Every Town - The Most Insane Robbery Ever! BUT Did He Act Alone? - Brian Wells Case

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Every once in a while, the world bears witness to a crime so strange, it’s hard to believe it actually happened in real life. And back in 2003 there was one that happened in Pennsylvania, that was all caught on camera which created a media sensation... 🎃 Exclusive Content & Perks: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 🎧 Podcast - Every Town: https://everytown.buzzsprout.com 🎧 Podcast - Scary Mysteries: https://scarymysteries.buzzsprout.com 💀 Follow Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg 👁 Follow Our TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald 💥 Follow Our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial 🗣 Business Inquiries: [e-mail] DISCLAIMER: All materials in these videos are used for entertainment purposes and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. If you are, or represent, the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have an issue with the use of said material, please send us an email at [e-mail] Copyright © 2023 ScaryMysteries. All rights reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between. With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime. Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Every town has a dark side. Just going by the numbers, if you're a regular person who doesn't want to be killed by a crazed individual, and your best bet would be to live somewhere far away from anywhere with a dense population. A city, for example, like L.A., Chicago, or New York, and as millions of people is naturally going to have a higher homicide rate than, say, Danbury, New Hampshire, or Casper, Wyoming. There's just less people. so less of a chance of things going off the rails.

And if you really want to play the odds in your favor, then you'd move to a place like Shell Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada, where only a few hundred people call home. However, there are always exceptions to the rules. In 1967, about 5% of Shell Lake's population was killed in one single night, murdered by a crazed individual who decided it was his duty to take out an entire family. family. The details of this case are truly shocking. Hey guys, it's Andrew, and welcome back to another episode of Everytown. Thank you so much for

tuning in today. It means a lot. Today's episode was suggested by one of our listeners, so I want to thank you for bringing this case to my attention because I had never heard of it before. But it was dubbed by the media as Canada's most random mass killing. It's a very strange and unfortunate true crime case that you guys should all know about. So let's get right into it. Head over to Shell Lake in Saskatchewan and learn all about Victor Ernest Hoffman, the Peterson family, and the Shell Lake murders.

To set the stage, Shell Lake is a small village that's located basically smack dab in the middle of Saskatchewan, Canada. Despite its name, it's not located on Shell Lake, but it does sit very close to Memorial Lake and the regional park that surrounds it. The town itself is a rural place, the population fluctuating between just a handful of people over the years. In 1980, for example, 220 people called Shell Lake, their permanent home.

Well, in 2021, just 189 people live there. The land here is pristine and mostly used for farming. There's a golf course that some people get out on when the weather's nice. In the summer, there's a bit of an influx of tortuous. looking to get away to beautiful Canada for some relaxation among the various campsites where they can go hiking, boating, or fishing. For the most part, though, the people that live here are hardworking folks. The type of people that tend to keep to themselves. You'll find farmers, mechanics, and carpenters.

Shell Lake is generally a very quiet spot that doesn't get too much attention, and that's how the community there likes it. However, things changed in Shell Lake in the summer. of 1967, when a spotlight glared down on this town that people there still feel today. Because it was in August of that year that Canada's most brutal random mass murder occurred at the small farm home owned by the Peterson's. The Peterson family was pretty big, especially for a home that only had five rooms in it. There was 47-year-old James who was a war veteran and his wife, 42-year-old Evelyn. They had nine children in total ranging between. one and a half to 19 years old.

They all live there at home, sharing rooms and even beds, except for Kathy, the oldest child, who in that year had recently moved out to go live with her new husband over in British Columbia. They were a hard-working brood, with the kids all chipping in where they could, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the animals on the property. With so many people in that tight space,

it required everyone to do their part to keep the insanity in check. Out front and in the back, chickens pecked around, providing eggs and poultry for the Peterson's. Also in the back, the pigs were kept in a large pen. They also had a dog, a black mongrel with white spots that everyone loved. Her family was tight-knit, no doubt. Never bothered anyone or caused any issues. They were just up there doing their own thing the way God intended. That was it for them, just hard-working people making their way.

but just because you might mind your own business, well, that doesn't mean you're necessarily safe from people who want to get involved with yours. It doesn't keep you safe from ill-willed individuals, like a man named Victor Hoffman. The person who definitely belonged in a mental institution, but was recently let out. See, Victor had been having chats with the devil, not figuratively. He thought he was speaking directly to Satan, and so, unfortunately, that summer, The isolated farmhouse that kept the Peterson's protected from the bad men out there. For no real rhyme or reason, got a target on its back. Back in 67, Victor Hoffman was just 21 years old.

