Shell Lake Massacre, Part 2

Hey, hey, welcome to part two of the Shell Lake Massacre. I'm Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim.

A true crime podcast. Good morning. The following podcast and Jean's grabbing content and material intended more mature audience. Listener discretion is advice. Welcome back, Welcome to part two.

Yeah, you left us all hanging.

I did. The first part was a little bit like a lot of information overload. So if you guys made it through the first part, good on you. If you haven't listened to it, you gotta listen to it. There's so much there.

It was information overload, but it like had you on the oh, the edge of your seat.

Definitely, sir, you gotta listen to it before you hear this.

Yeah, because you left us right at this is like I need to know.

Let's go right at the exact edge where it all takes place.

Yeah, where he's who was it the Pete something Peterson.

The Peterson family's home. But who was the dude Victor Ernest Hoffman, Not that.

Dude the duty ran into into the house.

The dad that's James Peterson, James James and the Peterson family home.

Yeah, I was looking for the James, Looking for the James.

Why did you do Italian hands when you said looking for the James. Hey in the looking for the James, you know James b I don't know what just fell right, Wow, okay, that's interesting. I've never seen you do Italian hands before.

Oh now, yeah, I'm keeping things real.

I wonder if that's going to be like a reoccurring thing. Now, I'm going to watch out for.

Those for my Italian an.

You're looking for the James, I'm looking for the Italian hands.

Okay, let's go.

Well, okay, no chit chen.

We want to know.

So just a real quick recap where we left off. Victor was going through all his mental health stuff, got out of the hospital and he's still having those urges, and he ended up at the farmhouse of the Peterson family. So I'll read the last couple of sentences again of the last episode, just to refresh your mind yet. Okay, So when he entered the house, he recognized the kitchen, but he had seen it before in a dream.

It was just wild.

But that thought was cut short as he was greeted by the shouting of a man saying, who is it? I totally lost my spot.

This is the James, This is the James.

Inside the house was the family known as the Peterson's, and a man who was speaking was the father James Peterson, Like, what.

The fuck are you doing to my house? Oh?

Yeah, it's like two in the morning and someone walks into your house. I wouldn't, James, I'm a heavy sleeper. But if there's a noise, you know, sh it's gonna get real.

We've gone over the right.

You're there bolting down the stairs, ready to fight anybody, So James repeated himself, and when he saw the gun in Victor's hands, he jumped up, ready to come forward towards Victor and defend his family. Oh definitely, pants, I would. I probably would have already have shipped my pants just having someone come in my house at two am. I'd be like, who's there?

So that's terrifying.

Oh definitely. So he is ready to defend his family, and in that moment, as James stood up to come towards Victor, Victor swung the gun towards James and pulled the trigger. Yikes, shot and wounded. James kept coming forward towards Victor.

Oh badass of the day badass of.

The day right here. Definitely, he was definitely going forth to protect his family all costs. So props on you, James, you're the man.

That's impressive.

So by now the small farmhouse filled with the Peterson family was fully awake and in terror. Gunshots and loud noises going like crazy, I could imagine. So James managed to get to Victor and grab him by the neck, but he could only last so long because Victor began to shoot multiple times he unloaded. He shot James a total of eleven times.

Wow, shit, before.

He collapsed to the floor.

That is that's a lot of times.

That's horrific. And of course, like his wife is just right there as well, watching this, and the kids are now screaming.

It's the vision that that is just terrifying. It's awful.

Okay, get this though an interview with Victor afterwards. This is something he said in the interview or it might have been, sorry, not an interview, but like with the in the hospital interview sort of thing. Okay, So it's a direct quote from him. If he had talked quiet and told me I was wrong, it would have all been right. He could have helped me and I wouldn't have killed him, but he tried to stop me.

The James dude, he's saying that, James, you should have just like talked softly to him.

Yeah. Do you think he came he came forward to try and physically stop.

Him breaking in his house was a gun, yes, but like I don't even know if that would have stopped him. Really, he had already had this super urge. Well, yes, and no, and no one would be no one would do that.

Well, I agree, no one would do that. The first instinct is defend, right exactly. You know, you're most likely not gonna be like it's okay, put the gun down. You know, we're to help. Like, that's not someone's initial reaction.

I guess that'd be a nice reaction to.

But by that statement there, Victor, he's like, that's a call out for him.

It's really sad.

He just he's looking for someone to help.

