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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder the most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them, Gasey Bundy, Dalhmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 6: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 6: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 6: journalist and author Dan.
Speaker 7: Zufanski, Good Evening. It was a crime on leath, unlike
Speaker 7: anything seen in British Columbia. The horror of the Wells
Speaker 7: Gray murders, almost forty years ago transcends decades. On August second,
Speaker 7: nineteen eighty two, three generations of a family set out
Speaker 7: on a camping trip, Bob and Jackie Johnson, their two daughters,
Speaker 7: Janet thirteen and Karen eleven, and Jackie's parents, George and
Speaker 7: Edith Bentley. A month later, the Johnson family car was
Speaker 7: found off a mountain side logging road near Wells Gray Park,
Speaker 7: completely burned out. In the back seat where the incinerated
Speaker 7: remains of four adults and in the trunk were the
Speaker 7: two girls. But this was not just your average mass murder.
Speaker 7: It was much worse. Over time, some brutal details were revealed, however,
Speaker 7: most are still only known to the murderer, David Ennis,
Speaker 7: formerly Shearing his crimes had far reaching impacts on the family,
Speaker 7: community and country. It still does today. Every time Shearing
Speaker 7: attempts freedom from the parole board, the grief is triggered
Speaker 7: as everyone is forced to relive the horrors once again.
Speaker 7: Time six shines a spotlight on the crime that captured
Speaker 7: the attention of a nation, recounts the narrative of a
Speaker 7: complex police investigation, and discusses whether a convicted mass murderer
Speaker 7: should ever be allowed to leave the confines of an institution.
Speaker 7: Most importantly, it tells the story of one family forever changed.
Speaker 7: The book that we're featuring this evening is Murder Time six,
Speaker 7: The True story of the Wells Gray Park murders, with
Speaker 7: my special guest, journalists, author and radio host Alan R. Warren.
Speaker 7: Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much
Speaker 7: for this interview. Alan R.
Speaker 5: Warren, Well, thanks for having me. It's always good to
Speaker 5: talk to you.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much for this congratulations on this new book,
Speaker 7: Murder Time six. Tell us how you came to want
Speaker 7: to write Murder Time six.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I get asked that sort of question
Speaker 5: all the time I was in Colowna. It's a town
Speaker 5: in British Columbia, UH in the interior, and I have
Speaker 5: a place here, and so I was up here for
Speaker 5: UH near Christmas time, and there's a hair salon in
Speaker 5: town that always buys my books, and I had a
Speaker 5: couple of new ones. So I dropped by, uh just
Speaker 5: before and and UH to give them some of my books.
Speaker 5: There's three three different girls there that that buy them.
Speaker 5: And the owner came up to me and asked me, UH,
Speaker 5: why I have never written about this h sharing case,
Speaker 5: the Wells Gray Murders. And I said, well, you know,
Speaker 5: I've never heard of it, not being from Kelowna originally.
Speaker 5: And she kind of explained some of it and some
Speaker 5: of the details and uh, and that that there was
Speaker 5: an aquatics center in the western side of the city
Speaker 5: that was dedicated to the family and to the and
Speaker 5: and so I thought, wow, this is jeez. So when
Speaker 5: I went home, I kind of looked it up and
Speaker 5: kind of put her to side. And you know, I
Speaker 5: always have four or five stories going at a time,
Speaker 5: and so when I located family members, I sent them,
Speaker 5: you know, letters or emails and stuff, and just to
Speaker 5: see what they thought about a book being written and
Speaker 5: if they would be interested and if they wanted to
Speaker 5: be involved, and the response was really good. It seemed
Speaker 5: like everybody was on board. And so with such a
Speaker 5: positive sort of feedback, I thought, well, it's let's start
Speaker 5: on this. And that's that's how it all started.
Speaker 7: Now take us back and to Bob Johnson, forty four
Speaker 7: year old man and his wife Jackie forty one years old,
Speaker 7: and they had two daughters, Janet which was thirteen, and
Speaker 7: Karen eleven, and they had planned to go to Jazzer
Speaker 7: National Park in Alberta with Dockie's parents, George and Edith Bentley,
Speaker 7: and George was sixty six years old and Edith Bentley
Speaker 7: was fifty nine years old, and Georgia just retired from
Speaker 7: his job in the lumber mill and bought a brand
Speaker 7: new heavy duty nineteen eighty one silver Ford pickup truck
Speaker 7: with a ten foot vanguard over the cab camper and
Speaker 7: hung an outdoor motor on the back. Tell us about
Speaker 7: this family trip and where they were eventually going. We
Speaker 7: mentioned Jasper National Park, but tell us where this trip
Speaker 7: camping trip took them to, and tell us a little
Speaker 7: bit more about the Johnson and Bentley families.
Speaker 5: Well, the Johnson's lived in West Colowna and back then
Speaker 5: and it was just a small town outside of Kelowna,
Speaker 5: just called West Bank, so it wasn't part of the city.
Speaker 5: As the family used to do everything outdoors, you know, camping, fishing, snowboarding,
Speaker 5: snow everything, just any chance to get away they could
Speaker 5: and where they lived, you know, especially back then, you
Speaker 5: drove for ten to fifteen minutes you were in the woods.
Speaker 5: So that's kind of them. And the father worked at
Speaker 5: Gorman Mills, which he had been at for quite a
Speaker 5: while and had a really good reputation. The two daughters
Speaker 5: were in school and they in their house. They had
Speaker 5: his parents living downstairs. They're helping to take care of them,
Speaker 5: and yeah, so this trip was really kind of the
Speaker 5: summer vacation. Take two weeks off and go up to
Speaker 5: the park and go fishing and spend time together. And
Speaker 5: they loved doing that. Wells Gray Park is a very
Speaker 5: popular park in the interior, but they sort of were
Speaker 5: more to themselves and they weren't at big into going
Speaker 5: right into the main park campsite and hanging out with everybody.
Speaker 5: They would go kind of to the outskirts. They would
Speaker 5: looked for kind of a quieter, more private place and
Speaker 5: that's what they did. So they went and found that,
Speaker 5: and initially there were going to be more members of
Speaker 5: the family going. They were going to kind of meet
Speaker 5: up in the Jasper area and then go to Wells
Speaker 5: Gray from there, but a couple of the other family
Speaker 5: members decided they had some other things to do and
Speaker 5: there was something that kind of a wedding of a
Speaker 5: friend that they thought they'd go to, so a lot
Speaker 5: of them went their own direction, so it was just
Speaker 5: the six members of this family.
Speaker 7: Now this Wells Gray Park. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 7: about how big this park is and the kind of
Speaker 7: park it really is. And you mentioned that they really
Speaker 7: wanted the family to get away from popular I guess
Speaker 7: capping sites, so they picked Gray'swell Park for that reason
Speaker 7: as well. But tell us a little bit more about
Speaker 7: the park itself.
Speaker 5: Well, the park is it's it's a really popular park,
Speaker 5: especially back then it was kind of the place to
Speaker 5: go in the interior of BC. So you know, you're
Speaker 5: you're kind of between Vancouver and Calgary, the two big cities.
Speaker 5: You're a good couple hundred miles away from either one.
Speaker 5: So it's a really good location and great weather, lots
Speaker 5: of wildlife, fishing and just everything you could think of
Speaker 5: was there. So if if I think it's the third
Speaker 5: largest park in Canada, if I remember right, so, so
Speaker 5: very very big park, very nice, beautiful area. And that
Speaker 5: was sort of their idea. And you know, like I said,
Speaker 5: instead of being in the center of the park, Uh,
Speaker 5: they kind of went out and looked for just any
Speaker 5: place that that was flatten available to camp. And that's
Speaker 5: sort of what they found. They found a nice secluded
Speaker 5: place close to the fishing, close to the river, and
Speaker 5: it was near an old abandoned prison site that was
Speaker 5: in the park. It had been closed down and most
Speaker 5: of it had fallen apart. There wasn't a whole lot
Speaker 5: left of it. But it was a really good flat
Speaker 5: ground area. So they could set the grandparents camp rup
Speaker 5: and on flat ground and set up the tent and everything,
Speaker 5: and it was you know, do have a big bonfire
Speaker 5: and it was a perfect place.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about the Johnson family, they had packed
Speaker 7: up all of their belongings in their nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 7: Plymouth caravel with a cartop carrier and they had left
Speaker 7: on August second, nineteen eighty two. The Bentleys had checked
Speaker 7: into a campsite two hundred and fifty miles northwest of Calgary,
Speaker 7: like you had mentioned, August eighth, and then the Johnson's
Speaker 7: arrived at August eleventh, and after that they all headed
Speaker 7: to Wells Gray Park, grandparents, the parents, and the two
Speaker 7: girls Janet and Karen. Now they got to that park
Speaker 7: August eleventh. And when they got there, like you mentioned,
Speaker 7: they found a secluded spot. So from everything, as you
Speaker 7: write in the book, what happened once they got there.
Speaker 7: They had the ten sleeping bags, the camper, the adults
Speaker 7: were going to be in sleeping in the camper. Tell
Speaker 7: us what they did. And you talk about the grandmother
Speaker 7: wanting to make her favorite dish or favorite pie. Pardon me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, the family liked to spend a lot of
Speaker 5: time fishing and you know, doing a campfire. It was
Speaker 5: just really a time to spend together and you know,
Speaker 5: talk about their lives and they're a very close family
Speaker 5: that way. So so really it was that's what it
Speaker 5: was about. It was very warm, it wasn't out. It
Speaker 5: was a good time of the year to be there.
Speaker 5: And as far the grandmother, yeah, so they would go
Speaker 5: out picking berries because she loved to make pies. For everybody,
Speaker 5: and so that was kind of the key thing for them.
Speaker 5: So they're going to pick berries and no no real agenda,
Speaker 5: no real time frame. I think they kind of like
Speaker 5: to get lost in, uh, just just being away from
Speaker 5: home and work and just kind of, you know, just
Speaker 5: in that atmosphere of of being a family and being
Speaker 5: together and camping and just enjoying each other and sitting
Speaker 5: around talking about things and things like that. It wasn't,
Speaker 5: like I said, there was no big strip, you know,
Speaker 5: just pick huckleberries and things like that.
