October 7, 2025 • 31 mins
In the early hours of August 15, 1967, Canada was rocked by one of the most horrific tragedies in its history—the Peterson family massacre in Shell Lake. Nine family members were brutally murdered by a man named Victor Hoffman, who had just been released from a mental hospital. Hoffman claimed to hear demonic voices commanding him to kill. He believed he was carrying out a divine mission to exterminate the devil himself. From mystical visions to uncontrollable urges to kill, this story reveals the darkest side of the human soul and how the mental health system of the 1960s failed to recognize the real danger.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
They say, the devil doesn't make you do it. He
just points out how easy it is to step over
the edge. And that's exactly what happened in the early
hours of August fifteenth, nineteen sixty seven. It was the
day Canada witnessed one of its most chilling, most tragic,
random mass murders, leaving nine innocent souls lost forever. Victor Hoffman,
(00:23):
a troubled young man fresh out of a mental hospital,
was desperate to avoid going back. Back in the nineteen sixties,
mental health care was far from what it is today.
It was underfunded, misunderstood, and often stigmatized. So Victor made
himself a promise he wouldn't return to that place. And
(00:44):
oh boy, he kept that promise, but in a way
so chilling it lingers in your mind long after you
hear the story. But before we dive into the dark
heart of it all, let's take a step back and
understand Victor's childhood and what led him to that mental
facility in the first place. Born in nineteen forty six,
(01:08):
Victor grew up in what seemed like a typical, hard
working family. His parents, Robert and Stella Hoffman, were devout Lutherans,
living in the small village of li Esque, Canada. The
Hoffmans were known for their dedication to farming, their faith,
and keeping Sundays sacred. They were the kind of family
people would describe as ordinary and god fearing. Victor was
(01:33):
the fifth of seven children in the Hoffman household. As
a boy, he didn't stand out much from his siblings.
His parents described him as a diligent, responsible child who
hit all the usual milestones. By all accounts, he was
a solid worker on the family farm and had a
natural knack for hunting. He loved guns and spent a
(01:53):
lot of time honing his skills as a hunter. However,
there was one thing about Victor that set him apart.
He was a loner. He didn't have friends and struggled
in school, largely because he couldn't concentrate. Still, his parents
didn't think much of it at the time. To them,
Victor was just a quiet, independent kid. However, Victor later
(02:16):
told psychiatrists that his struggles began when he was just
six years old. That was the first time he saw
the devil. He described the figure vividly, a towering black
creature six feet tall with a long tail. From that moment,
he felt torn between two forces, God and Satan, each
(02:36):
trying to claim him. The battle within Victor's mind was relentless.
He often woke up in the middle of the night
to strange tapping sounds that would grow louder and faster.
By the time he turned ten, these experiences had grown darker.
Victor began having violent impulses urges to kill that consumed
his thoughts daily. He fantasized about harming his family and
(02:59):
even strangers he had just met, But Victor kept his
disturbing thoughts to himself, hiding them from his parents and siblings.
To cope, he directed his violent tendencies toward animals. Killing
animals gave him a sense of relief, even happiness, which
he likened to the satisfaction a hunter feels after a
successful kill. The devil, however, never left Victor alone. One morning,
(03:25):
while eating breakfast, he heard a voice calling out to him.
Following the voice outside, he claimed to have encountered Satan again,
this time in an even more grotesque form, a six
foot six man weighing over three hundred pounds with the
face of a pig. The devil promised Victor wealth and
power in exchange for his soul. Though Victor claimed he
(03:48):
didn't want to make a deal, he admitted to kneeling
on one knee, hoping to at least become half as rich,
but nothing came of it. Now, these encounters with the
devil only deepened his already fragile mental state. He also
claimed to see cold, dismembered hands floating in his room,
and worse, he could feel them touch him. The devil's
(04:10):
visits became a regular occurrence, with the dark figure relentlessly
approaching Victor asking for his soul. But no matter how
many times the devil came, Victor refused to give in.
Not long after these visits started, Victor allegedly began seeing angels.
Unlike the devil, these angels appeared less frequently. According to Victor,
(04:34):
they looked like human women, dressed elegantly, and their main
goal was to guide him away from the Devil's grasp.
Victor believed they were messengers of God, sent to protect
him and keep him on the right path. One day,
Victor claimed he received a divine message. The angels and
God themselves had tasked him with an extraordinary mission. If
(04:57):
he could capture and destroy the devil, they promised to
take him to heaven. This message consumed Victor. It gave
him a sense of purpose, though it only made his
behavior more erratic. Determined to fulfill this divine task, Victor
tried everything he could think of to trap the devil.
(05:18):
He started with nets, but those plans didn't work. Frustrated,
he came up with a new plan. He'd shoot the
devil down. On May twenty seventh, nineteen sixty six, Victor's mother, Stella,
found him outside in their backyard firing his rifle into
the sky. By the time she got there, he had
already fired three rounds. Confused and understandably scared, Stella demanded
(05:43):
to know what he was doing. His answer was chilling
yet simple, I shot the devil. Stella begged him to
stop and managed to coax him back inside the house.
Victor reluctantly put the rifle down, but then grabbed the
family car and drove off. While he was gone, Stella
and the rest of the family scrambled to hide every
(06:04):
gun in the house. When Victor returned, he asked for
the gun's back, promising no harm would come to anyone,
but his family refused. Agitated, he left again, only to
come back shortly after this time, asking to speak with
their pastor. The pastor arrived and the two had a
private conversation. Stella couldn't hear much of what was said,
(06:26):
but when they stepped outside to finish their talk, she
heard Victor say something that shook her to her core.
I'd like to kill my mom. That was it. Stella
and her husband, Robert knew they couldn't wait any longer.
The next day, they made arrangements to have Victor admitted
to Saskatchewan Hospital. By the way, I post true crime
(06:48):
and new cases here every week, So if that sounds
like your kind of thing, please consider subscribing. It helps
a lot. Back in nineteen sixty seven, Saskatchewan Hospital was
a big mental health facility located in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada.