Him and no one's helping him.

Yeah, James wasn't there to help him. He was there to defend his family. Yeah, that's not what or what Victor wanted. So James died because of that choice, which is the choice of us.

Will make oh yeah, even more like ninety nine point.

Nine note nine point ninety ninety nine repeater.

Exactly, So dang, that's sad the shit.

After James laid on the floor, Victor stepped farther into the house and to him he had no pity for the family. Another quote, I was a little scared when I shot him, but I wasn't sorry. To Victor, the Peterson's looked like quote unquote pigs. He was disgusted when he looked at them and had no respect for them.

And were they almost like devil like then?

Looking most likely?

Yes, He described the devil as a pig.

Yep. So two young girls hid under their covers in bed and shouted, please don't shoot. I don't want to die.

Wow.

Victor didn't stop though he already murdered, so why stop now? He pulled the trigger and then pulled the trigger again. Now during all this, like I said, the mother of the family, Evelyn Peterson, she was there watching James try and fight off Victor.

Right, Yeah, she.

Was trying to escape. She was trying to climb out the window, and she was holding their baby.

Oh okay, because I was like, what the frick O get your kids?

No, she's she's holding their youngest, their baby. So she managed to climb out the window to the back, and just as she made it outside, she was shot. Victor went outside and ensured she didn't escape. He went back inside and continued to shoot everyone. He executed them, all, the entire family. He planned on shooting everyone in the head so he could cut off their heads and take the impaled bullets with them so there wouldn't be evidence

Oh gosh.

Because here's the thing. Twenty two caliber rifles are notorious for this. The mafia back in the day would actually use twenty two caliber bullets because the bullet is small enough that it will enter the skull, but it will not exit, so it'll enter and like bounce around inside, essentially scrambling the brain.

Sweet, that's a nice visual. I like that.

Well, this is a true crime podcast.

That's real going there.

So theoretically, if he did shoot everyone in the head head, their head would contain the evidence.

But oh okay, but he like missed and she missed and.

Ship, so that wasn't the case. There's no point. So he didn't end up doing that.

But that was a stream is shit.

So huh, now where am I here? I lost my spot?

I still I still hung up on the whole, like if he would have spoke softly. I don't believe that shit.

I mean, who's to say whether it's true or not. It's a clear cry for help though, And.

I have another like firing question here, but I'm want to just keep it to myself because you're probably getting there.

Yes I am.

I really want to know.

I know exactly what you're going for. And you remember when I warned everyone at the beginning of part one that there's a real heavy moment. We're getting to a real heavy moment, so Befoe warned. Oh so Victor saw and shot everyone, or so he thought. One little girl was actually seems, sitting in bed between her two dead siblings. She was cowering under the blankets, and that was four year old Phyllis Peterson. Victor raised his gun and pointed it at Phyllis, but he didn't pull the trigger. He

An angel, she looked like she was being saved or something.

So he did let her live.

He didn't shoot her little four year old Phyllis.

Yeah, little four year old Phyllis. So Victor clearly was like thinking about like thinking outside the box. He was already prepared to take the heads for the m O.

Right.

Yeah, he didn't want to leave evidence behind, so he was already on that. He began walking around and collecting bullet shells the cartridges from the shells left over, Okay, so he picked up seventeen in total and put them in his pocket. He took another jar full of ammunition from the house and a total of seven dollars from wallets that he found within the house. He left the house and planned on driving off, but when he did so, he heard something, uh, oh, something crying.

Dang it.

It was the baby.

Dang it.

The mother Evelyn was holding the baby when she tried to escape out the window. But yeah, that was baby Larry. Victor didn't want to shoot Larry, but he kind of thought, how long would it be until someone found him? A few days? Maybe Larry's probably not. Larry's likely to starve to death.

So terrible reasoning.

Victor didn't want him to suffer. That's that's his reasoning.

That's shit.

And Victor hated himself for doing it. But he raised his gun one last time and he shot baby Larry before leaving the Peterson farm behind.

No, I was so hoping that little babe would be saved. Nope, just phyllis. Just phyllis, Which is interesting.

So he claims he didn't want to shoot Larry. It was just a matter of he didn't want it to suffer. He didn't want that cat to suffer either. I'm just trying to play devil's advocation, I know, but that's no I know it's totally dumb, but I mean, there is a chance baby Larry could have suffered, so in his mind, he's putting baby Larry out of his misery. Yes, he's murdering in cold blood. Don't fucking do that, totally Gillius.

