360
Speaker 2: that they weren't really used in this case. There's record

797
00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 2: of Victor receiving tranquilizers, electroconvulsive therapy, talk therapy, occupational therapy,

798
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,800
Speaker 2: but there was no medication that really improved would have

799
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:03,760
Speaker 2: been proved his mental state truly that was being used,

800
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:05,720
Speaker 2: which is a cause for concern.

801
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,759
Speaker 1: So how long does he spend in this mental institution

802
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:13,680
Speaker 1: before he's ultimately released and how do they decide when

803
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: he is able to be released based on sort of

804
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,320
Speaker 1: these violent tendencies that he had shown before.

805
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, so during his talk therapy at the beginning of

806
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 2: his admission to the hospital, Victor would insist that the

807
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:29,720
Speaker 2: things that he was seeing were real, that they were happening,

808
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 2: that this was going on, and the doctors would kind

809
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:34,560
Speaker 2: of just tell him like it's in your mind of Victor,

810
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 2: this isn't real, this isn't happening, and he would argue

811
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 2: back and forth with them, and later on Victor confessed

812
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 2: that he realized that if he didn't stop talking about

813
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,239
Speaker 2: the delusions, they were never going to let him out

814
00:46:50,239 --> 00:46:54,360
Speaker 2: of the hospital. So Victor stopped telling the doctors what

815
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:58,839
Speaker 2: he was seeing and feeling and experiencing, but the delusions

816
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 2: continued all the same. When Victor was first admitted, his

817
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 2: parents were told, your son is very sick. He's going

818
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:07,960
Speaker 2: to need to be in the hospital at least a year,

819
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 2: at least a year for us to get this under control.

820
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:16,280
Speaker 2: But about two months after he had been admitted, Robert

821
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 2: and Stella got a letter from the hospital saying that

822
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 2: Victor was fine and they could come and pick him up,

823
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 2: and when was that. So he was admitted May twenty ninth,

824
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:30,800
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven, and on July twenty sixth, nineteen sixty seven,

825
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 2: Robert Hoffman returned to the Saskatchewan Hospital and picked up

826
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:38,800
Speaker 2: his son Victor. Robert asked to speak to the doctor

827
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 2: when he got there to pick up Victor, but he

828
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,840
Speaker 2: was told that the doctor wasn't available and that he

829
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 2: could just take Victor home. So Victor Hoffman left the

830
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 2: Saskatchewan hospital with just a prescription for tranquilizers in his

831
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:55,919
Speaker 2: back pocket, a bit less than three weeks before the murders.

832
00:47:56,160 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's fast forward to the nineteenth, which is

833
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: the funeral, and he's arrested ten minutes before the start

834
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 1: of the funeral based on what I consider to be

835
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: kind of shoddy information, but it sounds like they were

836
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: spot on, because Victor, you say, confessed, and what does

837
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:18,799
Speaker 1: he say, happen just straight away? What compelled all of this?

838
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:19,879
Speaker 1: What started this?

839
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 2: So Victor's account of the story is that very early

840
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 2: in the morning on August fifteenth, he woke up and

841
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:32,800
Speaker 2: he hadn't been feeling right since he came back from

842
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 2: the mental hospital. Things still weren't right in his mind,

843
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:39,839
Speaker 2: but he woke up that morning very early, went out

844
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 2: to the garage to tinker around a little bit. He

845
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 2: remembered seeing their farm dog and thinking that he should

846
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 2: kill it, but resisting the urge, and instead he loaded

847
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 2: his rifle and filled up the car with gas and

848
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 2: got in and went for a drive very early in

849
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 2: the morning. He said he had no plan as to

850
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,080
Speaker 2: where he would go. He just knew he needed to

851
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:11,840
Speaker 2: get in the car and drive. And Victor recounted getting

852
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 2: closer and closer to Shell Lake and feeling this urge

853
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:21,880
Speaker 2: to kill, getting stronger and stronger, until finally he turned

854
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:25,239
Speaker 2: off into the Peterson's yard. He had never been to

855
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 2: Shell Lake before, he had never met the Peterson family,

856
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 2: he'd never seen their home. He had no connection whatsoever

857
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 2: with this family or this area of the province. But

858
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 2: he turned into the Peterson yard. He opened two gates

859
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 2: to let himself in, and the murder began.