At that time, mental health care wasn't as advanced as
it is now. Hospitals like Saskatchewan were more like institutions
(07:11):
where patients were often locked away and given basic care.
The focus wasn't really on helping people get better or recover.
Patients were more or less kept in check. Treatments were
mainly about managing symptoms with medication, and there wasn't much
emphasis on understanding or treating the root causes of their conditions. Now,
(07:31):
when Victor underwent his initial psychiatric evaluation, the attending doctor
officially diagnosed him with schizophrenia. The severity of his condition
left no room for debate. Victor needed to be hospitalized. Surprisingly,
he didn't resist. He voluntarily agreed to commit himself, perhaps
(07:51):
believing it was the best option for everyone, including himself.
According to the records, he wasn't just battling a serious
mental ills illness, his body was also showing signs of stress.
He'd often be found talking to himself, laughing at nothing,
and deep in confusion about his own identity. At one point,
he even questioned whether he was a boy or a girl,
(08:14):
adding to the chaos in his mind. He was cooperative
with the doctors during his exams, but came across as withdrawn, vague,
and indifferent. It seemed like Victor felt like an outsider
in his own family, as they just couldn't understand what
he was going through. He mentioned to his siblings that
he saw the devil, but they just mocked him, laughing
(08:35):
off his concerns. Victor wasn't just imagining things, though, he
believed the devil was punishing him because he refused to
sell his soul. At one point, he even thought that
someone else's brain was inside his body. He claimed the
brain belonged to a girl named Denise, and she wanted
to take full control of him. His doctors explained all
(08:58):
of this as mere illusions, but Victor was convinced otherwise.
He felt like he had touched both the devil and angels,
so he wasn't ready to let go of his beliefs.
But as time went on, Victor realized that if he
kept insisting that he was seeing the devil, he'd never
get out of the hospital, so he tried to convince
(09:18):
himself that it was all in his head. He wanted
to get better, to live a life without fear, and
to leave the constant anxiety behind. The doctor started him
on a treatment plan that included electro convulsive therapy, twelve
sessions in total tranquilizers, occupational therapy, and supportive psychotherapy. By
(09:39):
the end of his treatment, doctors believed that Victor had
come to terms with the idea that all the devil
sidings were just figments of his imagination. Victor seemed to
buy into this too, as he no longer feared the devil,
and his mind appeared clearer than ever before. He was
happy and cooperative, though still somewhat withdrawn and inclined to
(10:02):
be alone at times. But here's the catch. Even though
Victor was no longer scared of the devil, his darker
impulses didn't go away. He still had violent thoughts, imagining
killing his family and people around him for no reason
other than the simple desire to do so. He openly
(10:22):
shared these impulses with his doctors, and they were aware
of them. Despite this, they were optimistic about his recovery.
They told his father that he would be fine in
a year or two with some more therapy. So, despite
knowing about Victor's dangerous impulses, the doctors discharged him from
the hospital on July twenty sixth, nineteen sixty seven. They
(10:44):
sent him back home to his father, along with a
prescription for tranquilizers, hoping that this would keep him calm
and prevent any further dangerous behavior. But life at home
didn't exactly go as planned. Victor had a tough time
rusting back to life on the farm. He was surrounded
by the familiar sights and sounds of home, but something
(11:06):
felt wrong. His mind was still clouded, and he couldn't
shake the feeling that the world wasn't the same as
it had been before his hospitalization. The medication prescribed to
him didn't help much either. In fact, it made things worse.
The tranquilizers made him feel incredibly sleepy, which interfered with
(11:27):
his work on the farm. On top of that, his
back hurt constantly, adding to his growing frustration. By August eighth,
Victor had had enough of the medication. He complained that
the tranquilizers made him feel weak and useless, and he
desperately wanted to get back to his normal routine. He
(11:48):
needed to feel strong again, especially to be able to
help on the farm, so he made a choice. He
stopped taking the pills. At first, he didn't notice any
drastic changes, but a few days later something shifted within him.
On August eleventh, Victor woke up with an unsettling feeling.
(12:08):
It wasn't like the usual emotions he felt on a
bad day. This was different. He had a strong sense
that something was about to happen, but he couldn't explain why.
All he knew was that he felt like he would
either end up back in the hospital or in jail.
Victor's biggest fear was going back to the hospital. The
idea of being locked away again terrified him, and he
(12:30):
said he'd rather die than face that fate. In his mind,
he had been suffering for so long, and the hospital
was just a place where people didn't understand him. He
believed that the worst part wasn't the treatments or the isolation,
it was being trapped in a place where no one
could see what was really going on inside his mind.
(12:50):
Victor had always felt different, and he began to believe
that he had a special ability. He called it visions.
These weren't just regular dreams or daydreams though. According to Victor,
these visions were a way of seeing the future. He
believed that these premonitions had been happening for as long
as he could remember, and they would come to him
(13:11):
every day, and with each vision there was always the
same unsettling feeling. After seeing the future, he would imagine
killing someone. It was as if this act would somehow
prove to the devil that he was finally on his side,
that he wasn't afraid to do whatever it took. On
August fourteenth, Victor's Day, started off pretty normally. He spent
(13:35):
the day working on the tractor, trying to keep himself
busy and occupied, but by nine thirty pm he was exhausted.
He fell asleep on the sofa, but around eleven thirty pm,
his parents woke him up and asked him to go
to his bedroom. He went back to sleep, but woke
up again around three am, unable to rest any longer.
(13:56):
It was then that he decided to go to the
garage and try to distract himself with some work. But
after working for a while, he still couldn't shake the
feeling of restlessness. So he began pacing back and forth
in the garage, letting his mind wander. That's when something
strange happened. As Victor stood by the garage door, he
suddenly felt a strange sensation in the side of his head.
(14:19):
It wasn't painful, more like a sudden rush of pleasure.