She would have suffered too.

She's four, she can feed herself.

Yeah, but she's surrounded by her dead family. That's worse. Yes, yes, but so see that reasoning. No, no, no, no.

I'm just trying to argue his thought point. Not that I agree with this thought point. I'm just trying to get across his thoughts.

No, just no, just no.

Thank you for making this easier on me. I appreciate it. I'm just trying to tell a story.

Okay. No, I know where you're going.

Okay, you good? No, are you like going to cry?

Actually no, I'm okay, you sure, Yeah, I'm good.

I need some tissues for your issues.

I'm good.

Okay, moving on, moving on from that. So that morning, someone actually arrived at the Peterson farm after Victor had left.

Well exactly, I didn't think it'd be long.

Yeah, it was another farmer by the name of wil Drew lang Wildrew was actually supposed to help James on the farm by doing some hanging in the fields. So it's actually convenient. It's it was scheduled. It's not like this is a normal thing.

Okay.

The ship that guy saw so as soon as he pulled into the driveway and onto the property, he promptly began working in the fields. And expecting James to come out and greet them and start working with them.

Oh, he just went right to work. Look at that.

However, that didn't happen. After a while, In fact, a couple hours, James never came out. At about nine am, Wildrew went up to the house, you know, thinking James slept in. He's gonna buggam or whatever, right and make fun of him. You know, you slept in, ha ha. The first thing he noticed was the family dog. The family dog was just very timid, very scared, not wagging its tail nothing. The second thing he noticed the mom the usual noise from the house, the hustle and bustle.

Just silence.

Gave me chills. Damn, we're good, anyways, I say, anyways a lot, don't I do?

I I don't know.

Anyways. So he approached the house and he went inside, and immediately he saw James laying on the floor covered in blood.

Dang.

Quickly he drove off right away to go call for help. And he had to travel six kilometers actually to do so, to go to the closest telephone post. Okay, so you can call police. Yeah, immediately RCMP came to the scene, and the first thing was, you know, a little survivor, four year old Phyllis. She went to go be taken care of by her uncle who lived nearby Only Lake and I think it was like five kilometers away or

Oh man, I feel bad for her.

Phyllis. Actually, she doesn't remember much, but she does remember when she's being carried out of the house that the officer carrying her was just crying. Really, she said that she remembers him crying as he was carrying Oh.

That sad. They probably knew the family.

Most likely. I mean it's a very tight knit community around here. Everyone knows everybody.

That almost makes me want to cry. So she's probably still alive.

Oh yeah she is. Oh wow, Yeah, she's alive. Huh. So multiple police dogs were brought in. Dozens of officers combed the scene, bushlines, the farm, They searched nearby houses. Search parties of up to two hundred and fifty people were ready to go on a moment's notice. As for clues, the main sources of evidence that was left behind that they had to go on. Were five twenty two caliber cartridge shells that were left behind.

Oh I missed some, he.

Missed some, and a couple bloody footprints that were on the kitchen floor.

Oh okay, so his foot his.

Shoeprint shoeprints that did not match any of the shoes or any of the families. You know, fucked up, he fucked up. So the house, however, ho what okay? So the house, however, did give a small idea of what kind of person who potentially could have done this. That sentence was written weird when I first read, it didn't.

Make sense that before.

So the house wasn't ransacked, which means it's not like a robbery, right.

Right, he tall, I can't even speak. Store seven bucks out.

Of wallets, you know, and like a jar off the fridge or something right now.

And he also stole some bullets or something to do.

Yeah, the jar full of ammunition. So it was like, it's not ransacked. They weren't stealing you know, jewelry.

Or anything like that.

It was just a couple of dollars dollars out of wallets, that's it. Yeah, there is no signs of sexual assault, so that's not a motive. The Peterson's had no known enemies. Everyone in the area knows each other and is nice and friendly, and it seems like it was a single perpetrator. So they thought perhaps this was random and the killer just happened onto their farm.

This was like from somewhere else or something. Yeah.

Yeah, So what kind of person would commit that? What kind of individual would commit a random, gruesome act is the sort of question they were asking. Maybe someone who has a history of violence, or maybe a mental.

Illness, mental health.

Yeah, so we're already right on the trail of Victor.

Dang, that didn't take long.