860
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:46,879
Speaker 1: Does he give any details that are not something we've

861
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 1: already discussed about what happened? Does he talk about the

862
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:51,799
Speaker 1: confrontation with Jim.

863
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 2: Victor recounts every single detail of the murder. So from

864
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:00,319
Speaker 2: Victor's point of view, he says that he he got

865
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 2: out of the vehicle with his gun in hand, and

866
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 2: he could hear Jim Peterson in the house. It was

867
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:08,800
Speaker 2: very early in the morning, by the way, by this time,

868
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:11,280
Speaker 2: it was about between five and six in the morning,

869
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:14,320
Speaker 2: so Jim and Evelyn would have still been in bed

870
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:18,239
Speaker 2: or just starting their day. So Victor pulled up to

871
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:21,280
Speaker 2: the home and he could hear Jim Peterson in the house,

872
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:25,680
Speaker 2: kind of saying who is it? And Victor approached the house,

873
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:29,560
Speaker 2: not making a sound, not saying a word, and let

874
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 2: himself into the home. By that time, Jim had made

875
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 2: it to the front entrance and was prepared to confront

876
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:40,439
Speaker 2: whoever it was barging into his house, and he saw

877
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:44,400
Speaker 2: Victor pointing a gun at him, and Jim kind of

878
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 2: stepped back and raised his hands and said, don't shoot,

879
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 2: and Victor shot him. There was a struggle, and Victor

880
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 2: shot Jim multiple times before finally Jim fell to the

881
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 2: ground and Victor realized that his rifle was empty, so

882
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:07,320
Speaker 2: Victor left the house went back out to his vehicle.

883
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 2: He could have gotten in his vehicle and just left

884
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 2: at that point, but he chose to reload his weapon

885
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 2: and walk back into the home where he killed Jim Peterson.

886
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 2: He shot Jim again, killing him, and then he continued

887
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:28,279
Speaker 2: into the house. He recounted how he turned into the

888
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 2: living room and shot eleven year old Dorothy as she

889
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:36,359
Speaker 2: lay on a cot in the living room, and he

890
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 2: then walked in to the bedroom where the children had

891
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:45,319
Speaker 2: been sleeping and began shooting in there. He recounts horrific

892
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 2: details that I won't get into about how they died.

893
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 2: He recounted everything, and as he was killing the children,

894
00:51:56,840 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 2: he heard the window in the other bedroom, so Victor

895
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 2: walked out of the house, went around the back and

896
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 2: shot Evelyn Peterson as she tried to flee with her

897
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:13,720
Speaker 2: one year old baby. At that time, Victor didn't shoot

898
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 2: Larry because he said he just didn't see the need

899
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 2: to shoot the baby. So he went back into the

900
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:25,879
Speaker 2: home and continued killing the children. It's awful, horrific, And

901
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 2: after Victor had finished in the house, he went back outside,

902
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:35,760
Speaker 2: and he said that his logic was that he didn't

903
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 2: want to leave the baby to starve because he didn't

904
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:42,960
Speaker 2: know how long it would be before someone found the bodies,

905
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:46,400
Speaker 2: so he went out and shot one year old Larry.

906
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:49,959
Speaker 1: Do you think he saw Phyllis the four year old

907
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:54,320
Speaker 1: kind of buried underneath her, you know, siblings on either side,

908
00:52:54,960 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 1: and chose to leave her Because I've read kind of

909
00:52:57,880 --> 00:53:01,239
Speaker 1: differing accounts of that that he had seen her and

910
00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:03,719
Speaker 1: he thought she was like an angel and decided not

911
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:06,000
Speaker 1: to kill her. But then maybe he hadn't. What do

912
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 1: you think?

913
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, Victor gave differing accounts. He said that at one

914
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:12,840
Speaker 2: point that she was hiding under the blanket and she

915
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 2: hadn't seen his face, so he didn't feel the need

916
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 2: to kill her, But that then kind of negates his

917
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:22,320
Speaker 2: reason for killing Larry. Why would you leave one child

918
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 2: without the other. He also said that he thought she

919
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 2: was an angel and he didn't need to kill her.