Speaker 7: You talk about that they had an uneventful like you mentioned,
Speaker 7: a night they set up quite easily. There wasn't much
Speaker 7: to do. The girls set up the tent, They had
Speaker 7: a night around the campfire. The next day, the girls
Speaker 7: ran in the woods and explored likely swam there in
Speaker 7: their bathing suits. It's caught a small fish, he said.
Speaker 7: And so everybody was having a great time. And this,
Speaker 7: you know, Bob was just newly our pardon me, the
Speaker 7: grandfather was just newly retired. So the thing is is
Speaker 7: that they had another great day, but uneventful in terms
Speaker 7: of anybody coming around and seeing anybody, any intruders or
Speaker 7: any visitors, whatsoever, not even roasted some marshmallows. So we'll
Speaker 7: say about the third night that they are there, what happens.
Speaker 7: As you read in the book, the girls are in
Speaker 7: the tent, and just from their perspective, what happens one
Speaker 7: night again when they're ready to go to bed. It's
Speaker 7: a little bit later, what happens.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was. It's kind of I played with the
Speaker 5: dates a little because talking to the killer and looking
Speaker 5: at the police reports and the family and kind of
Speaker 5: going through everything, I got a few different dates from
Speaker 5: from everybody, so I kind of put it as as
Speaker 5: second or third day. I was kind of loose on that.
Speaker 5: Apparently what had happened was the killer had watched family
Speaker 5: for at least one night, and in his mind he
Speaker 5: wanted to be with the two girls, the two young girls,
Speaker 5: and so he would have to eliminate the four adults,
Speaker 5: and so I guess he came up with a plan
Speaker 5: in his own mind of how he was going to
Speaker 5: do that. And on the night you were talking, Yeah,
Speaker 5: the kids got put the bed in their tent and
Speaker 5: the four adults were sitting around the campfire having a beer.
Speaker 5: I believe one was standing and the killer sharing he
Speaker 5: came out and shot the adults. Basically, I kind of
Speaker 5: explain how it happened and how he shot all four
Speaker 5: adults and with the father. The father he had shot
Speaker 5: in the neck first, and he was still alive and
Speaker 5: bleeding and was laying out on the ground. So he
Speaker 5: killed the other three adults, and then he went to
Speaker 5: the tent and what he did with the girls in
Speaker 5: the tent is still we don't know for sure, because
Speaker 5: he gave me a different story than he gave the police,
Speaker 5: who there was a lot of you know. Either way,
Speaker 5: he went into the tent, he spent time with them,
Speaker 5: and then when he came out with the girls, he
Speaker 5: was going to take them back to his place. He
Speaker 5: could see the father was making noise and still alive,
Speaker 5: so he shot him in the head and that's right
Speaker 5: in front of the girls. And so anyway, he took
Speaker 5: the girls back to his place, and before he did,
Speaker 5: he did put the adults in the back of the
Speaker 5: car at that time, and then he said he put
Speaker 5: the two girls in the front seat with him and
Speaker 5: drove back to his place. And again that's a questionable
Speaker 5: thing as well.
Speaker 7: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop for these messages.
Speaker 7: Now you talked about this because this is a very important.
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Speaker 7: Part of this story. Even though we've kind of stopped
Speaker 7: it and tried to explain it. In that David Ennis
Speaker 7: Well former Sharing, we'll call him David Sharing, he talked
Speaker 7: about coming up to the campsite after he had observed
Speaker 7: the girls the night before. He had seen them originally
Speaker 7: supposedly and spotted the whole family coming home from work
Speaker 7: one day, then did this surveillance of them. Then he
Speaker 7: thought maybe he might have been heard or something, so
Speaker 7: he came back. But what he did is he said,
Speaker 7: he came there, one of the women stood up, likely
Speaker 7: Jackie Johnson, and he said, listen, I've got a gun.
Speaker 7: Don't move, and he shot her. Then Bob Johnson seemed
Speaker 7: it looked like younger man, he said, stood up and
Speaker 7: he shot him. And then you what's interesting is that
Speaker 7: the original story we haven't even got to anything yet,
Speaker 7: but the original story of when all is said and
Speaker 7: done is much different than the story we just told
Speaker 7: about how he shot the parents and the grandparents and
Speaker 7: then went in and likely sexually assaulted these girls and
Speaker 7: then later they were killed. So we have a different
Speaker 7: story than the one that comes up at his trial
Speaker 7: and then later comes up according to a detective east Ham.
Speaker 7: So let's go back to what happens right after this
Speaker 7: murderous rampage of at least four people. What happens well
Speaker 7: with work and with Bob Johnson. This is August the
Speaker 7: twenty third.
Speaker 5: Right, So they had not showed up back home, and
Speaker 5: Bob Johnson had not showed up at work. So you know,
Speaker 5: the boss, who happened to be a really good friend,
Speaker 5: was a little bit concerned because that never happens, you know,
Speaker 5: And so he called home and nobody knew anything, and
Speaker 5: he started searching around, and so he called the Cologna
Speaker 5: police detachment and informed them about what was going on.
Speaker 5: And so eventually they realized that the family had not
Speaker 5: come back, there was nobody home, and something was gone,
Speaker 5: you know, gone wrong. Initially, in their minds, I think
Speaker 5: they were thinking, you know, they got broke down, something
Speaker 5: happened in that way, or they weren't thinking, of course,
Speaker 5: what had happened. That wasn't on their minds. It wasn't
Speaker 5: on anybody's minds initially, and so that's how that went.
Speaker 5: And then eventually they caught on and realized that there
Speaker 5: was something a little more going on. So it became
Speaker 5: concerning and the police got involved and they set up
Speaker 5: and they started doing their you know, some basic search
Speaker 5: in the parks and things like that for the family
Speaker 5: to see who had signed in and where and when
Speaker 5: and try to locate where they were. And that's how
Speaker 5: that went. Yeah, so I think that's the best I
Speaker 5: can say about that.
Speaker 7: The first tip you write is from a local gas
Speaker 7: station near clear Water, and then an attendant there had
Speaker 7: seen the grandparents traveling with their two grandchildren and they
Speaker 7: had asked if he knew of a good spot to
Speaker 7: pick these huckleberries, which was the grandmother's favorite. That led
Speaker 7: police onto a search, including help like you had mentioned
Speaker 7: from the community, including private planes as well, and this
Speaker 7: search went on for weeks. On September thirteenth, you write,
Speaker 7: this is still nineteen eighty two. A man, Kurt Crack
Speaker 7: remembers seeing the Johnson vehicle when he was out picking
Speaker 7: mushrooms in the park in late August, and for some reason,
Speaker 7: he doesn't report it till September thirteenth. I think because
Speaker 7: he just wasn't available for him too, or he saw
Speaker 7: the report on the news later for whatever reason. It's
Speaker 7: now September thirteenth, and he said he saw a burnt
Speaker 7: out Chrysler in the woods just off battle Mount Road.
Speaker 7: So the person that had been contacted is Sergeant Veruda.
Speaker 7: He heads to the location. Now this is an old
Speaker 7: horseback riding trail and they find tire marks. What do
Speaker 7: they find.
Speaker 5: This?
Speaker 7: What is this car? And is it the car that
Speaker 7: police are looking for?
Speaker 5: Think initially when they saw the tire tracks going off
Speaker 5: the road and Baruda got there, I guess, I guess
Speaker 5: the initial thing was that he just saw an outline
Speaker 5: of what looked like a burnt out car. And even
Speaker 5: some of the police reports, the comments were that the
Speaker 5: first thought was just it was a rusted, old, abandoned car.
Speaker 5: But he could see the license plate and read the numbers,
Speaker 5: and that's kind of when they when when they connected
Speaker 5: it that this was it, This was the car that
Speaker 5: was missing. This is the Johnson, Bob Johnson and his
Speaker 5: wife's car. So they roped it off immediately, and then
Speaker 5: they got a hold of Easton, who's then Kamloops. Baruta
Speaker 5: was a Clearwater r c MP. And then what they did,
Speaker 5: you know, and Easton was in charge of kind of
Speaker 5: the serious crime unit, so murders and and things like that.
Speaker 5: So when they got a hold of him, they said, well,
Speaker 5: we found that we filmed the Johnson car and uh,
Speaker 5: you better get out here. And so that was it.
Speaker 5: So of course they got their unit together and headed
Speaker 5: out to find out what was this was all about?
Speaker 5: What what evidence they could find in the car and
Speaker 5: around the car.
Speaker 7: So they looked in the back initially, and they didn't
Speaker 7: know how many bodies were in the back. They couldn't
Speaker 7: recognize how many were there were bone fragments. So when
Speaker 7: Eastham comes he takes a look, he doesn't know either,
Speaker 7: but there's a key or a key key ring in
Speaker 7: the trunk tell us. Eventually how many bodies they found
Speaker 7: were determined were Uh, we're established that they were in
Speaker 7: the back seat and what did they find in the trunk?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Initially Baruda and his team first knew there were
Speaker 5: bodies or they had no idea how many or what
Speaker 5: was going on. So when Easton and the other team
Speaker 5: showed up again, it was questionable. They didn't know how
Speaker 5: many people because it was all burnt out. The key
Speaker 5: ring and the key the back part where you would
Speaker 5: put the key in of the trunk to open it
Speaker 5: was busted, so he had to pry it open with
Speaker 5: a crowbar, and inside of that he found what they
Speaker 5: thought were probably two bodies, maybe one. It was questionable immediately,
Speaker 5: but you know, once the skulls came together, they knew
Speaker 5: there was two in the back. They were also very small,
Speaker 5: and so they figured the two in the back with
Speaker 5: the children. Now this is important because then the assumption
Speaker 5: was that the two in the back seat were Bob
Speaker 5: Johnson and Jackie. And so at that point, the grandparents
Speaker 5: were still missing. The camper which belonged to the grandparents
Speaker 5: was not around, or the bolt or the mortar and
Speaker 5: the whole thing. So at this point they thought, okay,
Speaker 5: we've got four bodies and we have to put a
Speaker 5: lookout for the grandparents and the camper. So that was
Speaker 5: kind of what it was at that point.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And it was interesting and very very vivid description
Speaker 7: in the book as well, and very cinematic in terms
Speaker 7: of when Eastam tried to open the trunk with a crowbar,
Speaker 7: the girl's skulls were looking at them. One was shot
Speaker 7: in the back of the head, very much like the
Speaker 7: parents were shot, but there was a hole just over
Speaker 7: the left eye, and they took the bullet from that skull,
Speaker 7: and at that point you write that didn't know what happened.