He described it as if his body had been sliced
in half and something had left him. It wasn't a
feeling of pain, but more like release. It was as
if all the tension and fear he had been holding
on to suddenly vanished, but in its place the urge
to kill grew even stronger. The feeling surged through him,
(14:42):
taking over his mind. With this new overwhelming urge to kill,
Victor decided he needed to do something about it. He
grabbed his twenty two Browning pump action repeater rifle and
loaded it up. He wasn't thinking clearly, but all he
knew was that he needed to act. His plan was simple.
He would drive around for about an hour, look for
(15:04):
small rodents to hunt, and then head back home to
finish his chores. He was looking for squirrels, particularly those
living in the spruce trees around his farm, but as
he drove for what felt like an eternity, he found
no squirrels, no small animals at all. Victor could have
taken that as a sign to turn around, but something
(15:26):
inside him kept him going. The thought of killing wouldn't
leave him. He couldn't ignore the pole to find something,
some one to take his frustration out on. He kept driving,
passing house after house. It wasn't until around six a m.
When the sky was starting to brighten, that he came
across a simple farm house. It didn't look any different
(15:49):
from the dozens of other houses he had passed along
the way, but For some reason, the feeling inside him
became stronger. It was as if this place was calling
to him. Unfortunately, the farmhouse where Victor ended up was
home to the Peterson family, who lived in Shell Lake,
about forty miles away from Victor's place in Lesk. Unlike
(16:10):
Victor's troubled life, the Peterson household was filled with joy
and laughter. They were a big, close knit family with
ten members in total. At the heart of the family
was James Peterson, a hard working, humble man who was
all about community. After serving in World War II, James
bought three hundred twenty eight acres of land and became
(16:31):
a mixed grain and cattle farmer. But life wasn't easy,
and when his father retired, James took on an additional
seventy two acres, making his workload even heavier. Back then,
in Canada, it wasn't uncommon for families to be large,
and the Petersons were no different. They had nine kids,
ranging from the oldest Cathy, who was nineteen, down to
(16:55):
the youngest Larry, who was just one. The rest of
the children were Jane seventeen, Mary thirteen, Dorothy eleven, Pearl nine,
Phyllis four, William five and Colin two. The Peterson kids
were known as well behaved, polite, and liked by everyone
(17:16):
around them. The whole family had a reputation for being good,
respectable folks. They were an ordinary church going family and honestly,
no one had anything bad to say about them. Cathy
was the only one who wasn't living at home at
the time. She had recently gotten married and moved to
British Columbia with her husband. The rest of the Petersons
(17:37):
lived together in a modest, cozy farmhouse with just four rooms.
Out of those, only two were used as bedrooms. The
kids all slept together in one room, except for the
one year old baby, who shared a bed with James
and Evelyn. It was crowded, but they made it work.
They weren't rich by any means, but the Petersons never complained.
(17:58):
They cherished what they had, especially their family. James and
Evelyn were totally focused on their kids and built a
home around them. They loved their children above all else
and wanted the best for them. Their oldest daughter, Jeanne,
was an up and coming athlete, and her parents were
determined to support her talent. So to help pay for
(18:18):
a track camp she wanted to attend in Dundurn. James
decided to call up his neighbor will Drew Lang. He
needed help hauling fifty bushels of hay to the grain
elevator to sell the next morning, on August fifteenth, nineteen
sixty seven, the very same day that Victor, at that moment,
was feeling the uncontrollable urge to kill. According to interviews
(18:42):
from his trial, the voices in Victor's head were loud
and clear, telling him this is it, this is where
you have to go and do it now. To his surprise,
he allegedly recognized the kitchen, despite never having been there
before or even knowing the Petersons. It felt so familiar,
like he'd seen it in a dream before. Not long
(19:03):
after entering, he was confronted by James Peterson, who, not
knowing who Victor was or why he was there, lunged
toward him, trying to protect his family. James fought back,
but Victor was too fast. He shot James seven times
as he tried to shield his loved ones. Afterward, Victor
went back outside to reload his gun and gather his thoughts,
(19:26):
but as he stood there, he saw Evelyn, James's wife,
climbing out of a window with their youngest son, Larry
in her arms. Without hesitation, he shot Evelyn and left
her where she fell motionless. Victor didn't stop there. He
went back inside the house, where the Peterson children were
still asleep in their beds. One by one, he shot
(19:50):
and killed six of them, Jean, Mary, Dorothy, Pearl, William
and Colin at close range. While they lay defenseless. The
children had no no chance. He then returned to where
Evelyn's lifeless body lay and took Larry's life as well.
He later claimed it was a mercy killing, reasoning that
(20:10):
the young boy was too little to survive alone. Victor's
twisted reasoning didn't stop there. Since he'd already killed James,
he felt there was no reason to leave anyone alive
to identify him, so he set about collecting as many
spent cartridge cases as he could find, making sure there
was nothing left behind that could tie him to the scene.
(20:33):
After the horrific act, Victor made his way back to
his own parents' house. He arrived around seven thirty in
the morning, but instead of feeling any sense of relief,
he was overcome with sickness and horror at what he
had just done. The guilt weighed on him heavily as
he spent the rest of the day wrestling with the
reality of his actions. Meanwhile, wil Drew Lang arrived at
(20:57):
the Peterson farm expecting to see James, but James was
nowhere to be found. It was getting close to nine
a m. So Lang, assuming James had slept in, joked
to the house, calling out for him, But when he
pushed open the door, his casual tone quickly turned into
one of shock. Inside he found James Peterson's lifeless body
(21:21):
sprawled on the kitchen floor. Horrified, Lang quickly backed away
and rushed to his car. He drove to the nearest phone,
a good four miles down the road, to make the
call that would change everything. The peaceful morning in Shell
Lake was shattered, and the Peterson families lives, along with
everyone in the surrounding area, would never be the same.