920
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:32,799
Speaker 2: I don't believe that Victor ever saw Phyllis, whether she

921
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 2: was hiding in the bed with her sisters or in

922
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:40,759
Speaker 2: her mom's room. I have no clue what happened. Nobody knows,

923
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:44,200
Speaker 2: but I do not believe that Victor knew he had

924
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 2: left a survivor in that home. In the police case file,

925
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:52,279
Speaker 2: there is statements from the officers who interviewed Victor for

926
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:55,920
Speaker 2: the first time, and they say that when they told

927
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:59,840
Speaker 2: him that there were two girls in the family, Kathy

928
00:53:59,880 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 2: and Phyllis, who were still alive, that he looked shocked.

929
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 2: So I don't believe he intentionally left Phyllis alive.

930
00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 1: I have to say I'm surprised that he was able

931
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:17,040
Speaker 1: to shoot Jim however many times, then go out to

932
00:54:17,080 --> 00:54:21,359
Speaker 1: his car and get more ammunition to reload, and that

933
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:24,319
Speaker 1: the initial shots didn't wake up at least some of

934
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 1: the kids, but they were all found in bed right

935
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 1: except for Evelyn and Larry out the window.

936
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:32,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. I actually spoke with Kathy about this, and she

937
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 2: has had conversations with Phyllis about Phyllis's memories of that time,

938
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:42,759
Speaker 2: and Phyllis remembered her dad telling everyone stay where you are,

939
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 2: oh okay, And Jim was such a trusted figure to

940
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:50,440
Speaker 2: this family. They believed that their dad would be able

941
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:53,520
Speaker 2: to protect them and that they needed to just stay

942
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 2: where they were to be safe. It's just horrific, Like,

943
00:54:56,920 --> 00:54:59,840
Speaker 2: you don't know what you're going to do in that instance,

944
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 2: obviously until you're faced with it, and the children just

945
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 2: didn't run.

946
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 1: I will say I don't almost never ask this question.

947
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 1: But did the killer, who is Victor, say how he

948
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 1: felt afterward? Did this quell whatever horrible feeling had been

949
00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: bubbling up from him about the devil or whatever? Or

950
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:28,360
Speaker 1: did it do anything to stop that?

951
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 2: Yeah? In Victor's confession, he actually says that after he

952
00:55:33,719 --> 00:55:38,240
Speaker 2: killed them, he wanted to kill himself, that he felt

953
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:41,640
Speaker 2: very bad and he wanted to shoot himself, but he

954
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 2: had watched this family die and he had seen how

955
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 2: horrific their deaths had been and that's why he didn't

956
00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 2: do it, because he didn't know where he could shoot himself,

957
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 2: that it wouldn't hurt, and that he wouldn't die a

958
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:57,360
Speaker 2: horrific death like they had.

959
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: It's just so weird to think about this because it

960
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 1: seems like he's been diagnosed with a mental illness that

961
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 1: seems like a level of callousness as well as you know,

962
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:11,480
Speaker 1: you hear family annihilators say they kill everybody because they

963
00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:14,600
Speaker 1: don't want the family, the children to live with the

964
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 1: shame of what has happened. You hear that kind of justification,

965
00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 1: But I feel like I don't hear it intermingled with

966
00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:24,160
Speaker 1: like something like schizophrenia, like that type of a mental

967
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:27,440
Speaker 1: illness that's sort of rationale. What's your feeling about that.

968
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:32,279
Speaker 2: There is so much speculation in the community to this

969
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:37,319
Speaker 2: day about whether Victor Hoffman truly was mentally ill, just

970
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 2: because of so many of the details surrounding this crime.

971
00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 2: Even given that after murdering the family, he went back

972
00:56:43,560 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 2: through the house and he took the blankets off of

973
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:49,319
Speaker 2: the children and shook them out so he could pick

974
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:50,759
Speaker 2: up the cartridge casings.

975
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:51,759
Speaker 1: He's covering it up.

