Shell Lake murders

Shell Lake murders
Victor Ernest Hoffman
Location	Shell Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada
Date	August 15, 1967
Weapons	.22-calibre Browning pump rifle
Deaths	9
Perpetrator	Victor Ernest Hoffman

The Shell Lake murders is the name of a single mass murder incident committed by Victor Ernest Hoffman (b. 1946, died May 21, 2004) in Shell Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada, during the early morning of August 15, 1967. Nine people, all members of James Peterson's family, were shot in the head by a man who was later called "Canada's worst random mass murderer".

Victor Hoffman was 21 years old at the time and had been released from a mental hospital just three weeks before the murders. On the morning of August 15 he entered the Petersons' farm armed with a .22-calibre Browning pump-action repeater rifle. He then proceeded to shoot all but one of the members of the Peterson family, seven of them children, at close range around the four-room house. According to police 28 shots were fired in total, of which 27 found their target.

Mr. Peterson was shot in the kitchen, while his wife Evelyn and her one-year-old baby were found in the backyard. The other six children were shot while sleeping in their bedrooms. Their ages ranged from 2 to 17 years old. Phyllis Peterson, then 4 years old, was the lone survivor of the massacre. She was sleeping under the bedclothes between her two sisters and thus was not noticed by Hoffman. However, Hoffman later declared that he spared her because "she had the face of an angel."

The bodies were found by Wildrew Lang who was to help Mr. Peterson with farm duties later that morning. He had to travel 6 km (3.7 mi) to the next telephone post before he could report the incident to the police. The police immediately started an extensive manhunt on the surroundings of the house.

On August 19, 1967, Hoffman was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police without putting up resistance. He was found at his parents' home in Leask, about 65 km (40 mi) southwest of Shell Lake. After his arrest he told the police that he had fought the devil before the murders and described him as being "tall, black and having no genitals." He was remanded to a mental hospital in North Battleford where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.