(21:42):
When the police arrived at the Peterson farmhouse, they wasted
no time. They rushed in, scanning the home for any
survivors and clues that could help them understand what had happened,
But the scene they found was chilling. There were no
signs of a robbery, and everything appeared untouched. It seemed
like there was no clear motive for the murders. Inside,
(22:04):
they found twenty eight bullets, with twenty seven of them
having hit their targets. It was clear that the killings
were deliberate, not random. Boot Prints were also discovered on
the kitchen's linoleum floor, but oddly no boots from the
Petersen home matched the prince. Alongside that, five cartridge casings
were found, confirming that a twenty two caliber weapon had
(22:27):
been used. Then, just as they were starting their investigation,
something eerie happened. A muffled noise broke the silence. They
traced the sound to one of the beds, where hidden
under the sheets and wedged between the bodies of her sisters,
they found four year old Phyllis. She was the only
survivor of the horrifying massacre. At first, she didn't fully
(22:50):
understand what had happened, but she could sense the severity
of the situation. Later, she recalled how the officer who
carried her from the house was crying that when she
knew something truly terrible had taken place. Phyllis's survival was
a miracle and her story would haunt everyone who heard it.
The massacre of the Peterson family became one of the
(23:12):
most gruesome crime scenes many officers had ever witnessed. Phyllis
was taken to her uncle's house near by, while Cathy,
her older sister, was notified of the tragedy. Devastated, Cathy
moved back to Shell Lake to care for her surviving sister.
As the police investigated, they combed through the tall grass
(23:34):
and fields surrounding the farm, hoping to find something, anything,
that might give them a lead. Roadblocks were set up
and the search for the killer expanded across the area,
growing larger with each passing day. They spent days searching
with dogs and a search party of two hundred fifty
people scouring the land, but nothing turned up. Then, on
(23:57):
the fourth day, they caught a break. A local resident
from li Esk, concerned about the tragedy, walked into the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Detachment office in Shellbrook. The residents
suggested they look into a young man, the son of
his neighbor, who had recently been discharged from a mental hospital.
The man had a known obsession with guns and hunting,
(24:20):
which immediately raised red flags. The corporal and his team
didn't hesitate. They quickly got in their cars and drove
down the narrow, winding highways toward Lesk. Their destination the
farm owned by the Hoffman family. They had a hunch
this might be the lead they were desperately looking for.
They started by questioning Victor's parents, focusing specifically on any firearms, boots,
(24:45):
and of course, their son. As the investigation went on,
things started to add up. A rifle was found on
the Hoffman's property, and although it wasn't the exact model
they originally expected, it was still significant. The police had
its sent for ballistics testing to see if it matched
the bullets from the Peterson home. During the search, the
(25:06):
detectives also spotted a pair of rubber boots. These boots
were sent for comparison to and when the results came back,
it was clear both the rifle and the boots matched
evidence found at the Peterson house. It wasn't long before
they had enough evidence to make an arrest. Victor Hoffman
was charged with the brutal murders of nine members of
(25:26):
the Peterson family. When the arrest was made, there was
something chilling about Victor's demeanor, described by police as a single,
average build man. He didn't seem afraid at all. In fact,
he was eerily calm and surrendered without any resistance. His
arrest happened just three hours after the funeral for the Petersons,
(25:48):
adding a whole new layer of shock and horror to
the case. Victor was taken to the station in North Battleford,
and for the first ten to fifteen minutes he was silent,
not saying a word, but of eventually he broke down.
What came next was even more disturbing. Victor confessed to everything.
(26:08):
He admitted that the devil made him kill the Petersons,
but perhaps the most unsettling part of his confession came
when he was asked about Phyllis, the only survivor. Victor
claimed that he spared Phyllis because she had the face
of an angel. As for the others, he said he
didn't respect them because they looked like pigs. These chilling
(26:30):
responses raised serious concerns about Victor's mental state, so instead
of being sent to a regular prison, he was taken
to a nearby mental hospital for further evaluation. There, doctors
diagnosed him once again with paranoid schizophrenia, a condition that
had clearly gone untreated. Despite this, the court found that
(26:53):
he was still fit to stand trial. Victor's trial began
on January eighth, nineteen sixty eight, and his charges were
two counts of non capital murder. The defense team argued
that Victor wouldn't have committed the horrific crime if it
hadn't been for his untreated mental illness. They stood firm,
insisting that his condition played a central role in the tragedy.
(27:17):
After deliberating for three and a half hours, the jury
reached a verdict. Despite the overwhelming evidence against Victor, the
jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity. The
decision stunned many and left people questioning how someone who
had confessed to such a brutal crime could escape the
full weight of justice. But the jury's decision was based
(27:39):
on something that many hadn't expected at the time, Victor's
mental health. The doctor who had testified for the defense
had given such a detailed and logical explanation of Victor's
mental illness that the jury felt convinced. They understood that
Victor was driven by something that in his mind felt real.
(28:00):
Arnoia and delusions had played a major role in what happened,
and that convinced the jury that he truly believed he
was doing what he thought was necessary. Although Victor wouldn't
spend the rest of his life in prison, the judge
made sure he didn't get off easy. Instead of a
typical prison sentence, Victor was committed to an institution for
the criminally insane. This seemed to hurt him even more.
(28:25):
After hearing the verdict, he just sat there, looking straight ahead,
showing absolutely no emotion. It was as if the reality
of his situation hadn't hit him yet. Victor was sent
to a facility in southern Ontario where he would stay indefinitely,
with his release depending on government regulations for years. He
(28:46):
remained in that institution, out of the public eye, until
December of two thousand one, when he was granted supervised
access to nearby towns, but even this small amount of
freedom didn't last long. Would never experience true freedom again.
On May twenty first, two thousand four, Victor died in
(29:08):
custody from cancer, but the aftermath of his crimes would
linger for much longer. Cathy, the sister of one of
the victims, took on the responsibility of raising Phyllis the
only survivor of the massacre. She raised Phyllis alongside her
own children, giving her a second chance at life after
the horrors she had experienced. Eventually, Cathy and her husband
(29:31):
retired from farming and moved to a nearby town after
their family farm house burned down. But despite the years
that had passed, both Kathy and Phyllis couldn't shake their
frustrations about what happened. Phyllis had been a little girl
when the massacre occurred, and as she grew up, she
still struggled with the shadow of the tragedy. She spoke
(29:52):
about how difficult it was to live with the unwonted
attention that came with being the only survivor. People looked
at her differently, and it was hard to escape the
weight of the past. In an interview in two thousand
and four, Phyllis opened up about her struggles. She said,
it was always hard to adjust, always feeling like I
(30:13):
didn't fit in until I had my son, James. Having
James was a turning point for Phillis. It helped her
heal in ways she never thought possible. Sadly, Phyllis passed
away from cancer in May of twenty nineteen, a Canadian
journalist named Peter Tadman wrote a book titled The Shell
(30:33):
Lake Massacre where he covered the details of the case.
