Rampage (43 page)

His trial opened in North Battleford on January 8, 1968, presided over by Justice M.A. Macpherson. The turn-of-the century courthouse was packed from wall to wall, forcing onlookers to stand in the hallway outside during a raging snowstorm. Among the evidence presented by the prosecution were bloodstained boots, lead bullets removed from the victims’ corpses, grinding compound, a pull-through gun cleaner found on the Hoffman’s property, and fourteen used .22 cartridges recovered from the Peterson farm. Perhaps most incriminating was a tape recording from the RCMP North Battleford subdivision headquarters featuring Victor describing the murders in vivid detail.

There was little doubt that Hoffman had pulled the trigger, so the defence’s strategy focused on the issue of the killer’s sanity — or lack of it. In the late sixties, psychosis was still widely misunderstood by the general public. Noble realized that if he was going to convince the jury that Victor was not criminally responsible for his actions, he would have to place them temporarily into the headspace of a paranoid schizophrenic. To do so, he called Dr. Hoffer to the witness stand, and over the next hour they described in laymen’s terms the severe sensory and cognitive effects associated with the mental illness. After breaking for lunch, Dr. Hoffer returned to the witness stand to explain that Hoffman “was doing what he had to do in terms of these delusions he was suffering at the time. Though Hoffman might have had a legal awareness of his acts, he was working for a higher [divine] injunction which set him above and apart from the ordinary man.” Their approach was successful, and following three and a half hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity for Hoffman’s slaying of James and Evelyn Peterson. Victor Ernest Hoffman was incarcerated at a psychiatric hospital in Penetanguishene, Ontario, where he remained for the duration of his life.

In the end, there were still a number of “what ifs” hanging like storm clouds over Shell Lake. G.E. Noble maintained that if Hoffman had discarded his boots or substituted the hammer marks on his rifle, he might never have been fingered for the crime. Moreover, the murders could have been avoided altogether. On January 10, 1969, Noble received a letter from Hoffman that read, “I am going to tell you something. The North Battleford hospital reduced my resistance for acting out in violence. Before I went to North Battleford hospital, I was always tempted to kill but could always put it out of my mind.”
[73]
A painful indictment of a failed system, or another of Victor Hoffman’s deadly delusions? In 1992, Hoffman reported to journalist Peter Tadman that he continued to be haunted by the ominous black devil. On May 21, 2004, Hoffman died of cancer, having never been released from custody.

*
Yes, this does not make any sense.

Conclusion

The number of known victims of every Canadian serial murderer chronicled in my previous work,
Cold North Killers
, barely surpasses the 329 deaths attributable to a single Canadian mass slaying: the Air India bombings. Given these statistics, it seems reasonable to proclaim that mass murderers represent a significantly larger threat to the Canadian public than serial killers. Yet as Fox and Levin discuss in
Extreme Killing
, serial slayers usually garner greater media attention, and linger in the public conscious far longer than rampage murderers. For some reason, we tend to think that the Paul Bernardos (three murdered) and Russell Williamses (two murdered) of the world are somehow “worse” than men like
Marc Lépine
(fourteen murdered) and
Alexander Keith Jr.
(eighty-one murdered). This attitude is reflected in forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone’s Scale of Evil, popularized on the television program
Most Evil
, where mass murderers indefinitely end up occupying lower levels than serial killers. Perhaps this is because, like Dr. Stone, we tend to focus on the
quality
of the pain inflicted, rather than the
quantity
. Where the 329 Air India bombing victims were likely killed quickly, Paul Bernardo tortured, humiliated, and terrified schoolgirls Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French for days. This begs the question: as a society, are we more focused on gory details than body count?

Let me be clear where I stand: it is both impossible and tactless to quantify pain on any macrocosmic level. The 329 victims claimed in the Air India bombing may not have suffered anywhere near the prolonged agony of Bernardo’s, but we mustn’t forget that by murdering 110 times as many people, the terrorists left a much greater legacy of surviving victims. That means thousands upon thousands of friends and family members, forever damaged by the knowledge that their loved ones’ lives were stolen. Unlike that of the slain, who no longer suffer, the survivors’ agony is ongoing, and may last for generations. What unites serial killers, spree murderers, and mass slayers is that they are all the bringers of unfathomable pain and, barring the profoundly mentally ill, their motivations are always selfish: to experience pleasure or catharsis at the expense of others.

Where anybody with a rudimentary understanding of serial killers knows that violent fantasy plays a crucial role in the build-up to their crimes, I was shocked to discover that it also occurred in many rampage murderers.
Marc Lépine
,
Peter John Peters
,
Swift Runner
,
Robert Poulin
,
David Shearing
,
Valery Fabrikant
,
James Roszko
,
Marcello Palma
,
Dale Nelson
,
Jonathan Yeo
,
Pierre Lebrun
, and
Denis Lortie
all seem to have become immersed in varying degrees of fantasy leading up to their crimes. Maybe Fox and Levin are correct in asserting that the differences between the three types of multiple murderers are ultimately superficial.

It is also interesting to note that, although rampage murders in Canada often spark debates about gun control, our worst massacres have always come by way of explosives and fire. To put it bluntly, if you want to kill as many people as possible, a pack of matches and a can of gasoline are far deadlier (and more accessible) than even the highest-grade firearm. Consider the seven most lethal Canadian mass homicides, four of which (in
italics
) are documented in this book.