Speaker 7: Eventually they was confirmed that through dental records only. There
Speaker 7: was no DNA at that time, that all of the
Speaker 7: people in that car were all of the four adults
Speaker 7: and the two girls were in the back in the trunk.
Speaker 7: You right too, that the Johnson and Bentley families, the
Speaker 7: surviving families were forced into hiding as the media camped
Speaker 7: out in their yards and people had high hopes that
Speaker 7: they'd be found. Okay, they had a funeral service ten
Speaker 7: days after, but now there was the priority for police
Speaker 7: to try it. As you write, find the truck and camper.
Speaker 7: This nineteen eighty one very distinctive brand new truck with
Speaker 7: a ten and a half foot Vanguard camper. You provide
Speaker 7: a great photo in there, so they all is also
Speaker 7: carrying a lunium boat and an Evan Rude motor on
Speaker 7: top of the camper. So this is a distinctive looking vehicle.
Speaker 7: And so what did the police do? What do they
Speaker 7: what's their plan to try to get people and tips
Speaker 7: about this vehicle.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was to think of it. And remember it
Speaker 5: was in eighty one and this is eighty two, So
Speaker 5: to them, this is like a brand new truck and camper.
Speaker 5: So what they decided to do was get a duplicate
Speaker 5: as close to the exact same truck, camper and boat
Speaker 5: that the grandparents had, and they decided they would drive
Speaker 5: it across Canada from Vancouver to Montreal and further, and
Speaker 5: they would stop in each center with it and talk
Speaker 5: to people and hand out, you know, brochures and papers
Speaker 5: and try to get anybody to have a jog memory,
Speaker 5: to try and get them to kind of go, oh,
Speaker 5: I remember seeing this, or I saw them or something.
Speaker 5: They just want it, And plus they wanted to keep
Speaker 5: it in the spotlight, keep it in the news, because
Speaker 5: as with anything, things start to fade, right and it
Speaker 5: no longer gets talked about in the news, and people
Speaker 5: forget and it moves on, you know. So they wanted
Speaker 5: to keep the attention of Canada, and they wanted to
Speaker 5: keep attention of everybody in all these towns so that
Speaker 5: they might get some piece of information. They might hear
Speaker 5: something from someone that could lead them in the direction
Speaker 5: of of possibly where the camper went, because in their mind,
Speaker 5: whoever did the killing had taken off and they have
Speaker 5: at least the truck with them, if not the camper too,
Speaker 5: so they were searching for that.
Speaker 7: You're right as well.
Speaker 5: Though.
Speaker 7: The real reason why they decided to do something so
Speaker 7: dramatic like this is because they when they put out
Speaker 7: initially the first they got tips on the missing truck.
Speaker 7: Before they got hatched this idea about driving a replica
Speaker 7: across Canada, a BC resident called and said he saw
Speaker 7: two men get out of the truck at a gas
Speaker 7: station in the province of Saskatchewan, and it wasn't a
Speaker 7: family and they ended up in the same restaurant as
Speaker 7: he as he and they spoke French, and he described
Speaker 7: them as late twenties, long hair, and so anyway, sketches
Speaker 7: were made because they thought this was a reliable tip.
Speaker 7: So that is part of the reason why they went
Speaker 7: to the outlandish or dramatic effort to bring this truck
Speaker 7: across Canada, with the hopes of somebody spotting or remembering
Speaker 7: seeing this truck somewhere along the line in their travels
Speaker 7: across Canada. Isn't that correct?
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure. They added that as well, you know,
Speaker 5: hoping that maybe these two French speaking guys maybe would
Speaker 5: have sold the truck or the can or they'd you know,
Speaker 5: had some sort of interaction with a mechanic or something
Speaker 5: down the road. They were hoping there was that could
Speaker 5: jog a memory as well, But it was just the
Speaker 5: whole scenario, the whole site of a camper and truck
Speaker 5: coming into your town and had signed on it, and
Speaker 5: just the police talking to people. It was just they
Speaker 5: just wanted people to be talking about it.
Speaker 7: You're also right too that they received a lot of
Speaker 7: tips because of this novel idea about the truck, and
Speaker 7: they also got another really good tip, at least east
Speaker 7: him thought it was a great tip in Windsor, Ontario,
Speaker 7: where two men walked into a shop needed their truck painted,
Speaker 7: immediately hung around the shop while he painted it, and
Speaker 7: then they showed him a twenty two caliber rifle and
Speaker 7: a Saturday Night Special handgun and said they needed to
Speaker 7: get rid of the of the rifle and the truck
Speaker 7: had modifications done to the front and rear bumpers like
Speaker 7: apparently George Bentley had made similar modifications to his truck
Speaker 7: before the trip. The mechanics info looked good and Easton
Speaker 7: was called Detroit Homicide and was making his plans to
Speaker 7: go to Detroit when Sergeant Baruda from Clearwater detachment called him.
Speaker 7: What information did Sergeant Baruda have from the Clearwater detachment?
Speaker 7: What had happened?
Speaker 5: What was found? Well, a couple of forest rangers had
Speaker 5: came in and reported it that they had saw again
Speaker 5: another burnt out vehicle, and so when he checked the
Speaker 5: license plates of that, he realized it was the truck
Speaker 5: and probably the camper, but initially they weren't sure it
Speaker 5: was still burnt out, and so he called east of
Speaker 5: them and told them, this is it. You've got to
Speaker 5: come back. I think we found it. And Eastam couldn't
Speaker 5: believe it. He really thought he was on to the
Speaker 5: right right characters, and they certainly did sound like the
Speaker 5: people you would think would be involved in something like this.
Speaker 5: It just had too many parts that were connected and
Speaker 5: it found it right on, But it wasn't and you know,
Speaker 5: and it's true they received well over twelve hundred tips.
Speaker 5: I heard it was just over thirteen hundred from one
Speaker 5: of the police guys later that. And the thing is
Speaker 5: when they received these tips, people actually have to review
Speaker 5: them and make sure that they're good or no good.
Speaker 5: So it does take up a lot of resources and
Speaker 5: a lot of time to go through this. So I
Speaker 5: know that they got a bad time for at the time,
Speaker 5: especially for not necessarily doing say a good job. But
Speaker 5: I think they did a really good job for the
Speaker 5: amount of manpower they had and how much was going on.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that was so, I was a big break
Speaker 5: they had found it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you're right though that there was criticism in the community,
Speaker 7: and especially there was an RCMP retired recently retired RCMP
Speaker 7: homicide detective Norman Lee had conducted weeks of his own investigation,
Speaker 7: and he claimed that later police ignored the fundamentals of
Speaker 7: the homicide investigation, and he criticized the original search, said
Speaker 7: it was haphazard done in piecemeal instead of centralizing in
Speaker 7: the area of the park. He figured that the police
Speaker 7: had been distracted by the reports of the French Canadian
Speaker 7: duo and so he thought it was hard to believe
Speaker 7: that a murderer would take the time and trouble to
Speaker 7: hide the bodies in the truck and then drive across
Speaker 7: can in such a distinctive vehicle. Regardless, as you mentioned,
Speaker 7: this was a big break. August October eighteenth, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 7: This is a big break for Eastam and German and
Speaker 7: the other detectives. So now they're going to concentrate on
Speaker 7: door to door canvassing of clear Water and the Wells
Speaker 7: Gray areas, and I guess maybe they might have took
Speaker 7: Normal Lee's criticism to heart. They said this time they'd
Speaker 7: be contacting every single homeowner, going to every single house.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think they were really feeling the pressure. I
Speaker 5: think that the media and everybody was sort of starting
Speaker 5: to get on their case, and I think Eastam was
Speaker 5: really under pressure to do something. So this wasn't the
Speaker 5: first time they can This was going to be the
Speaker 5: third time they canvas in Clearwater, but they were going
Speaker 5: to do it more thoroughly and not leave any unknocked
Speaker 5: doors on answer type thing, So if there was nobody there,
Speaker 5: they would actually go back until they got someone at
Speaker 5: every single residence. So it was a totally different time.
Speaker 5: On the third, third round, this was very important because
Speaker 5: they really had to find an answer and to figure
Speaker 5: out where this where this all came from. And he
Speaker 5: got to realize with both vehicles the way they were
Speaker 5: found in the locations there were found, it was kind
Speaker 5: of a sure sure bet that whoever it was that
Speaker 5: had done the killings knew the area, they knew they
Speaker 5: knew the back roads. They knew where they were and
Speaker 5: how to get back home, and you know, they they
Speaker 5: so it was someone from that area, someone that had
Speaker 5: lived in Clearwater or area or was still living there now,
Speaker 5: so that was kind of in their mind there. It
Speaker 5: had to be someone local.
Speaker 7: Let's stop for a second for these messages.
Speaker 2: Lucky Land Casino asking people, what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 2: gotten lucky?
Speaker 3: Lucky?
Speaker 1: In line at the Delhi I guess ah, in my
Speaker 1: dentist's office more than once. Actually do I have to say?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 2: You do?
Speaker 3: In the car before my kid's PTA meeting?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 3: Yes, excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 3: I never win? And tell well, there you have it.
Speaker 8: You can get lucky anywhere playing at lucky landslots dot
Speaker 8: com play for free right now?
Speaker 3: Are you feeling lucky? No, we're just necessary. Holde, we're
Speaker 3: gon be my long eighteen plus terms conditions plus what's everybody.