In the book, Peter interviewed Victor several times, and he
reported that Victor stood firm in his belief that he
didn't feel any guilt for his actions. He even claimed
that he still saw the devil who had compelled him
to murder so many innocent people. To this day, the
(30:55):
Peterson massacre remains one of Canada's most horrific random killings,
second only to the Porta Peak massacre in twenty twenty,
where twenty two innocent lives were taken. While the insanity
ruling in Victor's case is something we can't ignore, it's
definitely a tough one to digest. Just because someone is
(31:16):
deemed insane doesn't mean their actions can be justified. No
innocent life should ever be lost, no matter the circumstances.
But let's be real, none of this would have happened
if Victor hadn't been released from the mental hospital in
the first place. So what do you think. Was Victor
truly a psychopath who somehow got loose, or do you
(31:38):
think there's something else going on here
They say, the devil doesn't make you do it. He
just points out how easy it is to step over
the edge. And that's exactly what happened in the early
hours of August fifteenth, nineteen sixty seven. It was the
day Canada witnessed one of its most chilling, most tragic,
random mass murders, leaving nine innocent souls lost forever. Victor Hoffman,
(00:23):
a troubled young man fresh out of a mental hospital,
was desperate to avoid going back. Back in the nineteen sixties,
mental health care was far from what it is today.
It was underfunded, misunderstood, and often stigmatized. So Victor made
himself a promise he wouldn't return to that place. And
(00:44):
oh boy, he kept that promise, but in a way
so chilling it lingers in your mind long after you
hear the story. But before we dive into the dark
heart of it all, let's take a step back and
understand Victor's childhood and what led him to that mental
facility in the first place. Born in nineteen forty six,
(01:08):
Victor grew up in what seemed like a typical, hard
working family. His parents, Robert and Stella Hoffman, were devout Lutherans,
living in the small village of li Esque, Canada. The
Hoffmans were known for their dedication to farming, their faith,
and keeping Sundays sacred. They were the kind of family
people would describe as ordinary and god fearing. Victor was
(01:33):
the fifth of seven children in the Hoffman household. As
a boy, he didn't stand out much from his siblings.
His parents described him as a diligent, responsible child who
hit all the usual milestones. By all accounts, he was
a solid worker on the family farm and had a
natural knack for hunting. He loved guns and spent a
(01:53):
lot of time honing his skills as a hunter. However,
there was one thing about Victor that set him apart.
He was a loner. He didn't have friends and struggled
in school, largely because he couldn't concentrate. Still, his parents
didn't think much of it at the time. To them,
Victor was just a quiet, independent kid. However, Victor later
(02:16):
told psychiatrists that his struggles began when he was just
six years old. That was the first time he saw
the devil. He described the figure vividly, a towering black
creature six feet tall with a long tail. From that moment,
he felt torn between two forces, God and Satan, each
(02:36):
trying to claim him. The battle within Victor's mind was relentless.
He often woke up in the middle of the night
to strange tapping sounds that would grow louder and faster.
By the time he turned ten, these experiences had grown darker.
Victor began having violent impulses urges to kill that consumed
his thoughts daily. He fantasized about harming his family and
(02:59):
even strangers he had just met, But Victor kept his
disturbing thoughts to himself, hiding them from his parents and siblings.
To cope, he directed his violent tendencies toward animals. Killing
animals gave him a sense of relief, even happiness, which
he likened to the satisfaction a hunter feels after a
successful kill. The devil, however, never left Victor alone. One morning,
(03:25):
while eating breakfast, he heard a voice calling out to him.
Following the voice outside, he claimed to have encountered Satan again,
this time in an even more grotesque form, a six
foot six man weighing over three hundred pounds with the
face of a pig. The devil promised Victor wealth and
power in exchange for his soul. Though Victor claimed he
(03:48):
didn't want to make a deal, he admitted to kneeling
on one knee, hoping to at least become half as rich,
but nothing came of it. Now, these encounters with the
devil only deepened his already fragile mental state. He also
claimed to see cold, dismembered hands floating in his room,
and worse, he could feel them touch him. The devil's
(04:10):
visits became a regular occurrence, with the dark figure relentlessly
approaching Victor asking for his soul. But no matter how
many times the devil came, Victor refused to give in.
Not long after these visits started, Victor allegedly began seeing angels.
Unlike the devil, these angels appeared less frequently. According to Victor,
(04:34):
they looked like human women, dressed elegantly, and their main
goal was to guide him away from the Devil's grasp.
Victor believed they were messengers of God, sent to protect
him and keep him on the right path. One day,
Victor claimed he received a divine message. The angels and
God themselves had tasked him with an extraordinary mission. If
(04:57):
he could capture and destroy the devil, they promised to
take him to heaven. This message consumed Victor. It gave
him a sense of purpose, though it only made his
behavior more erratic. Determined to fulfill this divine task, Victor
tried everything he could think of to trap the devil.
(05:18):
He started with nets, but those plans didn't work. Frustrated,
he came up with a new plan. He'd shoot the
devil down. On May twenty seventh, nineteen sixty six, Victor's mother, Stella,
found him outside in their backyard firing his rifle into
the sky. By the time she got there, he had
already fired three rounds. Confused and understandably scared, Stella demanded
(05:43):
to know what he was doing. His answer was chilling
yet simple, I shot the devil. Stella begged him to
stop and managed to coax him back inside the house.