Table 10: The Seven Deadliest Massacres Perpetrated by Canadians

The sum total of all the firearms-related rampage murders in this book does not add up to even half the number killed in the Air India bombing alone. To foray into the controversial waters of gun control is beyond the scope and purpose of this writing; however, I felt it would be irresponsible to overlook this glaring fact. Rampage killers generally seem to have a predilection for fire. All four of our earliest mass murderers (
Thomas Easby
,
Henry Sovereign
,
Patrick Slavin
, and
Alexander Keith Jr.
) employed it to different degrees in the commission of their crimes; along with
Pierre Lebrun
,
Robert Poulin
,
David Shearing
,
Albert Guay
,
Louis Chiasson
, and the
Order of the Solar Temple.
There are other incidents of Canadian mass murder involving arson or explosives that I did not have space to detail in this book, including the devastating Air India bombings, and the Gargantua Nightclub and Bluebird Cafe fires. Perhaps this reveals something about the psychology of a rampage murderer — the subconscious desire to unleash a force of sheer chaotic destruction upon society. Still, of the firebugs listed in this book, only
Poulin
,
Lebrun
, and the disciples of the
Order of the Solar Temple
committed suicide — metaphorically burning with the rest of the world. Rather, fire seems to be the weapon of choice for the mass killer who seeks to avoid detection, reducing evidence to ash — another reason why it is the deadliest of methods.

While constructing the four categories of spree killer, it occurred to me that some of the mass murderers also fell into these groups. It could be argued that
Robert Raymond Cook
and
Leonard Hogue
had elements of the Utilitarian in them, while
Marc Lépine
and
Denis Lortie
fit perfectly into the Exterminator type.
Victor Hoffman
also correlates to some extent with the Marauder. Maybe, in time, my system may be expanded to include both types of rampage killers. Frankly, I feel that the Holmes and Holmes typology is inconsistent, alternating between motivation (Psychotic, Disciple) and modus operandi (Set and Run, Family Annihilator). Obviously, plenty more research needs to be devoted to this field. I hope this contribution has been an engaging read and of some value.

Notes

Preface

1.
James Fox and Jack Levin,
Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), 156.

Part A

2.
Natural Born Killers
, directed by Oliver Stone (Lion’s Gate: 1994).

Chapter 1

3.
This table is reproduced in part from Robert K. Ressler,
Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 138.

4.
As serial homicide is not considered a “rampage”-style multiple murder, such cases have been purposefully excluded from this book. I have mentioned the category solely to contrast it with spree killing, with which it is often confused. To learn more about the phenomenon in Canada, please read my 2012 work,
Cold North Killers: Canadian Serial Murder.
Also note that many modern definitions of the term require only two or more victims, incidences, and locations, rather than the three listed here.

5.
John E. Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Burgess, and Robert K. Ressler,
Crime Classification Manual
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992), 20.

6.
Ibid
.

7.
Katherine Ramsland,
Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers: Why They Kill
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005), xiii–xiv.

8.
Fox and Levin,
Extreme Killing
, 18.

9.
John Douglas,
The Anatomy of Motive
(New York: Pocket Books, 1999), 237.

10.
Another spooky coincidence for this author (see the Russell Williams case in my earlier work
Cold North Killers
). From 2004 to 2005, I lived in an apartment at 3495 Ridgewood with my girlfriend while I attended Concordia University. It is not a particularly well-known street, and until recently I had no idea that Lépine had ever resided there.

11.
Monique Lépine,
Aftermath
(Toronto: Penguin, 2008), 143.

12.
“The Montreal Massacre,” Canada.com, accessed February 8, 2012,
www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/rapidfire/story.html?id= bd7367a7-1f49-4c5d-949d-7e5a85941b40.

13.
Ibid
.

14.
Ibid
.

15.
Lépine,
Aftermath
, 137.

16.
“The Montreal Massacre,”
Canada.com
.http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/rapidfire/story.html?id=bd7367a7-1f49-4c5d-949d-7e5a85941b40.

17.
Ibid
.

18.
Ibid
.

19.
Ibid
.

20.
Ibid
.

21.
Ibid
.

22.
Richard Ouzounian, “Paying Tribute to Unseen Victims of Montreal Massacre,”
Toronto Star
(website), accessed April 25, 2012,
www.thestar.com/entertainment/theatre/article/409267.

23.
Ingrid Peritz, “A Survivor Speaks,”
Globe and Mail
(website), accessed April 22, 2012,
www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-survivor-speaks/article1390009/
.

24.
This version of Lépine’s suicide note is an amalgamation of the translation found at “The Montreal Massacre” (
Canada.com
) and the near-identical replication in Denis Villeneuve’s 2009 film
Polytechnique.

25.
Lépine,
Aftermath
, 96–97, 195.

Chapter 2

25.
American Psychiatric Association,
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Fourth Edition, Text Revision
(Washington, D.C: Jaypee, 2005), 573.

26.
Ibid
., 898.

27.
A.C. Gaw and R. L. Bernstein, “Classification of Amok in
DSM-IV
,”
Hospital and Community Psychiatry
43(8): 789–793, via National Center for Biotechnology Information (website), accessed June 10, 2012,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1427677
.