976
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, he laid them out on the sewing machine and

977
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:57,560
Speaker 2: counted them out just to try and ensure he got

978
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 2: them all and that there seems to be rationality behind

979
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,400
Speaker 2: so many of the decisions that he'd made, which has

980
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 2: been very hard for people to reconcile how things ended

981
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:11,080
Speaker 2: up with the verdict in court.

982
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:15,160
Speaker 1: So what ultimately ends up happening with this case with Victor?

983
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:19,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Victor ends up going to trial. That's the

984
00:57:19,400 --> 00:57:22,440
Speaker 2: first time and the last time that Kathy saw him

985
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:26,400
Speaker 2: in person was in a courtroom for the initial hearing.

986
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:30,040
Speaker 2: Kathy went because she wanted to see what this person

987
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:32,480
Speaker 2: looked like and who they were, and what kind of

988
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:37,840
Speaker 2: person could possibly commit such a heinous act. And Kathy

989
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 2: still remembers seeing Victor and being almost underwhelmed by his appearance.

990
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:50,240
Speaker 2: He had been built up so much with all of

991
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:54,120
Speaker 2: the anticipation of seeing this monster who had murdered your

992
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 2: entire family, and he's just a man. So that was

993
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:00,680
Speaker 2: the first and last time that Kathy saw him. She

994
00:58:01,240 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 2: packed up and went back to BC, taking Phyllis with her.

995
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:09,360
Speaker 2: Kathy and her husband Lee ended up raising Phyllis as

996
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 2: their own. So Kathy was back in BC and the

997
00:58:14,200 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 2: trial went on. Throughout the court proceedings. Marjorie Seminar, who

998
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:22,880
Speaker 2: was neighbor to the Peterson family, was at every hearing.

999
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:26,120
Speaker 2: She showed up for the Petersons every day that she

1000
00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 2: possibly could. And one of Marjorie's strongest memories from the

1001
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:35,920
Speaker 2: trial was the moment where she really realized how close

1002
00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:40,560
Speaker 2: her own family came to being the victims of this crime.

1003
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:47,600
Speaker 2: As Victor was recounting what had happened, Marjorie heard him

1004
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 2: describe how he had been driving towards Shell Lake and

1005
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:53,600
Speaker 2: the urge to kill was getting stronger, and he said

1006
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:57,160
Speaker 2: he tried to stop at this house, and he described

1007
00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:02,560
Speaker 2: the house perfectly with the TV antenna, and then he

1008
00:59:02,680 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 2: described how he was going too fast and missed the turn,

1009
00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:08,360
Speaker 2: so he took the next approach. So Victor had tried

1010
00:59:08,360 --> 00:59:11,360
Speaker 2: to stop at the Seminar home, but he had just

1011
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:14,600
Speaker 2: missed the approach and took the next road, and that's

1012
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 2: how the Petersons ended up falling victim to his massacre.

1013
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:24,680
Speaker 2: As the court went on, Victor eventually was found not

1014
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 2: guilty by reason of insanity by the jury, which, as

1015
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:32,640
Speaker 2: I said, still to this day, is quite a controversial

1016
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 2: finding among people in the community. Neither Kathy or Marjorie

1017
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:42,760
Speaker 2: really speculated on whether they believed Victor was insane or not.

1018
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:45,840
Speaker 2: I think because this is a crime that was just

1019
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:50,640
Speaker 2: so close to them, it's really painful to speculate on

1020
00:59:50,720 --> 00:59:54,520
Speaker 2: whether someone got away with it or not. Kathy especially

1021
00:59:54,640 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 2: really focuses on Victor's family, which I find amazing. She

1022
01:00:00,240 --> 01:00:03,280
Speaker 2: has so much empathy in her heart for the Hoffman

1023
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:07,080
Speaker 2: family and everything that they did to try and get

1024
01:00:07,120 --> 01:00:09,560
Speaker 2: help for their son. They did the very best that

1025
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:15,160
Speaker 2: they could, and they were essentially ostracized from the community

1026
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 2: after this crime had taken place because people thought if

1027
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 2: he was the sick, how could you not have known.

