October 1983: In British Columbia there was a startling development in the case of the family found in their abandoned car — a crime that was eerily similar to the Investor murders. In both cases there was a dead family, burned bodies and a .22 as murder weapon.
But on the ground, things were starting to diverge. In the middle of October, two forest rangers found the B.C. family’s missing camper in Wells Gray Provincial Park, just miles from where their bodies were found. This development forced a shift in the investigation’s focus. Authorities were no longer certain they were looking for two French-speaking men traveling through Ontario and Quebec. They were inclined instead to look closer to home. In British Columbia.
The camper truck was located by two forestry workers on an old logging road. The spot was only 15 miles from the murder site and 20 miles from where the burned-out Johnsons’ car was located. It too had been burned and was in a nearly impossible-to-see place, on the side of a mountain different from where the car and bodies were found. The killer had tried to drive it into a gorge, but logs blocked its path. That finding confirmed one thing: a local was most likely involved, since casual visitors were unlikely to know such an isolated spot.
Twenty-four-year old David William Shearing lived at the nearest property to the murder scene. He was soon identified by an informant, who told police that, over a year earlier, Shearing had inquired about how to re-register a Ford pickup and repair a bullet hole in its door. Police had never released the information about the bullet hole in the Bentley’s camper. That new development turned everything on its head. David William Shearing was their killer.
In his confession, Shearing made a number of claims, each a sobering new revelation in a story that staggered the imagination.
“I hadn’t expected to see anyone camping so it surprised me. I hid and just watched them the first evening. I was going to stay all night but I moved and I think they heard me. They started to look toward where I was hiding so I left and went home. The next afternoon I went back to see if they were still there. They were. I watched them for a little while longer, I don’t really know how long. The kids went to bed in their tent. The others sat around a campfire. I hid behind the camper until I had the four adults in easy range. Then I just shot them and went to the tent and shot the two girls.”
That last part, about the killing of the two Johnson girls, wasn’t exactly true.
RCMP Sgt. Mike Eastham finally got the truth out of Shearing, after his conviction in the six murders. The final truth was the most startling development of all.
(courtesy Calgary Herald)
Here’s Eastham on what really happened:
“Shearing was a pedophile and fixated on the little girls. He’d spotted the family the moment they set up camp and spent several days spying on them from a hillside, fantasizing about having sex with the kids. At dusk on (or about) August 10, 1982, Shearing crept through the shadows into the campsite with his rifle and opened fire, ambushing the adults who surrounded the fire. He captured the girls and took them to his property where he kept them alive for a week, repeatedly raping the children. On August 16, Shearing shot Karen in the back of the head. The next day he killed Janet the same way.”
References
- Fatal Intentions, Barbara Smith, 1994
- Dying Words: David Shearing the Monster from Wells Gray Park, Mike Eastham, August 2015
- The Disturbing Story of David Shearing and the Wells Gray Park camping murders in Canada, Strange Outdoors, February 23, 2018
- Photos: A look back at one of Canada’s worst mass murders, Calgary Herald, September 19, 2012
Excerpts from the unpublished original manuscript, “Sailor Take Warning,” by Leland E. Hale. That manuscript, started in 1992 and based on court records from the Alaska State Archive, served as the basis for “What Happened in Craig.”
Copyright Leland E. Hale (2019). All rights reserved.
Order “What Happened In Craig,” HERE and HERE. True crime from Epicenter Press about Alaska’s Worst Unsolved Mass Murder.