He was living with his parents in Leesk, which was about 40 miles away from where the Peterson's lived. In late July, he'd been released from a mental institution. He was being housed in for having some issues. But back in the 60s, they didn't know exactly what was wrong with him. One day he'd be acting weird, the next he'd seem fine. You have to remember that back then, the grasp that doctors had about things like what exactly paranoid schizophrenia was, was minimal. The idea of understanding mental health issues was just starting.

Treating them was a whole other story. And in fact, today, we still don't know the exact causes of a lot of mental illnesses, including paranoid schizophrenia, which Hoffman was later evaluated to have suffered from, So we just do our best in helping those where we can, but it's far from an exact science, simply because everybody is so different. Why he was released is not entirely clear. Apparently, he had been having hallucinations about devils and angels since he was six years old. By the age of 10 had shown an impulse to kill.

So likely what happened in Victor when he was let out is what a lot of people experienced back then. Victor was probably admitted for having some of the same types of episodes. seeing and talking to people who weren't there. And after a few days of some tranquilizers, which allowed for some relatively normal behavior from them, the doctors decided it was best for the young man to go home to his family and get some fresh air. But Victor was far from cured, ma'am.

What he had wasn't something that a walk along a trail in the summer evening could cure. Back in Leesk, Victor was struggling to keep it together, to say the least. His reality, it was not how normal people, people perceive it. His life was dark. It's so dark, in fact, it had him conversing with the devil himself, who ultimately had convinced Victor that the only way to rid him of his terrible affliction was to do something horrible. That's why three weeks after he'd been released from the hospital, Victor paid a visit to the Peterson farm. He didn't know them at all, but after he was done, their names, Victor Hoffman and the Peterson's, would forever be intertwined.

On the early morning of August 15th, while it was still dark out, Victor went out to his family's car, got in, started driving. He was searching for his target. He didn't have a map. There was no final destination or grand plan. Just a series of random lefts and rights he chose that led him, that small farmhouse and Shell Lake. And there, under the moonlight, when he saw it, it called out to him. This was where he was going to wreak havoc. On with a 22-caliber, browning pump-action rifle. He climbed the rickety steps at the front porch. And seeing as the Peterson's never had any strange visitors or fear of being harmed by anyone, really,

the door was unlocked, and so Victor stepped inside as if he had been invited. In terms of the exact order, with how it all played out inside, it's hard to know for sure. And given Victor's state of mind, his stories often varied. bit in details. But by the time he was done with the Peterson's, 28 shots were fired within four of the rooms, 27 of which hit their targets. It's believed he opened the first bedroom door closest to the front, where three of the children slept, and this is likely where it all started. One of those kids has hit three times in the head and never even moved a muscle. Never woke up, and so that's believed to be the first. With the loud bangs likely waking up James,

He opened up his door and charged at Victor as his instincts to protect his children kicked in. The two fought for a bit, but he was ultimately gunned down in the kitchen, ending up being shot 11 times. Victor then finished off, room one, and then opened the next door where he began firing again. By this time in the chaos, Mom Evelyn had grabbed her one-year-old Larry, whose crib was next to her bed and tried to escape out the window. But the two of them wouldn't be.

make it very far. In the end, seven children, as well as both of their parents, would be dead. Those killed were James, Evelyn, 17-year-old Jean, 13-year-old Mary, 11-year-old Dorothy, 9-year-old Pearl, 5-year-old William, 2-year-old Colin, and 1-year-old Larry. 4-year-old Phyllis was also in the house, though miraculously she was unharmed. She had been in the bed with one of her sisters and brother, but managed to hide under the sheets and some clothes, so Victor never even noticed her. Victor didn't stay long in the house. The whole scene from start to finish probably only lasted a few minutes. After his job was done, the young man just left.

The sun came up the following morning. Will Drew Lang, who was good friends with the Peterson family, headed over to their house to help out with some farm work that needed tending to. Of course, though, when he got there, the first thing he saw was his friend James lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. He was greeted them by the rest of the horrifying scene, which was unlike anything that community had ever come across before or since. And to travel about four miles to the nearest phone to let the police know, since he had walked over there, he grabbed the Peterson's car keys and made his way. Authorities immediately came in and began their manhunt for whoever was responsible. This was no ordinary crime scene but an act of pure evil and hatred.

And the fact that this person was somewhere on the streets of this quiet community made everyone feel uneasy and sad, so answers needed to come swiftly. Inspector Brian Sawyer was in charge of the investigation from the jump. And any officer within a 50-mile radius was there to help out, not to mention, up to 250 people, ready to just start combing the area until they found them. While Sawyer spoke with a shocked Phyllis, she didn't have much to say in terms of who came into the home that night as she was hiding the entire time. In fact, as far as they could tell, she may have slept through the entire ordeal. Although, it's more likely that her young mine blocked out the entire experience just in order to help preserve its sanity.