1028
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 2: I find it honestly remarkable how much grace Kathy gives

1029
01:00:27,240 --> 01:00:31,560
Speaker 2: the Hoffman family and the true level of forgiveness that

1030
01:00:31,640 --> 01:00:35,040
Speaker 2: she has for them, given what her own family has

1031
01:00:35,080 --> 01:00:38,000
Speaker 2: gone through, she still has that empathy in her heart

1032
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:40,960
Speaker 2: to wish things could have turned out differently for the

1033
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:42,400
Speaker 2: Hoffman family as well.

1034
01:00:43,040 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 1: So I'm assuming that Kathy and Lee did a fantastic

1035
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:52,840
Speaker 1: job raising Phyllis and everybody is healthy and happy at

1036
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:53,360
Speaker 1: this point.

1037
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, at this point, things are good. Kathy and Lee

1038
01:00:57,040 --> 01:01:00,760
Speaker 2: are back in BC. They have their first a little

1039
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:04,040
Speaker 2: boy that they named William, after Kathy's five year old

1040
01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:07,960
Speaker 2: brother who had been killed. And then when Kathy's pregnant

1041
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:12,240
Speaker 2: with her second child, they actually move back home so

1042
01:01:12,320 --> 01:01:16,080
Speaker 2: they start farming. They take over Lee's parents farm and

1043
01:01:16,640 --> 01:01:20,080
Speaker 2: start a life in the Shell Lake area, which was

1044
01:01:20,240 --> 01:01:23,120
Speaker 2: very painful for Kathy. It was very hard for her

1045
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:27,000
Speaker 2: to come back, but she knew that she wanted to

1046
01:01:27,080 --> 01:01:31,840
Speaker 2: be back home and around her people, her family. As

1047
01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:36,400
Speaker 2: time went on, things stayed hard for Kathy. People would

1048
01:01:36,440 --> 01:01:39,600
Speaker 2: continue to speculate and talk about things that happened. People

1049
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 2: felt comfortable almost like going up to her and bringing

1050
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:47,400
Speaker 2: it up in conversation, which was incredibly awkward. It's really

1051
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:49,640
Speaker 2: hard to move on with your life when people are

1052
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:53,360
Speaker 2: constantly asking you how you feel about the most horrific

1053
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:56,320
Speaker 2: thing that's ever happened to you. And a big part

1054
01:01:56,360 --> 01:01:59,760
Speaker 2: of you know, things feeling like they were lingering is

1055
01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 2: that the Peterson Home all that time was still standing.

1056
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:09,200
Speaker 2: The house where these murders had occurred hadn't been torn

1057
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 2: down or anything. It stayed standing until their early nineties.

1058
01:02:14,720 --> 01:02:18,080
Speaker 2: People would go up to the home, they would break in.

1059
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:21,840
Speaker 2: People would take pieces of linoleum pieces of the walls,

1060
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:25,760
Speaker 2: almost as a little memento. And it was really painful

1061
01:02:25,800 --> 01:02:30,200
Speaker 2: for both Kathy and Phyllis to have people desecrating their

1062
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:34,680
Speaker 2: childhood home. Constantly. Kathy would get calls every time someone

1063
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:38,560
Speaker 2: had broken in because they were trespassing on her property,

1064
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:43,240
Speaker 2: and it was incredibly, incredibly painful for her. Thankfully, I

1065
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:46,240
Speaker 2: guess we can say. In the early nineteen nineties, the

1066
01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:50,560
Speaker 2: house did burn to the ground. Kathy got a phone

1067
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:52,760
Speaker 2: call from the fire department when it was on fire,

1068
01:02:52,920 --> 01:02:55,960
Speaker 2: asking her what they should do, and she said, just

1069
01:02:56,040 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 2: let it burn, let it go.

1070
01:02:57,760 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 1: How did that happen? We don't officially know what ultimately

1071
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:06,040
Speaker 1: happens to Victor Hoffman. He goes to a mental institution.