Victor reluctantly put the rifle down, but then grabbed the
family car and drove off. While he was gone, Stella
and the rest of the family scrambled to hide every
(06:04):
gun in the house. When Victor returned, he asked for
the gun's back, promising no harm would come to anyone,
but his family refused. Agitated, he left again, only to
come back shortly after this time, asking to speak with
their pastor. The pastor arrived and the two had a
private conversation. Stella couldn't hear much of what was said,
(06:26):
but when they stepped outside to finish their talk, she
heard Victor say something that shook her to her core.
I'd like to kill my mom. That was it. Stella
and her husband, Robert knew they couldn't wait any longer.
The next day, they made arrangements to have Victor admitted
to Saskatchewan Hospital. By the way, I post true crime
(06:48):
and new cases here every week, So if that sounds
like your kind of thing, please consider subscribing. It helps
a lot. Back in nineteen sixty seven, Saskatchewan Hospital was
a big mental health facility located in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada.
At that time, mental health care wasn't as advanced as
it is now. Hospitals like Saskatchewan were more like institutions
(07:11):
where patients were often locked away and given basic care.
The focus wasn't really on helping people get better or recover.
Patients were more or less kept in check. Treatments were
mainly about managing symptoms with medication, and there wasn't much
emphasis on understanding or treating the root causes of their conditions. Now,
(07:31):
when Victor underwent his initial psychiatric evaluation, the attending doctor
officially diagnosed him with schizophrenia. The severity of his condition
left no room for debate. Victor needed to be hospitalized. Surprisingly,
he didn't resist. He voluntarily agreed to commit himself, perhaps
(07:51):
believing it was the best option for everyone, including himself.
According to the records, he wasn't just battling a serious
mental ills illness, his body was also showing signs of stress.
He'd often be found talking to himself, laughing at nothing,
and deep in confusion about his own identity. At one point,
he even questioned whether he was a boy or a girl,
(08:14):
adding to the chaos in his mind. He was cooperative
with the doctors during his exams, but came across as withdrawn, vague,
and indifferent. It seemed like Victor felt like an outsider
in his own family, as they just couldn't understand what
he was going through. He mentioned to his siblings that
he saw the devil, but they just mocked him, laughing
(08:35):
off his concerns. Victor wasn't just imagining things, though, he
believed the devil was punishing him because he refused to
sell his soul. At one point, he even thought that
someone else's brain was inside his body. He claimed the
brain belonged to a girl named Denise, and she wanted
to take full control of him. His doctors explained all
(08:58):
of this as mere illusions, but Victor was convinced otherwise.
He felt like he had touched both the devil and angels,
so he wasn't ready to let go of his beliefs.
But as time went on, Victor realized that if he
kept insisting that he was seeing the devil, he'd never
get out of the hospital, so he tried to convince
(09:18):
himself that it was all in his head. He wanted
to get better, to live a life without fear, and
to leave the constant anxiety behind. The doctor started him
on a treatment plan that included electro convulsive therapy, twelve
sessions in total tranquilizers, occupational therapy, and supportive psychotherapy. By
(09:39):
the end of his treatment, doctors believed that Victor had
come to terms with the idea that all the devil
sidings were just figments of his imagination. Victor seemed to
buy into this too, as he no longer feared the devil,
and his mind appeared clearer than ever before. He was
happy and cooperative, though still somewhat withdrawn and inclined to
(10:02):
be alone at times. But here's the catch. Even though
Victor was no longer scared of the devil, his darker
impulses didn't go away. He still had violent thoughts, imagining
killing his family and people around him for no reason
other than the simple desire to do so. He openly
(10:22):
shared these impulses with his doctors, and they were aware
of them. Despite this, they were optimistic about his recovery.
They told his father that he would be fine in
a year or two with some more therapy. So, despite
knowing about Victor's dangerous impulses, the doctors discharged him from
the hospital on July twenty sixth, nineteen sixty seven. They
(10:44):
sent him back home to his father, along with a
prescription for tranquilizers, hoping that this would keep him calm
and prevent any further dangerous behavior. But life at home
didn't exactly go as planned. Victor had a tough time
rusting back to life on the farm. He was surrounded
by the familiar sights and sounds of home, but something
(11:06):
felt wrong. His mind was still clouded, and he couldn't
shake the feeling that the world wasn't the same as
it had been before his hospitalization. The medication prescribed to
him didn't help much either. In fact, it made things worse.
The tranquilizers made him feel incredibly sleepy, which interfered with
(11:27):
his work on the farm. On top of that, his
back hurt constantly, adding to his growing frustration. By August eighth,
Victor had had enough of the medication. He complained that
the tranquilizers made him feel weak and useless, and he
desperately wanted to get back to his normal routine. He
(11:48):
needed to feel strong again, especially to be able to
help on the farm, so he made a choice. He
stopped taking the pills. At first, he didn't notice any
drastic changes, but a few days later something shifted within him.
On August eleventh, Victor woke up with an unsettling feeling.
(12:08):
It wasn't like the usual emotions he felt on a
bad day. This was different. He had a strong sense
that something was about to happen, but he couldn't explain why.
All he knew was that he felt like he would
either end up back in the hospital or in jail.
Victor's biggest fear was going back to the hospital. The
idea of being locked away again terrified him, and he
(12:30):
said he'd rather die than face that fate. In his mind,
he had been suffering for so long, and the hospital
was just a place where people didn't understand him. He
believed that the worst part wasn't the treatments or the isolation,
it was being trapped in a place where no one
could see what was really going on inside his mind.
(12:50):
Victor had always felt different, and he began to believe
that he had a special ability. He called it visions.
These weren't just regular dreams or daydreams though. According to Victor,
these visions were a way of seeing the future. He
believed that these premonitions had been happening for as long
as he could remember, and they would come to him
(13:11):
every day, and with each vision there was always the
same unsettling feeling. After seeing the future, he would imagine
killing someone. It was as if this act would somehow
prove to the devil that he was finally on his side,
that he wasn't afraid to do whatever it took. On
August fourteenth, Victor's Day, started off pretty normally. He spent
(13:35):
the day working on the tractor, trying to keep himself
busy and occupied, but by nine thirty pm he was exhausted.