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 7: You talked about the canvas and the name of David
Speaker 7: Sharing was first brought to police attention from an informant,
Speaker 7: and they had heard a story about what tell us
Speaker 7: what this informant had told them about something that had
Speaker 7: happened a few years before on the Wells Gray Highway.
Speaker 5: Well, there was a story that what had happened was
Speaker 5: a younger guy had been run over and killed, and
Speaker 5: they had heard the story that it was David Sharing
Speaker 5: that was responsible for that, and there was also the
Speaker 5: gossip that it was a drug deal gone bad. There
Speaker 5: was just a lot of kind of unsavory talk about
Speaker 5: him as a character and what he had done to
Speaker 5: this guy and how he got away with it. And
Speaker 5: so someone that had a sort of they were a
Speaker 5: little disgruntled or for some reason didn't like David Sharing
Speaker 5: at the time, decided to use that to get something
Speaker 5: and inform the police about this incident that had happened.
Speaker 4: M hm.
Speaker 7: Now there was another detective well, well actually an officer
Speaker 7: Haslett involved in the canvassing, and they went to a
Speaker 7: person's trailer and they asked a gentleman there, you may
Speaker 7: have heard we found the truck that belonged to the Bentleys,
Speaker 7: and the man as you write, yeah, I heard, and
Speaker 7: the woman asked, is that the one up my trophy Mountain?
Speaker 7: And the man scolded his wife for talking. He said,
Speaker 7: he's talking to me, And they said, well, we're wondering
Speaker 7: if you saw anything suspicious. And then this man is
Speaker 7: really gruff with these officers and said, I told you guys,
Speaker 7: I haven't seen anything like that. So they said, what
Speaker 7: about you, ma'am? And the answer and you write the
Speaker 7: man answered for her, said no, nothing. We're not going
Speaker 7: to tell you any more than whatever we've told you.
Speaker 7: That's all we're going to tell you. And so they
Speaker 7: just bided their time for a little bit more and
Speaker 7: gave him a card and said if anything happens or
Speaker 7: if you know anything, give us a call. Maybe not
Speaker 7: expecting much. Then they put the trailer under surveillance. Why
Speaker 7: did they put the trailer under surveillance? And what did
Speaker 7: these cops do once the husband went out.
Speaker 5: For a ride. Well, they put it under surveillance because
Speaker 5: they had heard the female, the wife or girlfriend, say
Speaker 5: you're not going to tell them about David and the
Speaker 5: truck that he got shot up. And so when they
Speaker 5: heard that, the officer knew that he better not push
Speaker 5: it because he knew the man couldn't want to talk.
Speaker 5: And so yeah, they put it under surveillance and they waited,
Speaker 5: and when the husband was gone, they had approached her
Speaker 5: when she was alone, and that's when she kind of
Speaker 5: told them that about the truck and about how sharing
Speaker 5: had approached her husband her boyfriend about fixing a bullet
Speaker 5: hole in the truck door, and he asked him a
Speaker 5: few other things about insurance and if you could kind
Speaker 5: of get rid of the uh, you know, the the number,
Speaker 5: the VIN number on the truck, and how if he
Speaker 5: could reinsure it without one and stuff like that. It's
Speaker 5: just kind of shady stuff. And so they knew that
Speaker 5: the sharing had something to do with it, and so
Speaker 5: but now what they had to do was get that
Speaker 5: information from the actual husband or boyfriend. So actually, this
Speaker 5: is something later. What happened was that that same guy,
Speaker 5: that husband was out drinking in one of the bars
Speaker 5: and they waited for him to start driving, and they
Speaker 5: arrested them on a DUI and they made a deal
Speaker 5: with him to get the information. So that's how they
Speaker 5: That was the real deep story of how they got that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I was but there was initially incredible break from
Speaker 7: that woman that couldn't, according to her husband, hold her tongue. Yeah, thankfully.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's it, you know, and they and they had
Speaker 5: a huge fight over that and broke up and it
Speaker 5: was just a real mess. Oh sure, yeah, it was terrible,
Speaker 5: terrible situation just for just for really kind of uh,
Speaker 5: you know, trying to tell the truth, and you know,
Speaker 5: it just it's just a terrible situation that someone would
Speaker 5: want to protect a killer like that.
Speaker 7: You know, well, I don't even know if we wanted
Speaker 7: to protect. Everybody wanted to protect himself at that moment,
Speaker 7: because you know, the this guy Sharing had asked him
Speaker 7: stupid stuff like, you know, how to get rid of
Speaker 7: this serial number, but also how to maybe fix a
Speaker 7: bullet hole. So I mean, pretty incriminating stuff. And the
Speaker 7: woman woman couldn't, you know, couldn't keep that to herself.
Speaker 7: So so they do an investigation afterwards. They want to
Speaker 7: find out who as David Sharing is. Obviously they look
Speaker 7: up his if he has a criminal record, but he
Speaker 7: lived on his father's one hundred and sixty acre hobby farm.
Speaker 7: His father tell us what his father does for a living.
Speaker 7: They also have a hobby farm, and Sharing had lived
Speaker 7: on this place till almost his whole life, except for
Speaker 7: four months of his life. So tell us what his
Speaker 7: father's occupation is.
Speaker 5: Well, actually, his father had worked at the prison originally
Speaker 5: and was a prison guard or you know that there
Speaker 5: was another name for what he did. But he worked
Speaker 5: with prisoners in the prison, and so he was law enforcement,
Speaker 5: you might say. And yeah, they lived on the farm
Speaker 5: and he went to school. He had a fairly normal
Speaker 5: school life. He didn't really get any trouble. His mother,
Speaker 5: she actually got really thick around this time or just
Speaker 5: before this time, and ended up being put in a
Speaker 5: hospital long Tair long term care hospital originally so and
Speaker 5: he had a brother and a sister, and he had
Speaker 5: a few girlfriends. He was so most things were. He
Speaker 5: was a pretty normal person as far as the area
Speaker 5: of the Clearwater area, small town did. All the things
Speaker 5: he fit in just fine. Just nothing stuck out, you.
Speaker 7: Right, that Sharing was living on his dad's farm when
Speaker 7: his dad died the heart attack in spring of nineteen
Speaker 7: eighty two. His sister married and remained in the area,
Speaker 7: and David's brother became a deputy sheriff with the provincial
Speaker 7: government doing prisoner escorts and court security duties in Prince George.
Speaker 7: That in fall of eighty three, Sharing move to tumblr Ridge. Now,
Speaker 7: tell us a little bit about this as you write
Speaker 7: about tumblr Ridge and the kind of work that he
Speaker 7: thought he would surely be able to get there.
Speaker 5: Well, Tumblr Ridge was a fastly growing town. It was
Speaker 5: under construction twenty four to seven. He thought he would
Speaker 5: get a job up in construction. And there were a
Speaker 5: lot of camps around tumblr Ridge and one was called
Speaker 5: dog Patch and that's initially where he was, and he
Speaker 5: was doing odd jobs, but he kept getting fired from
Speaker 5: his jobs. He didn't last long. And so and you
Speaker 5: got to realize this area when I talked to a
Speaker 5: lot of the police that worked out of Dawson Creek
Speaker 5: who took care of this area. A lot of people
Speaker 5: that would go to tumblr Ridge in the area for
Speaker 5: work were ex prisoners and people that couldn't get jobs.
Speaker 5: And so people were getting hired in these construction sites
Speaker 5: with no real reference. So so it was easy to
Speaker 5: get a job if you had you know, fairly decent
Speaker 5: you know, strength, fere and stuff like that. So he
Speaker 5: but he still couldn't keep a job there. So what
Speaker 5: he did was him and a few of his buddies
Speaker 5: decided to build a makeshift little cabin up there from
Speaker 5: wood that they stole from construction sites. And uh yeah,
Speaker 5: so yeah, never worked out for.
Speaker 7: And so what did they do to survive if they
Speaker 7: weren't getting the part time jobs. They're only getting part
Speaker 7: time jobs, and of course they didn't have enough money,
Speaker 7: didn't want to pay the dues to the to these
Speaker 7: little places. We're probably charging a lot of money for
Speaker 7: a little trailer. But how did they how did they
Speaker 7: make pens meet.
Speaker 5: Theft? It was combination, mainly theft. What they would do
Speaker 5: was they'd go to construction sites and steal equipment and
Speaker 5: they would sell it, and so that was kind of
Speaker 5: the main source of income for them. And there was
Speaker 5: also some drug activity with some of the people he
Speaker 5: lived with, selling drugs and supplying that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: So they kind of made it however they could, but
Speaker 5: it was all from illegal activity and they eventually he
Speaker 5: eventually got arrested for it as well for theft and
Speaker 5: I think forty thousand dollars theft and got convicted of that.
Speaker 5: So you know, he was living that way, and he
Speaker 5: also had a terrible habit of threatening people. Even one
Speaker 5: of the went before he made that cabin, one of
Speaker 5: the places he was staying at, he threatened to kill
Speaker 5: the manager and burn down the place because he just
Speaker 5: asked him for his rent. So people were kind of
Speaker 5: scared of him as well. He was not like a
Speaker 5: friendly person up in that area. He was not well liked.
Speaker 7: M you're right about another important detective here or RCMP
Speaker 7: or on German And he landed in tumblr Ridge, BC
Speaker 7: in September eighty two, or pardon me, we're talking about
Speaker 7: tumblr Ridge, BC, September eighty two, and he sees a
Speaker 7: yellow Ford pickup passing him on the road, loaded with tools. Intuitively,
Speaker 7: he figures he's going to stop them, and so you
Speaker 7: mentioned this stop. And when he stopped these two guys,
Speaker 7: the driver got out of the car and headed towards him.
Speaker 7: He said, that's always kind of dangerous. So he put
Speaker 7: his big floodlights on so that would kind of stop
Speaker 7: the person in their tracks. And he asked for the
Speaker 7: drivers driver's license, but he was very frigidy and nervous,
Speaker 7: and he asked about the tools. Now what else did
Speaker 7: this officer German do? And see with the people that
Speaker 7: were with as we know now David sharing, well, I.