Luckily for her, Phyllis' uncle lived nearby, and so she at least had family that she could stay with. Meanwhile, Kathy got the disturbing call from police informing her about what had happened to her family. Without hesitation, she made her way back home to try to make sense of what had occurred, and also to help take care of her little sister. The house was then blocked off to anyone other than the police. According to authorities, other than the massacre itself, the place seemed untouched. Clearly, this wasn't any sort of robbery gone wrong. The house looked, as it always did,

with clothes still hanging up outside on the lines. Kids bicycles, leaning up against the front porch. Whoever did this just went in to kill, and that was it. Peterson's dog sat sullen as the authorities ascended onto the property. He just laid his head on the porch, knowing his entire family was gone. All the bodies were not abused in any way. They had just all been shot. Most of them had signs of powder burns, meaning they had been shot up close.

It makes sense, as again this house was pretty tight quarters for such a large family. This would also explain why 27 of the 28 shots Victor fired hit their marks. The RCMP set of roadblocks and brought out their sniffer dogs to search the nearby brush. That's actually when they were alerted to the bodies of Evelyn and her baby, outside in the back with Evelyn still holding her youngest son in her arms. Police found five spent cartridge casing strown around the floor, but other than that, it was a mystery as to who would commit such a violent act and to such a nice family. But in a small town like Shell Lake, it's hard to keep a secret too long because everyone knows everyone else's business.

And they know who might be acting a little strange, or perhaps, was recently released from a mental institution. The coroner, who prepared the bodies for burial, said that likely it was around 2 a.m. when the tragedy unfolded that morning, which meant the police didn't really get access to the house until eight hours later, which meant their roadblocks were likely not going to catch anyone unless they were on foot. A day after the killings, police managed to find a discarded 22-caliber Belgian-Browning rifle, which they identified to be the murder weapon. Four days after the killing, on a Saturday, the family was late. laid to rest at a local cemetery.

Later on that day, police would go knocking on Victor's parents' door in Leask. In total, there were around 75 officers working long hours on this case in search of the killer or killers. And they literally worked tirelessly, some going 36 hours without even a break. While all the details of the investigation itself have never fully been revealed, Inspector Sawyer explained, The arrest was the culmination of a very casual conversation that one of our members had with an individual and we decided it would be wise to check the Hoffman residence. At the house, Victor didn't put up much of a fight with the police.

He was pretty cordial, in fact, and didn't seem worried at all that he was being arrested. Which would make sense if you thought that the devil made you do it, in which case you really didn't have a choice. That's what he told authorities down at the station. He actually fought Satan himself, who he described as being tall and black without any genitals. Victor lost that battle, and so he had to go to the farmhouse. When asked about leaving behind and sparing the life of little four-year-old Phyllis,

he said that he let her live because she had the face of an angel. Although, it's well-believed by police he simply didn't know she was there. Victor was then remanded to a mental hospital in North Battleford, and it was here that he was finally and officially diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He would end up going to trial where prosecutor Sergei Kajawa called Hoffman, the craziest man in Saskatchewan. Ultimately, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and he would then spend most of the remainder of his life bouncing around to a few different mental health facilities. While spending most of his time at an Ontario-based institution. In 2001 at the age of 56, Victor was granted supervised

access to the towns of Port McNichael and Midland in Ontario. The hospital was only required to let the authorities know about this, and so you can imagine that when the people in town caught wind that Victor was out and about in their restaurants and shops, they were pretty angry. Hoffman never showed any remorse for what he had done. He was quite indifferent to the fact that he took those nine innocent lives and completely destroyed an entire family. Without the rest of his life, he continued to talk about his meetings with the devil, something that no matter what he did, he just couldn't get rid of. On May 2nd of 2004 at the age of 60, he passed away due to cancer, and so while he may have got rid of the devil in this life, he may have met him again and the next.

And Kathy has come to peace with what happened, as much as she has been. As much as she has been, she can. In interviews, she's mentioned how life goes on and it's just something you have to live with. Phyllis, however, seemed to struggle a bit more with it all. She will never know what a normal life is, and for that, among many other things, hold some resentment. She remembers that night hearing her dad fighting with Victor. She also has a clear memory of being carried out of the house by a police officer that was crying, and she knew then that something terrible had happened. Ultimately, both sisters feel that the biggest problem with the entire situation is the lack of accountability on those dealing with dangerous mental health patients. According to Kathy, not much has changed in the past 50 years.

And they knew back then that Victor had dark fantasies. They gave him electroshock therapy and pills, but it did nothing. In the end, they just let him be with his parents. Julie went on to say, For the most part, I'm frustrated with the system that doesn't seem to recognize that these people need help until it's too late to do anything about it. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown.

Hope you enjoyed it. Go check out this episode in video form over on our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. And for more podcasts from us, check out our Scary Mysteries podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. I'm going to come back next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because you never know.

Maybe your town will be next.