He fell asleep on the sofa, but around eleven thirty pm,
his parents woke him up and asked him to go
to his bedroom. He went back to sleep, but woke
up again around three am, unable to rest any longer.
(13:56):
It was then that he decided to go to the
garage and try to distract himself with some work. But
after working for a while, he still couldn't shake the
feeling of restlessness. So he began pacing back and forth
in the garage, letting his mind wander. That's when something
strange happened. As Victor stood by the garage door, he
suddenly felt a strange sensation in the side of his head.
(14:19):
It wasn't painful, more like a sudden rush of pleasure.
He described it as if his body had been sliced
in half and something had left him. It wasn't a
feeling of pain, but more like release. It was as
if all the tension and fear he had been holding
on to suddenly vanished, but in its place the urge
to kill grew even stronger. The feeling surged through him,
(14:42):
taking over his mind. With this new overwhelming urge to kill,
Victor decided he needed to do something about it. He
grabbed his twenty two Browning pump action repeater rifle and
loaded it up. He wasn't thinking clearly, but all he
knew was that he needed to act. His plan was simple.
He would drive around for about an hour, look for
(15:04):
small rodents to hunt, and then head back home to
finish his chores. He was looking for squirrels, particularly those
living in the spruce trees around his farm, but as
he drove for what felt like an eternity, he found
no squirrels, no small animals at all. Victor could have
taken that as a sign to turn around, but something
(15:26):
inside him kept him going. The thought of killing wouldn't
leave him. He couldn't ignore the pole to find something,
some one to take his frustration out on. He kept driving,
passing house after house. It wasn't until around six a m.
When the sky was starting to brighten, that he came
across a simple farm house. It didn't look any different
(15:49):
from the dozens of other houses he had passed along
the way, but For some reason, the feeling inside him
became stronger. It was as if this place was calling
to him. Unfortunately, the farmhouse where Victor ended up was
home to the Peterson family, who lived in Shell Lake,
about forty miles away from Victor's place in Lesk. Unlike
(16:10):
Victor's troubled life, the Peterson household was filled with joy
and laughter. They were a big, close knit family with
ten members in total. At the heart of the family
was James Peterson, a hard working, humble man who was
all about community. After serving in World War II, James
bought three hundred twenty eight acres of land and became
(16:31):
a mixed grain and cattle farmer. But life wasn't easy,
and when his father retired, James took on an additional
seventy two acres, making his workload even heavier. Back then,
in Canada, it wasn't uncommon for families to be large,
and the Petersons were no different. They had nine kids,
ranging from the oldest Cathy, who was nineteen, down to
(16:55):
the youngest Larry, who was just one. The rest of
the children were Jane seventeen, Mary thirteen, Dorothy eleven, Pearl nine,
Phyllis four, William five and Colin two. The Peterson kids
were known as well behaved, polite, and liked by everyone
(17:16):
around them. The whole family had a reputation for being good,
respectable folks. They were an ordinary church going family and honestly,
no one had anything bad to say about them. Cathy
was the only one who wasn't living at home at
the time. She had recently gotten married and moved to
British Columbia with her husband. The rest of the Petersons
(17:37):
lived together in a modest, cozy farmhouse with just four rooms.
Out of those, only two were used as bedrooms. The
kids all slept together in one room, except for the
one year old baby, who shared a bed with James
and Evelyn. It was crowded, but they made it work.
They weren't rich by any means, but the Petersons never complained.
(17:58):
They cherished what they had, especially their family. James and
Evelyn were totally focused on their kids and built a
home around them. They loved their children above all else
and wanted the best for them. Their oldest daughter, Jeanne,
was an up and coming athlete, and her parents were
determined to support her talent. So to help pay for
(18:18):
a track camp she wanted to attend in Dundurn. James
decided to call up his neighbor will Drew Lang. He
needed help hauling fifty bushels of hay to the grain
elevator to sell the next morning, on August fifteenth, nineteen
sixty seven, the very same day that Victor, at that moment,
was feeling the uncontrollable urge to kill. According to interviews
(18:42):
from his trial, the voices in Victor's head were loud
and clear, telling him this is it, this is where
you have to go and do it now. To his surprise,
he allegedly recognized the kitchen, despite never having been there
before or even knowing the Petersons. It felt so familiar,
like he'd seen it in a dream before. Not long
(19:03):
after entering, he was confronted by James Peterson, who, not
knowing who Victor was or why he was there, lunged
toward him, trying to protect his family. James fought back,
but Victor was too fast. He shot James seven times
as he tried to shield his loved ones. Afterward, Victor
went back outside to reload his gun and gather his thoughts,
(19:26):
but as he stood there, he saw Evelyn, James's wife,
climbing out of a window with their youngest son, Larry
in her arms. Without hesitation, he shot Evelyn and left
her where she fell motionless. Victor didn't stop there. He
went back inside the house, where the Peterson children were
still asleep in their beds. One by one, he shot
(19:50):
and killed six of them, Jean, Mary, Dorothy, Pearl, William
and Colin at close range. While they lay defenseless. The
children had no no chance. He then returned to where
Evelyn's lifeless body lay and took Larry's life as well.
He later claimed it was a mercy killing, reasoning that
(20:10):
the young boy was too little to survive alone. Victor's
twisted reasoning didn't stop there. Since he'd already killed James,
he felt there was no reason to leave anyone alive
to identify him, so he set about collecting as many
spent cartridge cases as he could find, making sure there
was nothing left behind that could tie him to the scene.
(20:33):
After the horrific act, Victor made his way back to
his own parents' house. He arrived around seven thirty in
the morning, but instead of feeling any sense of relief,
he was overcome with sickness and horror at what he
had just done. The guilt weighed on him heavily as
he spent the rest of the day wrestling with the
reality of his actions. Meanwhile, wil Drew Lang arrived at
(20:57):
the Peterson farm expecting to see James, but James was
nowhere to be found. It was getting close to nine
a m. So Lang, assuming James had slept in, joked
to the house, calling out for him, But when he
pushed open the door, his casual tone quickly turned into
one of shock. Inside he found James Peterson's lifeless body
(21:21):
sprawled on the kitchen floor. Horrified, Lang quickly backed away
and rushed to his car. He drove to the nearest phone,
a good four miles down the road, to make the
call that would change everything. The peaceful morning in Shell
Lake was shattered, and the Peterson families lives, along with
everyone in the surrounding area, would never be the same.