Speaker 5: Think the big thing was, yeah, he was he had
Speaker 5: he had seemed really nervous and frigidity and all that.
Speaker 5: So what he did was he put him in the
Speaker 5: back of his car and and the big, the big
Speaker 5: thing he really noticed was the two passengers, the guy
Speaker 5: sitting in the middle and the guy sitting on the
Speaker 5: passenger side door wouldn't look back. They were they faced forward,
Speaker 5: and the whole commotion and the talking and the lights
Speaker 5: and all that stuff, they never they never moved. They wouldn't,
Speaker 5: you know, not at all. And so I think it
Speaker 5: kind of you know, I think he said to me,
Speaker 5: a slighty senses were tingling, And so he approached the
Speaker 5: car from the right side and snuck up on them
Speaker 5: and put his gun through the window and told him
Speaker 5: to freeze. Now, those two guys had a rifle aimed
Speaker 5: at the driver's side, thinking that the officer Jermam would
Speaker 5: come up to the that side and they were going
Speaker 5: to shoot him. They were. One guy had the rifle
Speaker 5: cocked and ready and laid across the other guy's legs.
Speaker 5: And you know, if he would have went to the
Speaker 5: wrong door, he would have been shot. Just a terrible situation. Now,
Speaker 5: and that's a very important thing that I bring up later. Actually,
Speaker 5: uh Germaine brought it up to me because he's one
Speaker 5: of the most important people in this whole case. He's
Speaker 5: one of the most important policemen in this whole case,
Speaker 5: and he's really the one that that that drove this
Speaker 5: home in a lot of ways that are very important,
Speaker 5: and even for the parole coming up, he's a very
Speaker 5: important person in this case. But yeah, so that was it.
Speaker 5: So they were going to try and kill him. He
Speaker 5: ended up arresting them, you know, getting them cuffed and
Speaker 5: out of the car, and he never got shot.
Speaker 7: It's interesting too, because he decides to take him back
Speaker 7: to the station and I guess asked the superiors to
Speaker 7: charge him for attempted murder considering the loaded weapon was
Speaker 7: in the lap and you could not deduce anything else. Now,
Speaker 7: now you talk about Jermaine again if that's the pronunciation
Speaker 7: of his name, right, And so two nights later, well,
Speaker 7: actually what happens is the next day, after they examined
Speaker 7: the truck with the tools, he gets a call about
Speaker 7: a burglary, a theft of tools. So now they know
Speaker 7: they better go see David Sharing now, and they're looking
Speaker 7: for this cabin. So they go to Sharing's cabin. This
Speaker 7: is a couple of days later, and who is there
Speaker 7: from the other previous night, And what are these guys doing?
Speaker 7: What's the reaction once they see the police there. What
Speaker 7: these guys do?
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, because initially he let Sharon go just see,
Speaker 5: you know, because Sharon had no wants and warrant at
Speaker 5: the time and so fine, and they didn't know the
Speaker 5: tools were stolen, so that's why there was a couple
Speaker 5: of days there. But yeah, when they came to it,
Speaker 5: of course him and his buddies were there, and they
Speaker 5: and they ran and they had to chase them through
Speaker 5: the bush and and and they did catch them out there.
Speaker 5: But again another important part was that because then when
Speaker 5: they went he went to go into the cabin, the
Speaker 5: third guy was there and he had a he had
Speaker 5: he was sitting in the corner again with a rifle
Speaker 5: ready to shoot. So you know, the whole thing. It
Speaker 5: was just unfavory right from the beginning. But it was
Speaker 5: it was the same guy that Fred White who had
Speaker 5: Germaine had booked for the attempt at murder, and they
Speaker 5: had let him go, so they didn't keep him in,
Speaker 5: so here we go. It was it was quite a
Speaker 5: frantic chase as well, for and he came with another officer,
Speaker 5: so there was two of them. So it's important to
Speaker 5: note just wasn't him.
Speaker 7: It's very interesting, and I think in four and I
Speaker 7: don't know if the courts, well we'll talk about this,
Speaker 7: but you talk about that. The officer was smart enough
Speaker 7: to know, he was experienced enough from the previous two
Speaker 7: nights before. So he said, oh, we're going to go
Speaker 7: into that cabin. He said, you can't make me go
Speaker 7: in that cabin again. You're intuition would be, would be
Speaker 7: that maybe there's something in that cabin. So then he
Speaker 7: puts Sharing in front of him like a shield, and
Speaker 7: then Sharing is screaming out to whoever's in there, Hey, Willie,
Speaker 7: it's me. It's me, like, don't shoot, don't shoot, and
Speaker 7: of course he has a weapon in there, like you're right.
Speaker 7: So again, these guys, for I don't know, to defend
Speaker 7: themselves against being I don't know, ripped off or arrested.
Speaker 7: It seems like it doesn't matter if it seems like
Speaker 7: they were ready, if they were going to be arrested,
Speaker 7: or if somebody were going to confront them, they'd shoot
Speaker 7: to kill these guys. So very interesting that the one
Speaker 7: not even considered. Again. One officer figured, well, no, I
Speaker 7: don't think there's enough grounds for attempted murder. But two
Speaker 7: days later, these guys are acting again like they're very,
Speaker 7: very capable of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a really it's an important point to think
Speaker 5: about later when you talk about parole and about someone
Speaker 5: being eligible to get out on parole, and just how
Speaker 5: capable of killing someone they are.
Speaker 7: Now you write that as well. Is that the thing
Speaker 7: that they need now? And they've also got this three
Speaker 7: thousand wat generator And then they have another reason so
Speaker 7: that they can visit Sharing again. They use some ruse
Speaker 7: basically to say are you going to come into court
Speaker 7: on Monday? And he says yeah, And he said what
Speaker 7: are you going to plead? And he says guilty. And
Speaker 7: then when they left, of course they spotted the generator.
Speaker 7: They looked in the back of the truck and they said, well,
Speaker 7: we'll leave us alone for later. Jermaine called Eastam and
Speaker 7: they were coming into Dawson Creek the next day, so
Speaker 7: Sharing was released. He was put on surveillance, but him
Speaker 7: and his body got on a bus to go to
Speaker 7: Tumbler Ridge. Now Eastam calls Germaine to go there and
Speaker 7: get Sharing for questioning, but they don't want to let
Speaker 7: on what they really believe he's They suspect him of doing.
Speaker 7: So what does Eastam tell Jermaine to do how to
Speaker 7: approach Sharing?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, he wanted to. He wanted him to
Speaker 5: be able to get Sharing back to the to the
Speaker 5: attachment for them so they could interview him. But he
Speaker 5: had to do it without letting him know that it
Speaker 5: was a thing to do with the Johnson Bentley murders.
Speaker 5: So so he didn't want to give him any sort
Speaker 5: of a clue. He had to kind of trick him
Speaker 5: into uh coming in, which you know that was that
Speaker 5: was quite a thing to to ask of another officer,
Speaker 5: and it's like, well, you know, hey, that's pretty risky,
Speaker 5: but you've got to do this somehow. It's because knowing
Speaker 5: what kind of a person he is by now, like
Speaker 5: you know, he already knows that this is you know,
Speaker 5: it wasn't the guy that possibly killed the Johnson Bentley
Speaker 5: families as well if he tried to kill him twice
Speaker 5: and he may have run over some other guy. So
Speaker 5: in his mind, this is not a nice guy, right,
Speaker 5: So he had to trick him into coming back and
Speaker 5: tell him it was it was about his problem of
Speaker 5: of parole and theft and and about the the other
Speaker 5: thing that had happened earlier. So he said, if you
Speaker 5: don't come in and straighten us out, they'll probably come
Speaker 5: out and have to get you type thing. So it
Speaker 5: just sort of he just tricked him into coming, and.
Speaker 7: When Jermaine did, he brought him down to Dawson Creek
Speaker 7: and or pardon me, it is Dawson Creek or Tumblr
Speaker 7: Ridge what we're talking about now. But what he does
Speaker 7: is that he is able to he's able to intimidate
Speaker 7: him and put this, he has this perfect balance. He says,
Speaker 7: then he needs to intimidate him enough into talking, but
Speaker 7: not enough to ask for a lawyer. So it's Eastam
Speaker 7: and Ken Libel, and so they start in with the
Speaker 7: good things in life where he was born, so the
Speaker 7: have Eastam has a real approach and as you write,
Speaker 7: he I don't know if he befriends him, but he
Speaker 7: certainly has a technique to be able to get Dave
Speaker 7: to do this. And you described as in the book,
Speaker 7: you have all the conversations. What are some of the
Speaker 7: things that he plays upon? Is a religion, his mother?
Speaker 7: What how does he how does he get to him?
Speaker 7: How's he trying to get to him?
Speaker 5: I think the key thing was was talking about his
Speaker 5: mother and and kind of connecting with with him on
Speaker 5: certain key things like that, like his mother, that that
Speaker 5: really meant something to him, you know, how his mother
Speaker 5: would think of what she would do and how she
Speaker 5: is and where she is, and he he wanted to
Speaker 5: befriend him in that way, if that makes sense, kind
Speaker 5: of get him on a kind of a one to
Speaker 5: one basis and we talk about things, and then he
Speaker 5: could slowly bring in some of the crimes. And then
Speaker 5: whenever Sharing was kind of upset or needed he needed
Speaker 5: him calmer, he could bring back something like that family
Speaker 5: was really important to Sharing at the time, and he
Speaker 5: knew that that was a thing to focus on. And
Speaker 5: I think that was the really the one key thing
Speaker 5: more than any of the other stuff. I think it
Speaker 5: was his mother.
Speaker 7: He also knew and played upon the fact that his
Speaker 7: father had died, and he sensed at the father that
Speaker 7: the passing of his father was an important event in
Speaker 7: his life, so he played upon that. He also talked
Speaker 7: about honest He says, I know you're an honest guy.
Speaker 7: I know you're a good guy. So we've seen that before.
Speaker 7: But it was real masterful in this and terms of
Speaker 7: very very subtle, and he was very patient with him,
Speaker 7: and so he said, let's see if you're an honest guy.