Ah, not at all. I spelt Victor's name wrong here I put Vitter so Vitter. Victor lived approximately sixty five kilometers away from the Peterson's farm, Okay, I.

Was going to ask at one point how far they were away.

Yeah, so it's it's another small community sixty five kilometers away. But with such a shocking case, you know, we're travel seriously fast. And Victor began to think he might actually be caught. I mean, we're talking about this, so clearly he did. But we'll get under that. Maybe our CNP would do like ballistic testing on his gun and they would find that way, and he actually went to go do some like he went to fire off like a major amount of shells in his gun to try and

Sad they can. Actually, that's how they pinpoint.

They can identify guns basically by the slight differences.

Also, if you shoot it, the more it could change that.

Well, he went he wanted to go shoot it off a couple hundred times so that bullets are rubbing along that so maybe it would change change right, Or maybe even file down the firing pin a little bit so that the pin mark, because it's a small hammer that hits the back of the cartridge to cause a little explosion that pushes the the bullet out. So he was gonna file the pin a little bit different shapes. When

Oh that is actually kind of smart, it is.

I wonder if people actually do that like nowadays or anything. I don't think people these days are that smart. I think farm people like farm people are smart. They have ingenuity, you know what I mean.

Yeah, I guess that's funny.

Not that today's people are dumb. It's just it's a lot easier for us, so we don't tend to think.

I feel like they don't have a such like or common sense isn't as common nowadays.

Well, like I said, it's enginuity. It's street smarts versus smarts.

Yeah.

So so he went to go do that, but he couldn't. What actually happened was a neighbor actually gave him away.

Oh okay, how four days after the massacre, a neighbor contacted the RCMP and told them about Victor and his recent release.

From the hospital, which just so fit the type of person they were looking for. They quickly paid him a visit, and when they did, on his doorstep, just so happened to be a pair of boots that sat there, matching the bloody prints to the crime scene.

Oh boy, he done, he done.

He was quickly taken into custody and questioned, I mean rightfully so. And it didn't take him long to actually start confessing to it either.

Oh really, hey, they broke.

Him quick, only about ten minutes. Oh like real quick.

Real quick. He confessed well because he didn't actually want to do it. I think he didn't.

He didn't, and I mean I can't imagine he would have much mental strength with all the battles he's gone through. Yeah, So he confessed everything, the shooting of each family member, his twenty two caliber gun that he used that was later matched to the retrieved cartridges and bullets, the voices in his heads that told his head heads, the voices in his head that told him to do it. There we go. I got that sentence, So there you go. But Victor also confessed to another thing. He confessed he

Okay, which was probably like such a nice feeling.

For him, probably, but I mean that was quite whoa. I just me all over again. Oh my god, that was quite the cost. Sorry, I don't know.

Face too, was like, you're almost like terrified.

It was like I had like a voice crack and a frog in my throat at the same time. It was weird. Oh oh that was good.

I wish that they could see your face.

Hi, Welcome to the Krusty Berger. My bad guys. Sorry, that was okay? At what cost? Did you know? Have that relief? Relief fat for him? So yeah so. RCMP actually later confessed that Victor, if he had disposed of his boots and altered his rifle like he planned, most likely would have gotten away with the murder. Why how could they have pinned it to him if he didn't confess. If he didn't confess, didn't have his boots and didn't have the rifle to match, they had nothing else to to pin him to it.

There's nothing huh interesting.

And when they were actually taking him away, like the cops were actually pulling him away, what actually gave his boots away too was Victor was trying to like, oh, just give me one minut I'm just gonna just burn these old boots, sort of like he was trying to get rid of the boots there like then and there, and that's what caught the attention of the boots to the RCMP. Last minute, he tried to ditch the boots, but.

It yeah, oh gosh, it's surprising that he didn't. It's earlier really.

Well, yeah, I mean he had four days.

Yeah, so what was he doing in those four days?

One thing though, Victor did have to say, remember because I was saying how it's like almost like he had a cry for help before with that thing. Yeah, here's another quote from him. If I had had someone to talk to, I wouldn't have committed murder. It's a direct quote from Victory.

Yeah, well we had talked about that, which just my head almost hurt a little to me.

Is definitely pointing to the hospital with only releasing him with in two months, like are you insane?

Well, and it doesn't really sound like they helped him much there, like he needed like a counselor and stuff.