1072
01:03:06,160 --> 01:03:10,440
Speaker 2: I'm assuming yeah, that's right. After Victor was found not

1073
01:03:10,600 --> 01:03:16,120
Speaker 2: guilty due to criminal insanity, he was sent to Penitanguishine

1074
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:20,680
Speaker 2: in Ontario, Canada. It was a hospital for the criminally insane,

1075
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:24,560
Speaker 2: and he stayed there for quite a few years. He

1076
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:29,000
Speaker 2: in the early nineties, actually, Kathy and her family found

1077
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:32,040
Speaker 2: out that he had been having such good behavior that

1078
01:03:32,120 --> 01:03:35,480
Speaker 2: he had been granted day passes to leave the facility,

1079
01:03:35,680 --> 01:03:39,200
Speaker 2: which was a very difficult thing for both Kathy and

1080
01:03:39,240 --> 01:03:41,320
Speaker 2: phyllis to try to navigate.

1081
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:43,080
Speaker 1: Because he would have been in his what fifties when

1082
01:03:43,080 --> 01:03:45,120
Speaker 1: that happened. I was trying to do quick math, so

1083
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:47,800
Speaker 1: still a viable threat obviously.

1084
01:03:48,400 --> 01:03:52,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. But thankfully Victor never harmed anyone else.

1085
01:03:53,240 --> 01:03:56,760
Speaker 2: He passed away due to cancer in two thousand and four,

1086
01:03:57,120 --> 01:04:00,760
Speaker 2: and that that's where the story of Victor Hoffmann and ends.

1087
01:04:01,560 --> 01:04:03,520
Speaker 1: Did you manage to get a hold of anyone in

1088
01:04:03,600 --> 01:04:05,320
Speaker 1: Victor's family or did you try?

1089
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:08,640
Speaker 2: No? I didn't. I tried, but I wasn't able to

1090
01:04:08,880 --> 01:04:12,880
Speaker 2: and I think it's completely understandable. I can't imagine, you know,

1091
01:04:13,160 --> 01:04:16,720
Speaker 2: to hear Kathy explain how hard it's been for her

1092
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:20,840
Speaker 2: to try to move on and almost rebuild an entire

1093
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:24,680
Speaker 2: life when something horrible has happened, I feel like it's

1094
01:04:24,800 --> 01:04:28,080
Speaker 2: just as if not more, difficult to rebuild when someone

1095
01:04:28,120 --> 01:04:32,360
Speaker 2: in your family is responsible for that act. I can't

1096
01:04:32,400 --> 01:04:35,480
Speaker 2: imagine the pain. So I wasn't able to speak with

1097
01:04:35,520 --> 01:04:38,320
Speaker 2: their family, But I, like Kathy, I have so much

1098
01:04:38,520 --> 01:04:42,120
Speaker 2: respect and empathy for that family. Yeah, they did everything

1099
01:04:42,200 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 2: that they possibly could have done.

1100
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:47,160
Speaker 1: So what ended up ultimately happening to Phyllis.

1101
01:04:47,480 --> 01:04:51,840
Speaker 2: So Phyllis lived a good life. She grew up right

1102
01:04:51,880 --> 01:04:56,600
Speaker 2: alongside Kathy's children, participated in sports, she fell in love,

1103
01:04:56,680 --> 01:05:00,480
Speaker 2: she became a mom. But unfortunately, Phyllis passed away on

1104
01:05:00,920 --> 01:05:05,880
Speaker 2: May fourteenth, twenty nineteen, after a really brave battle with cancer.

1105
01:05:06,480 --> 01:05:10,439
Speaker 2: And Phyllis actually is not buried in the Shell Lake

1106
01:05:10,520 --> 01:05:13,800
Speaker 2: Cemetery where the rest of her family is, because she

1107
01:05:13,960 --> 01:05:18,280
Speaker 2: knew that to have the soul survivor of the massacre

1108
01:05:19,040 --> 01:05:22,320
Speaker 2: brought to that grave would kind of turn it into

1109
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:25,680
Speaker 2: even more of a tourist attraction than it already is,

1110
01:05:25,760 --> 01:05:28,640
Speaker 2: and she didn't want that for her family or for herself.

1111
01:05:29,120 --> 01:05:33,520
Speaker 2: So Phyllis chose to be buried in an undisclosed location

1112
01:05:34,200 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 2: that I've been to, and it's beautiful and peaceful and

1113
01:05:39,360 --> 01:05:43,440
Speaker 2: really encapsulates all the things that Phyllis wanted and deserved

1114
01:05:43,520 --> 01:05:44,200
Speaker 2: in her life.