Speaker 7: So when he says let's see if you're an honest guy,
Speaker 7: what does he talk about again the Wells Gray Road?
Speaker 7: What what does he talk about? What does he bluff
Speaker 7: and tell Sharing he knows about this?
Speaker 5: Oh, you know, he wanted to bring up the guy
Speaker 5: that he had run over and that event that had
Speaker 5: happened and why it happened, and he could and so
Speaker 5: that what that did was that brought a big relief
Speaker 5: to Sharing because he thought, oh, this is what I'm
Speaker 5: here to talk about, right, and so it kind of
Speaker 5: put him at ease, it didn't, you know, because in
Speaker 5: the background, the Bentley Johnson murders had just hit a
Speaker 5: lot of news and a lot of talk and stuff
Speaker 5: like that had been mentioned a lot on the news.
Speaker 5: And it's so much so that when Sharing had gone
Speaker 5: in that month to sign its probation slip because he
Speaker 5: was on probation for the thefts, he had to go
Speaker 5: in and see German and sign every month. It was
Speaker 5: on the news when they were together in the police detachment,
Speaker 5: and they even talked about it. So it was on
Speaker 5: his mind. It was on a lot of people's minds
Speaker 5: at the time. So this put him at huge, you know,
Speaker 5: major relaxed ease, and all of a sudden he thought, wow, okay,
Speaker 5: and so then it became you know about running over
Speaker 5: a guy and how it was an accident and uh
Speaker 5: and yeah, and he played on that, Yeah, you know
Speaker 5: you're you're honest, and it was you didn't mean to
Speaker 5: do that. So he would do that and draw him in,
Speaker 5: So that was kind of a way of putting that ease.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's interesting. What he did too, is that he
Speaker 7: led him into the sea. Let's see if you're an
Speaker 7: honest guy. And then he admitted to the hit and run,
Speaker 7: but said, you know, he was innocent, he just ran
Speaker 7: over him, but said he was drinking. So that's why
Speaker 7: he didn't go to police. Made a lot of sense,
Speaker 7: he cried as he wrote out the statement. They got
Speaker 7: them tissues and so they were very, very sympathetic. He
Speaker 7: asked if he was going to jail, and they said, well,
Speaker 7: I don't know, it's up to prosecutors, but they did.
Speaker 7: He did start do you believe in God? Dave? And
Speaker 7: Dave said no, but they said, does your mom and
Speaker 7: he said, well, not really. But they said, well, does
Speaker 7: she believe in principles? And he said yes, So they
Speaker 7: started with that and once they got that full confession
Speaker 7: from him from the Wells Gray Road, hit and run.
Speaker 7: I guess what's awful they do is they take a
Speaker 7: break and they go for coffees and they take a
Speaker 7: little and then they're back in the room. Now he's
Speaker 7: also talking and giving him an out and telling him,
Speaker 7: you know, things happen, People do stupid things. I was stupid.
Speaker 7: Things can happen. Lots of things are stupid. But the
Speaker 7: tone changes eventually in that room. Again, he has to
Speaker 7: keep that balance to not get him to call a lawyer,
Speaker 7: ask for a lawyer, So he cautions him. But what
Speaker 7: changes in that room? How does the direction change in
Speaker 7: terms of the questioning Now.
Speaker 5: Well, you know they were kind of taking one step
Speaker 5: at a time and going further into it. And then yeah,
Speaker 5: they were taking their breaks and slowly getting them into it.
Speaker 5: But then it was time to you know, talk about
Speaker 5: the Johnson and Bentley family and what had happened and
Speaker 5: what he could talk about. And you know, it's kind
Speaker 5: of put I put as much of the detail in
Speaker 5: from East as I could from from his point of view.
Speaker 5: And this in this particular part of the book. So
Speaker 5: you know, after the head and run, we get into
Speaker 5: the uh, how did how did you come across the family?
Speaker 5: Or or where did you see them?
Speaker 7: And things like that, right, he talks about ask him
Speaker 7: first where did you first see the family? Then what
Speaker 7: was the next thing you did? And then he asked
Speaker 7: them do you know where they were killed? If he
Speaker 7: asked them first that you know where the truck was found?
Speaker 7: Do you know where the bodies were found?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 7: Or pardon me, he knew where the trucks were found? Yes,
Speaker 7: do you know this? Yes? Then he asked them, do
Speaker 7: you know where they were murdered? And then he said
Speaker 7: Bear Creek? And you right, nobody knew that at that time,
Speaker 7: the r c m P had not reported on that.
Speaker 7: Let's put it that way. The public didn't know that anyway, correct, Yes.
Speaker 5: And that was kind of helping him confirm that, you know,
Speaker 5: they've got the man. But he knew that he couldn't
Speaker 5: go too far with the question. You knew he couldn't,
Speaker 5: like he had to kind of keep bringing him back
Speaker 5: and forth with being friend and it's okay and you're
Speaker 5: a good guy, and don't worry about it, and asking
Speaker 5: him questions outside and then then getting more out of him,
Speaker 5: you know, at peace at a time.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's remarkable what you write that Eastam does. He says,
Speaker 7: don't make me involve your mother. You know, we'd come
Speaker 7: for you. And then this guy starts crying. He says, yes,
Speaker 7: he says, I know you're not that kind of person, David,
Speaker 7: And finally the pressure mounts and David Sharing blurts out,
Speaker 7: I could flip and shoot myself. Leave me alone in
Speaker 7: this room, and I'll take care of it. And then
Speaker 7: yet Easteam's approach reaction after that is what how does
Speaker 7: he treat him after? What is what are the kinds
Speaker 7: of things he says to him after.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, again, you know, he was trying to
Speaker 5: he was trying to Bacon believe that it doesn't have
Speaker 5: to end his life, and that he that he is
Speaker 5: a good person and that we we all make mistakes.
Speaker 5: He kept doing that back and forth, and that that
Speaker 5: he didn't have to kill himself, and and it was
Speaker 5: just kind of that back and forth. I think right through,
Speaker 5: like I said, I put most of the details in
Speaker 5: that of how he approached it, and the words he
Speaker 5: used and and so it's it's an interesting thing to
Speaker 5: read through the details. M hm.
Speaker 7: He he he is screaming now, oh God. And so
Speaker 7: he's got him broke down, He got him in that room.
Speaker 7: He's saying, it's difficult for us, Dave, will you help
Speaker 7: us out? And then he asks, sharing asks, what if
Speaker 7: I tell you, well, you'll be charged with murder. You'll
Speaker 7: be in custody and a psychiatrist. I thought this was brilliant.
Speaker 7: A psychiatrist will have to check you out to see
Speaker 7: why you did it. And then they asked him where
Speaker 7: the gun was and he told him what was at
Speaker 7: the ranch. And then he drew a series of maps,
Speaker 7: didn't he indicating all kinds? He drew four different maps.
Speaker 7: So everything they asked him to do to document, he
Speaker 7: put on a map. So the next thing was to
Speaker 7: go and reenact the crime. So they took him to
Speaker 7: reenact that crime in that park, didn't they?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And that was important. It's important to get them
Speaker 5: to write down things as much as possible. It's something
Speaker 5: you can use as evidence that you know of their
Speaker 5: knowledge of things and where things are.
Speaker 6: And and.
Speaker 5: Because you never know how it works in court if
Speaker 5: if certain parts of what they say and do get
Speaker 5: included or not. There's all sorts of technical issues. So
Speaker 5: they wanted to get down to him drawing things himself
Speaker 5: and writing things about himself. So he did the maps,
Speaker 5: and then they flew down to Kamloops and drove over
Speaker 5: to the clear Water area and had him go through
Speaker 5: all of the steps and re enacting of what what
Speaker 5: he did, how he did it, you know, and and
Speaker 5: what he did with the vehicles and and all the
Speaker 5: details and stuff, because there was still a question of
Speaker 5: some of the detectives were still not quite sure if
Speaker 5: he was alone or if he had help maybe eliminating
Speaker 5: the vehicles and stuff like that. So there was that
Speaker 5: question out there that the detectives had, so they wanted
Speaker 5: to see if he could show them how he could
Speaker 5: have done all of this himself and what the details were.
Speaker 5: So that's an important part of securing the evidence of the.
Speaker 7: Crime certainly, And they took photos of were taken of
Speaker 7: this reenactment and again used likely a trial or used
Speaker 7: that trough. Now the trial was set for April sixteenth,
Speaker 7: nineteen eighty four, in Kamloops, and sharing gets a good
Speaker 7: lawyer Fred Katz, one of the very best in the province,
Speaker 7: and the prosecutors Bob Hunter. But they're all ready for
Speaker 7: this very important case and potential trial.
Speaker 5: What happens with that prospect, Well, they basically have you know,
Speaker 5: they had Eastam and the rest of the detectives in said,
Speaker 5: he did a great job. Everything's great, We've got the
Speaker 5: man and we know this, but we won't be doing
Speaker 5: the trial. He's just going to We're going to take
Speaker 5: a plea basically, you know. So they were going to
Speaker 5: bargain for you know, the second degree murder charges and
Speaker 5: put him away. And so that's kind of how it went.
Speaker 5: So there was a big let down in that way.
Speaker 5: The cops really wanted to kind of go. They were
Speaker 5: really looking for the trial. You know.
Speaker 7: Well, you write about the reality in Canada in nineteen
Speaker 7: eighty two and just recently within the last five or
Speaker 7: seven years has this law been changed. Let's talk about
Speaker 7: the situation with six murders, six six counts a second
Speaker 7: degree murder. We can talk about why it's considered only
Speaker 7: second degree murder, but also the reality in terms of
Speaker 7: sentencing and consecutive sentences in this case, what were prosecutors
Speaker 7: and police really looking at in reality.
Speaker 5: Well, I think it's important to say that what happened
Speaker 5: was at the time, it was sharing that was saying
Speaker 5: that he killed the family for the possessions, right, he
Speaker 5: wanted to steal their truck, camp or the boat and
Speaker 5: a lot of their items. So at the time when
Speaker 5: they were convicting him, in their mind, he was killing
Speaker 5: for the theft. At that time, there was no evidence
Speaker 5: and no proof or they didn't have any idea that
Speaker 5: what he done has killed the adults so that he
Speaker 5: could sexually assault the girls. So that wasn't on the table.