And like, well, and he tried to talk about it and they're just like, no, it's in your head. And he realized that the more he talked about it, the longer he'd be there to avail.

Like it's just is he still alive. Are we getting there?

We're getting there.

I'm getting there, okay. Sorry.

So after this, when he was convicted, he was immediately placed in hospital and he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was found not guilty of his crimes by reason of insanity okay. In February of nineteen sixty eight. He was placed in custody of physicians, where he spent his time in an Ontario based institution until December two thousand and one, when he was granted supervised access to select towns in Ontario.

Wow.

And the hospital was only required to inform the local police of Victor's police So there's only the police they had to talk to you, like, oh, by the way, he's going out today, That's all they had to do. This is very reminiscent of the story the beheading on the Greyhound bus.

Well, he Victor didn't go and change his name. Well Victor for some reason, I feel worse for Victor.

Victor were telling it from his perspective is probably why. Maybe, but Victor never really got released. It was like day passes, right, Victor got okay, So let me.

Write that I need to say, like I still feel bad as shit for that other family. It's awful.

Yeah, what happened to them? Like whole So yeah, when he was he was granted supervised access to select towns, so it wasn't.

Even oh okay and even never like a loan and stuff.

No, so that did like stir up controversy, and I mean rightfully. So, yeah, we have this he did.

He destroyed a family.

Yeah, they have this mass murderer just the day passes one, two, three, four, five, Uh, a little more than that. We're going to get to the exact number and names here in a moment. So Victor did actually end up passing away in custody on May twenty first of two thousand and four. Okay, and the victims of the massacre are James Peterson, age forty seven. They all have the last name Peterson, so I'll just

Okay, so like nine people lost their lives, but it was a family of ten.

It was actually a family of eleven. The Peterson's oldest daughter, Kathy Peterson Kathy Peterson Hill, who had actually been married. She was about twenty at the time, and she was living in British Columbia, a small logging town. Apparently very well might have been Prince George. I didn't look it up. So she moved back to the Peterson farm after this incident to take custody of her youngest sister and take care of the farm.

Really, yeah, so.

That's where Phillis grew up. And that is the case of the Shell Lake massacre.

I had no idea it was nine. That's insane.

Nine family members. I'm losing my voice a little bit right now. I think you are, Yeah, getting a little bit raspy.

You Okay, I'm good.

I just need something to drink.

You need some water, okay. Yeah. Honestly, just like when we were going through the case, I didn't I had no idea. I thought it was five or so.

No, it's nine in total. And he just executed them all wow in the.

Farmhouse nuts And did he ever like get better at all or no? Like I wonder like all his time that he spent in the facility, if he changed it all or how got the help he needed.

This is such an in depth story, especially when it comes to like his mental state. I'm sure that there's some information on that out there. I just I dug so deep already I didn't get into the aftermath on his state.

Well, it's good that he got because it's not the same as the Greyhound one because the Greyhound one, like was pretty much like a free man. He never really became a free man.

Well, yeah, that's for sure. But it's the part where it's similar in my perspective anyways, is he was granted these day passes where it's not really known to the public.

Even yeah, that he's out and about.

Yeah, so you have this person who committed such a horrendous crime just you know, shopping next to year at Walmart. So it's like, oh, the the watermelons ripe, I don't know, want me to pop a twenty two caliber in it and see if it is like fun?

Yeah, no kidding, you could just be making small talk with the Yeah, mass murder in the grocery store.

Holy shit. So that's where the similarities are. And I think the biggest issue lays with how hospitals really treat people and patients who have these disorders and issues, and.

Because by the sounds of it, this case could have been prevented.

Really Oh yeah, definitely, I definitely need water.

Okay, well, why don't we just wrap this up because Ben has some survival something just.

For context for everyone, because we are filming the first part and second part back to back, back to back, and all I had so far was a little glass of juice from from coal, which was delicious, but it was just it wasn't enough to keep my voice.

You have water, but we didn't. But anyway, that was awesome. It's cool that it's a two parter.

That's not awesome. That was a horrific case, would mean awesome.

Okay, awesome that like you, you did an awesome job. Well, thank you, well done. Oh the case was ship yeah it was, but you presented it well. It was a good listen, well done, thank you, and now you can go and have some water. I also want a piece of pie.

Oh we do have pie. We have pie, and then we can go to bed.

Yeah, there we go. Okay, thanks really listening and stay wicked