1115
01:05:44,880 --> 01:05:48,480
Speaker 1: I really read closely some of the stuff that Cathy

1116
01:05:48,600 --> 01:05:51,360
Speaker 1: was saying, and of course listening to your podcast, and

1117
01:05:51,680 --> 01:05:54,880
Speaker 1: you know, I hear from survivors all the time via

1118
01:05:54,960 --> 01:05:58,920
Speaker 1: email or social media posts to my shows, who always

1119
01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:02,760
Speaker 1: have such incredible end site. And one thing she said

1120
01:06:02,800 --> 01:06:06,960
Speaker 1: that I had not heard before was that people when

1121
01:06:07,000 --> 01:06:09,200
Speaker 1: they find out who she is and what happened to

1122
01:06:09,240 --> 01:06:14,120
Speaker 1: her family, they are either so stunned or dumbstruck that

1123
01:06:14,160 --> 01:06:16,480
Speaker 1: they walk away like they don't even want to talk

1124
01:06:16,520 --> 01:06:18,680
Speaker 1: to her. They don't know what to say, do I

1125
01:06:18,680 --> 01:06:21,960
Speaker 1: acknowledge it or not? Or they talk to her and

1126
01:06:22,120 --> 01:06:25,560
Speaker 1: ask probing, inappropriate questions. And it doesn't sound like there's

1127
01:06:25,560 --> 01:06:28,520
Speaker 1: a lot in between. And that must just be a

1128
01:06:28,560 --> 01:06:34,000
Speaker 1: really difficult experience to live through for almost sixty years.

1129
01:06:34,360 --> 01:06:38,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like you're constantly walking on unstable ground right,

1130
01:06:38,600 --> 01:06:41,520
Speaker 2: not sure where the next conversation will take you. And

1131
01:06:41,560 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 2: that's I was incredibly nervous to approach Auntie Kathy about

1132
01:06:46,080 --> 01:06:49,560
Speaker 2: the notion of speaking to me about this because I

1133
01:06:49,640 --> 01:06:52,320
Speaker 2: know the profound impact that this has had on her

1134
01:06:52,360 --> 01:06:55,040
Speaker 2: life and how difficult it is for her to talk

1135
01:06:55,080 --> 01:06:59,840
Speaker 2: about it. So I'm just so incredibly grateful that she

1136
01:07:00,120 --> 01:07:03,880
Speaker 2: is willing to open up and share this story with me,

1137
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:07,080
Speaker 2: because I think this podcast isn't the story of Victor

1138
01:07:07,120 --> 01:07:10,280
Speaker 2: Hoffman and what he did. This is the story of

1139
01:07:10,680 --> 01:07:13,440
Speaker 2: the Peterson family, and this is a way for me

1140
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:18,200
Speaker 2: and everyone else who heard a ghost story about them

1141
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:21,120
Speaker 2: to realize that they were real people you know. The

1142
01:07:21,120 --> 01:07:24,520
Speaker 2: Petersons aren't ghosts. They were here, and they were loved,

1143
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:27,800
Speaker 2: and they mattered, and I'm just so grateful to be

1144
01:07:27,920 --> 01:07:40,160
Speaker 2: able to have shared their story.

1145
01:07:41,520 --> 01:07:44,400
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

1146
01:07:44,440 --> 01:07:47,320
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

1147
01:07:47,440 --> 01:07:50,680
Speaker 1: Is Wicked and American Sherlok and Don't Forget. There are

1148
01:07:50,760 --> 01:07:54,520
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More

1149
01:07:54,560 --> 01:07:58,200
Speaker 1: Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and

1150
01:07:58,240 --> 01:08:00,720
Speaker 1: give them a listen if you haven't all read. This

1151
01:08:00,840 --> 01:08:04,280
Speaker 1: has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is

1152
01:08:04,320 --> 01:08:09,080
Speaker 1: Alexis a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This

1153
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:13,320
Speaker 1: episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis heath is our composer.

1154
01:08:13,600 --> 01:08:18,040
Speaker 1: Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen

1155
01:08:18,120 --> 01:08:22,519
Speaker 1: Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at

1156
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:26,639
Speaker 1: tenfold More Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words Pod