Speaker 5: So it puts it in a different light. So all
Speaker 5: of a sudden, you're convicting a man of six murders,
Speaker 5: and so you know, the sentence tends to be life,
Speaker 5: and the judge consentence whether or not. You know, it's
Speaker 5: ten fifteen years, you know, before you're eligible for parole,
Speaker 5: like they set that date. And also, because all six
Speaker 5: murders happened at the same time, it would be served
Speaker 5: you know, not consecutively, but concurrently, so it's all done
Speaker 5: at once. So if you killed four, six, one, two,
Speaker 5: it was done at the same time, So you get
Speaker 5: that's it. You know, you can get life six times
Speaker 5: that it's all served together. And if your parole date
Speaker 5: is set at fifteen years, fifteen years, you're up for parole.
Speaker 5: It's just how it's done. It's not necessarily fair or right.
Speaker 5: But that also brings up the point that when he
Speaker 5: admits later about sexually assaulting the girls, this is not
Speaker 5: a case where they can make him go into treatment
Speaker 5: for it or he isn't you know if you think
Speaker 5: he's not a registered sex offender, right, he's never been
Speaker 5: convicted of it, right, So that's a huge hole in
Speaker 5: this case. That's probably very very important now that he's
Speaker 5: up for parole.
Speaker 7: It's very very interesting too when you talk about how
Speaker 7: good an attorney is that Sam, this Cat's is the
Speaker 7: attorney cats. But also his experience and his background probably
Speaker 7: enabled him to get as sweet a deal for sharing
Speaker 7: as possible. And that's what this looks like. He knows
Speaker 7: what the implications are for later and despite having a
Speaker 7: person kill six people in can I wouldn't bet against
Speaker 7: a person being released on parole.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 7: In terms of this, the judge gave him the maximum
Speaker 7: that is allowed in Canadian law twenty five years before
Speaker 7: eligible for parole. The six sentences are served concurrently, but
Speaker 7: we're talking about twenty twenty, So after twenty five years,
Speaker 7: this person was going to have a parole hearing and
Speaker 7: the families and the survivors, the family victims, families would
Speaker 7: have to relive this to a great extent again during
Speaker 7: those parole hearings. Missed a detective east him though, knew
Speaker 7: that there was more to this story, and so what
Speaker 7: did he do and what did he vow to do
Speaker 7: with David Sharing once the sentencing had been completed.
Speaker 5: It, I guess somewhere with the experience with the area,
Speaker 5: just something inside of him knew that there was more
Speaker 5: to it, that there was something else that Sharing wasn't
Speaker 5: talking about, and he vowed to find out. And he
Speaker 5: said that he wanted Sharon to tell the truth and
Speaker 5: and to know this. So he went back in after
Speaker 5: things were settled and he got to talk to him,
Speaker 5: and Sharing told him kind of a truth. And I
Speaker 5: say that because he's he's had different stories over different times.
Speaker 5: But he did tell him about his sexual assault at
Speaker 5: the kids, and that he did kill the adults primarily
Speaker 5: to get at the kids. It wasn't about the boat
Speaker 5: and the motor and the camper or anything like that.
Speaker 5: It was it was nothing to do with that, so
Speaker 5: that that's not even part of the case. That's just
Speaker 5: that was, you know, his defense in the original charges.
Speaker 5: But there was much more to it than that.
Speaker 7: He admits that he sexually assaulted them and that his
Speaker 7: primary motive once he had seen them was to kill
Speaker 7: all these four adults to be able to get to
Speaker 7: these girls. But one was eleven years old, and he
Speaker 7: talks about them being one of the young one being
Speaker 7: a virgin at eleven, not so surprisingly, but there's eleven
Speaker 7: year old and a thirteen year old, and so, as
Speaker 7: we talked about earlier in the story, kind of just
Speaker 7: interrupting it, there is the truth about what really happened.
Speaker 7: And in your book you write that Sharing has told
Speaker 7: different stories, but one story he tells is is, I
Speaker 7: guess representative of his warps psychology and his view about
Speaker 7: things that happened. He could be lying, but there is
Speaker 7: some there is a certain window that we can see
Speaker 7: into this Avaranth the psychology of David Sharing. Tell us
Speaker 7: some of the things he said in terms of how
Speaker 7: long this was and sort of the almost romantic nature
Speaker 7: of some of this of his story.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's a strange character he had, so it could
Speaker 5: have gone anywhere from a week to thirteen days that
Speaker 5: he had the girls. And whether he assaulted them originally
Speaker 5: when he shot the parents and the tenter or not
Speaker 5: is still up for who knows. I sort of think
Speaker 5: that he did. I think he had done something, and
Speaker 5: then when he took them out and shot the father
Speaker 5: and all that see in his story to Eastim, even
Speaker 5: then when he was talking about having them in the
Speaker 5: car and driving and they would do anything for him,
Speaker 5: and they believed him. You know, he was telling them
Speaker 5: that bad guys had come into the camp and the parent,
Speaker 5: their adults had left to go get help. And he
Speaker 5: even pretended when he was back at his cabin to
Speaker 5: be talking to their father on the phone and things
Speaker 5: like that, and he said they believed everything and they
Speaker 5: would do everything for him. I sort of don't believe him.
Speaker 5: There's more to it than that, because you know, the
Speaker 5: thirteen year old is not going to see you shoot
Speaker 5: the father and see the dead parents and drive with
Speaker 5: them in the car and be doing everything because they
Speaker 5: you trust him and like him. There's something wrong with
Speaker 5: that story. But he didn't really change that much for
Speaker 5: me either, So I don't know, I think. And you're
Speaker 5: also going to look at what he's doing. As he's
Speaker 5: saying that he he used to be, he's sort of
Speaker 5: suggesting he was abused. And what he does is he
Speaker 5: has fantasies about bondage with young children, like young girls,
Speaker 5: and tying them up and having sex with them. So
Speaker 5: but he said that that's all gone, he's cured of
Speaker 5: that fantasy. They no longer happened, and it went away
Speaker 5: years ago, and therefore he needs to get on with
Speaker 5: his own life and he should be allowed to get
Speaker 5: out on parole, you know, because he's got a new
Speaker 5: wife now and that sort of scenario. So so he's
Speaker 5: kind of promoting that. But as Ron Jerman said before
Speaker 5: the cop this is a man that ran over that
Speaker 5: other guy and killed him and tried to kill this
Speaker 5: policeman twice for no reason other than to kill. There
Speaker 5: wasn't he didn't have, He wasn't having fantasies. He wasn't
Speaker 5: trying to kill in these locations to get to a
Speaker 5: child because he had an uncontrollable fantasy. So this is
Speaker 5: you have to realize that this is a man that
Speaker 5: is going to kill just for the fact of killing,
Speaker 5: because he needs to for whatever reason. It's not about
Speaker 5: a fantasy. So even if you were to believe that
Speaker 5: he's cured of this sexual fantasy with girls, you know,
Speaker 5: it doesn't matter. Now it's kind of this. You know,
Speaker 5: this man should not be out period. He doesn't deserve
Speaker 5: to be in public, and you do who would want
Speaker 5: him as their neighbor, you know, So I leave it
Speaker 5: at that as far as that goes. And one of
Speaker 5: the other things with him was that he's able to
Speaker 5: talk about abusing the younger girl because she didn't know
Speaker 5: how to have to do anything. It's how he put it,
Speaker 5: that was his words. So basically, she wasn't sexually active,
Speaker 5: she didn't know how to respond, she didn't know how
Speaker 5: to do things with him sexually. So he was so
Speaker 5: upset he said he shot her in the head. Of course,
Speaker 5: you know, the original story was, you know, he walked
Speaker 5: through in the woods after a week and did it.
Speaker 5: But it sounds like from what I got, he did
Speaker 5: it almost within a day of getting back to the cabin.
Speaker 5: So it's some who knows it's somewhere in there. But
Speaker 5: to be able to just talk that way about an
Speaker 5: eleven year old means that this man there's something wrong
Speaker 5: with him. He does not need to be out in public.
Speaker 5: And I can't emphasize that enough. You know, he's sick
Speaker 5: and I don't know how we can cure him. And
Speaker 5: even if he was cured, it doesn't alleviate the stress
Speaker 5: and what the family has to go through with these paroleherings.
Speaker 5: With each one that is going to come up every
Speaker 5: two years, they have to go through the whole thing
Speaker 5: and relive it as if it was yesterday. So it's
Speaker 5: not doing justice to the survivors. So it's wrong on
Speaker 5: a lot of levels.
Speaker 7: It's lucky that all along the way that this was
Speaker 7: not as cunning a criminal as he could be. And
Speaker 7: that's all I could give him credit for, is that
Speaker 7: luckily he's not that cunning or clever, and the things
Speaker 7: that he got away with at the trial in terms
Speaker 7: of just being recognized as the killer of those six
Speaker 7: people without the establishment of the rape of these eleven
Speaker 7: year old and a thirteen year old. So the pedophilic
Speaker 7: rape of these two girls as a motive, which in
Speaker 7: other jurisdictions would have been grounds for premeditation, sounds like
Speaker 7: premeditation when you go back a couple days later with
Speaker 7: a rifle and then shoot everybody to get to the girls.
Speaker 7: So he luckily again he got lucky with his lawyer,
Speaker 7: and just what happened at the trial with the plea bargain,
Speaker 7: Detective East him found out the truth to a certain
Speaker 7: great degree. But luckily this David sharing trying to get parole,
Speaker 7: is again trying to be honest, and he talks about
Speaker 7: the most twisted things, like he was a hero to
Speaker 7: those girls for they thought he was a hero from
Speaker 7: saving him from the bikers. And again this idea that
Speaker 7: he was having some kind of relationship for any amount
Speaker 7: of days is something that would what's happened with parole
Speaker 7: boards is they have not agreed to let him out,
Speaker 7: but I think it should be grounds for a parole
Speaker 7: board again, like you mentioned, forever prohibit him from ever
Speaker 7: getting out. Now, when we talk about parole, there was
Speaker 7: a woman named Tammy A rition Cough and she had
Speaker 7: gone to school with Janet. They went to the same school,
Speaker 7: and after this murder and all of these subsequent years,
Speaker 7: she has been affected. So when we talk about parole,
Speaker 7: and I had her on the program years ago about
Speaker 7: this very subject of trying to get a petition and
Speaker 7: doing that and trying to get to make sure the
Speaker 7: public new and put pressure of some sort on the
Speaker 7: pro board not to release David Sharing. So tell us
Speaker 7: a little bit about the parole hearings and tammy erition cough.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that. I think people have to look
Speaker 5: at a lot of times the parole board is and
Speaker 5: parole in Canada or even in the US for that matter,
Speaker 5: there's success is judged by how they can rehabilitate, so
Speaker 5: getting people back out into you know, popular into common society.
Speaker 5: So if if if if they're successful at getting people
Speaker 5: out and into the workforce and life force, that that's
Speaker 5: considered good. So in their mind they're trying to get uh,
Speaker 5: they're there to really help the criminal and it sounds
Speaker 5: harsh this way, but that's really what they're there to do.
Speaker 5: They also say they're there to protect you know, society,
Speaker 5: but there's a lot of pressure on getting these people
Speaker 5: out and and even to the fact that even if
Speaker 5: without a parole, there's a certain amount of time where
Speaker 5: you get out anyway, So it's not really it's not
Speaker 5: an it's an U feel battle. People like Tammy and
Speaker 5: and family members have to write up their impact statement.
Speaker 5: They have to send it in. Quite often with tammy
Speaker 5: it gets rejected because it might be to considered too
Speaker 5: mean or too aggressive. So they have to watch how
Speaker 5: they word things. And it's like, well, you know, you
Speaker 5: killed members of their family, you killed people, you've you've
Speaker 5: done some awful things. So they have some upset, they
Speaker 5: have rage, they have things they want to put out there.
Speaker 5: This is how you affected them. You've made them into
Speaker 5: this person, so that should be allowed. But you know,
Speaker 5: they they they're very you know, consistent with that. And
Speaker 5: the other thing is when you go to the hearing
Speaker 5: as well. You know, he doesn't have to face the
Speaker 5: victims or the victims family. It's not quite like what
Speaker 5: it is what you'd see on TV. So he gets
Speaker 5: to sit up on the on the on the nice
Speaker 5: parole board thing with his new wife and minister or
Speaker 5: whoever else he has on his side. So they sit there,
Speaker 5: they face the three member board and they answer the
Speaker 5: questions and they talk to the board and that's how
Speaker 5: it goes. And it can go anywhere from one to
Speaker 5: four days, depending on how much there is to read
Speaker 5: and talk and how many questions so that's kind of
Speaker 5: what goes on. I think it feels kind of lackluster
Speaker 5: for the people of the family and friends that go
Speaker 5: to these because they don't get to face him and
Speaker 5: tell him what they think of him, and it's kind
Speaker 5: of watching from the sidelines, and I think it's very
Speaker 5: unfulfilling and it's more frustrating, and at the same time,
Speaker 5: they have to relive the whole event. The whole thing
Speaker 5: comes back to the day when it happened, and I
Speaker 5: think that's the struggle. And they've been through two of them,
Speaker 5: and the next one comes up next summer. I believe
Speaker 5: it's June, the third week of June. I don't know
Speaker 5: what the COVID if things are changed because of that,
Speaker 5: but that's the date as far as I know.
Speaker 7: And Tammy and her group will be there. And just
Speaker 7: to give credit to the parole Board, they don't they're
Speaker 7: not really mandated to let people out. It just looks
Speaker 7: like it seems like that there are programs that people
Speaker 7: after a bunch of years in prison, figure I better
Speaker 7: go through these programs to show the kind of I
Speaker 7: suppose it remorse and change in their life. They have
Speaker 7: to do a fair amount to be able to be
Speaker 7: released on this parole, and there is no early parole
Speaker 7: for this person. It's twenty five years and it's not
Speaker 7: mandatory that he ever gets out. And from the other
Speaker 7: parole hearings that are done, it seems that have been
Speaker 7: completed that he is not prepared in any way. So
Speaker 7: he's doesn't seem close to me, but not that I
Speaker 7: would know, but having to relive it every two years
Speaker 7: is disturbing element of the Canadian judicial system. The chance
Speaker 7: change now is I think was welcome when you have
Speaker 7: the ability to charge or to put three consecutive life
Speaker 7: sentences together and then piece those twenty five year eligibilities together.
Speaker 7: So in reality, in fact, that the perpetrator that killed
Speaker 7: three or more, I know it sounds you know, I
Speaker 7: have to kill three that you would get a seventy
Speaker 7: five years before eligibility of parole in a sense. In essence,
Speaker 7: basically that is a life sentence in Canada now available
Speaker 7: in the last five or seven years, so people don't
Speaker 7: have to go through this over and over again. Very
Speaker 7: much like the Bernardo case. Those people have to again
Speaker 7: attend these parole hearings over and over again, so very disturbing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I wasn't trying to make it sound like
Speaker 5: the parole board doesn't care or that not. I think
Speaker 5: what I'm trying to say is in their minds and
Speaker 5: the family mind because the family and Tammy and all
Speaker 5: the people that show up, it's not like the parole
Speaker 5: board is there with them in a group, and they
Speaker 5: don't feel partner. I think that's it now, like they're
Speaker 5: it's not all like we're here and then they stand
Speaker 5: up and do their thing. It's almost like they're at
Speaker 5: a distance, watching it from the sidelines and letting these
Speaker 5: three people that they don't know try to assess whether
Speaker 5: or not someone like Sharing can get out. And Sharing
Speaker 5: I think it has learned how to become better at
Speaker 5: staging parole because now he's you know, he's married, he's
Speaker 5: got a name change, he's got he just had all
Speaker 5: of those the manslaughter from running over that guy, all
Speaker 5: of his drug charges and theft charges have all been
Speaker 5: taken off his record now, so he's applied to remove
Speaker 5: all of that. He's taken all these courses, like you said,
Speaker 5: so he's kind of I think he's setting himself up
Speaker 5: to be in a place where he could get members
Speaker 5: of a parle board to kind of go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: he's been in prison thirty years. He's never had any
Speaker 5: problems in prison, he's had no write ups, so he's
Speaker 5: got a good attendance. He's in a medium mile secure prison.
Speaker 5: Now he gets to have seventy two hours with his
Speaker 5: wife in a cabin on the property. Yeah, every month.
Speaker 5: So there's a lot he's got a lot of loose
Speaker 5: restrictions in his life. And if he continues to be
Speaker 5: good and he has all these things, and now he's
Speaker 5: got a minister standing up for him as well, saying
Speaker 5: that you know, hey, this is a good you know,
Speaker 5: he's found the Lord and he's good and all this,
Speaker 5: he's got a good soul. I'm just saying that he's
Speaker 5: he's working toward trying to get out in every way
Speaker 5: that he can.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: He's disturbing to me too, is that I just read
Speaker 7: about up to he's eligible after the twenty five years,
Speaker 7: which means now for the last bunch of years he's
Speaker 7: eligible for unescorted passes up to fifteen of them a year. Remarkably,
Speaker 7: and then again that I believe is used to demonstrate
Speaker 7: that this person look that he's out in the community,
Speaker 7: safe exactly.
Speaker 5: And that's what I mean by the system. It's set
Speaker 5: up in order to see because they're trying to say
Speaker 5: that we're successful at getting let's say, forty percent of
Speaker 5: people out or whatever their number is and having a
Speaker 5: very low turnover rate. So they're trying to work it
Speaker 5: that way. And he was approved for this pass right
Speaker 5: initially as well, and that was a big concern. Some
Speaker 5: of the friends that I talked to that now live
Speaker 5: in Calgary, that were neighbors in Cologne at the time
Speaker 5: are scared and didn't even want to be mentioned in
Speaker 5: the book, or they would give me information say well,
Speaker 5: you can't use my name because they're scared he's going
Speaker 5: to get out, and they'll you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So there's a real fear there that just the just
Speaker 5: the idea of him getting out scares people, and the
Speaker 5: idea of him being allowed to come out for a
Speaker 5: day path or a path I'm I'm not extorted by
Speaker 5: guards and knowing that they're in the area of where
Speaker 5: the prison is that he's then it really scares them.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a it's a disturbing case. And and uh,
Speaker 7: I'm glad you added the reality of what happens post
Speaker 7: conviction in Canada and what is happening today for people
Speaker 7: like Tammy Rishcroft, Rishikov and and the other families as well,
Speaker 7: just and and friends. So I want to thank you
Speaker 7: very much for coming on and talking about this outstanding book,
Speaker 7: Murder Times six, The True Story of the Wells Gray
Speaker 7: Park Murders. Thank you so much, Alan R. Warren for this.
Speaker 7: Is there a website? I know that you are a
Speaker 7: host of the excellent House of Mystery podcast every week,
Speaker 7: tell us a little bit about a website or how
Speaker 7: they might be able to take a look at this book.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, my website is just ALANAR Warren dot com
Speaker 5: and that's one al so, Ala M R. Warren dot
Speaker 5: com and you can get it links you to the show,
Speaker 5: it links you to all the books, everything's all in
Speaker 5: one now so and it links you to my Facebook,
Speaker 5: all social media, everything you need to know. And that's
Speaker 5: the one place. And of course if you want go
Speaker 5: to bookstores, this is out in all bookstores in US
Speaker 5: and Canada, and of course it's on Amazon and Cobo
Speaker 5: and all that as well.
Speaker 7: Yes, thank you so much, Alan Warren. Murder Time six
Speaker 7: Cure Story of the Wells Gray Park murders. Thank you
Speaker 7: so much, you have a great evening.
Speaker 5: Good night you tube.
Speaker 7: H m hm