(21:42):
When the police arrived at the Peterson farmhouse, they wasted
no time. They rushed in, scanning the home for any
survivors and clues that could help them understand what had happened,
But the scene they found was chilling. There were no
signs of a robbery, and everything appeared untouched. It seemed
like there was no clear motive for the murders. Inside,
(22:04):
they found twenty eight bullets, with twenty seven of them
having hit their targets. It was clear that the killings
were deliberate, not random. Boot Prints were also discovered on
the kitchen's linoleum floor, but oddly no boots from the
Petersen home matched the prince. Alongside that, five cartridge casings
were found, confirming that a twenty two caliber weapon had
(22:27):
been used. Then, just as they were starting their investigation,
something eerie happened. A muffled noise broke the silence. They
traced the sound to one of the beds, where hidden
under the sheets and wedged between the bodies of her sisters,
they found four year old Phyllis. She was the only
survivor of the horrifying massacre. At first, she didn't fully
(22:50):
understand what had happened, but she could sense the severity
of the situation. Later, she recalled how the officer who
carried her from the house was crying that when she
knew something truly terrible had taken place. Phyllis's survival was
a miracle and her story would haunt everyone who heard it.
The massacre of the Peterson family became one of the
(23:12):
most gruesome crime scenes many officers had ever witnessed. Phyllis
was taken to her uncle's house near by, while Cathy,
her older sister, was notified of the tragedy. Devastated, Cathy
moved back to Shell Lake to care for her surviving sister.
As the police investigated, they combed through the tall grass
(23:34):
and fields surrounding the farm, hoping to find something, anything,
that might give them a lead. Roadblocks were set up
and the search for the killer expanded across the area,
growing larger with each passing day. They spent days searching
with dogs and a search party of two hundred fifty
people scouring the land, but nothing turned up. Then, on
(23:57):
the fourth day, they caught a break. A local resident
from li Esk, concerned about the tragedy, walked into the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Detachment office in Shellbrook. The residents
suggested they look into a young man, the son of
his neighbor, who had recently been discharged from a mental hospital.
The man had a known obsession with guns and hunting,
(24:20):
which immediately raised red flags. The corporal and his team
didn't hesitate. They quickly got in their cars and drove
down the narrow, winding highways toward Lesk. Their destination the
farm owned by the Hoffman family. They had a hunch
this might be the lead they were desperately looking for.
They started by questioning Victor's parents, focusing specifically on any firearms, boots,
(24:45):
and of course, their son. As the investigation went on,
things started to add up. A rifle was found on
the Hoffman's property, and although it wasn't the exact model
they originally expected, it was still significant. The police had
its sent for ballistics testing to see if it matched
the bullets from the Peterson home. During the search, the
(25:06):
detectives also spotted a pair of rubber boots. These boots
were sent for comparison to and when the results came back,
it was clear both the rifle and the boots matched
evidence found at the Peterson house. It wasn't long before
they had enough evidence to make an arrest. Victor Hoffman
was charged with the brutal murders of nine members of
(25:26):
the Peterson family. When the arrest was made, there was
something chilling about Victor's demeanor, described by police as a single,
average build man. He didn't seem afraid at all. In fact,
he was eerily calm and surrendered without any resistance. His
arrest happened just three hours after the funeral for the Petersons,
(25:48):
adding a whole new layer of shock and horror to
the case. Victor was taken to the station in North Battleford,
and for the first ten to fifteen minutes he was silent,
not saying a word, but of eventually he broke down.
What came next was even more disturbing. Victor confessed to everything.
(26:08):
He admitted that the devil made him kill the Petersons,
but perhaps the most unsettling part of his confession came
when he was asked about Phyllis, the only survivor. Victor
claimed that he spared Phyllis because she had the face
of an angel. As for the others, he said he
didn't respect them because they looked like pigs. These chilling
(26:30):
responses raised serious concerns about Victor's mental state, so instead
of being sent to a regular prison, he was taken
to a nearby mental hospital for further evaluation. There, doctors
diagnosed him once again with paranoid schizophrenia, a condition that
had clearly gone untreated. Despite this, the court found that
(26:53):
he was still fit to stand trial. Victor's trial began
on January eighth, nineteen sixty eight, and his charges were
two counts of non capital murder. The defense team argued
that Victor wouldn't have committed the horrific crime if it
hadn't been for his untreated mental illness. They stood firm,
insisting that his condition played a central role in the tragedy.
(27:17):
After deliberating for three and a half hours, the jury
reached a verdict. Despite the overwhelming evidence against Victor, the
jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity. The
decision stunned many and left people questioning how someone who
had confessed to such a brutal crime could escape the
full weight of justice. But the jury's decision was based
(27:39):
on something that many hadn't expected at the time, Victor's
mental health. The doctor who had testified for the defense
had given such a detailed and logical explanation of Victor's
mental illness that the jury felt convinced. They understood that
Victor was driven by something that in his mind felt real.
(28:00):
Arnoia and delusions had played a major role in what happened,
and that convinced the jury that he truly believed he
was doing what he thought was necessary. Although Victor wouldn't
spend the rest of his life in prison, the judge
made sure he didn't get off easy. Instead of a
typical prison sentence, Victor was committed to an institution for
the criminally insane. This seemed to hurt him even more.
(28:25):
After hearing the verdict, he just sat there, looking straight ahead,
showing absolutely no emotion. It was as if the reality
of his situation hadn't hit him yet. Victor was sent
to a facility in southern Ontario where he would stay indefinitely,
with his release depending on government regulations for years. He
(28:46):
remained in that institution, out of the public eye, until
December of two thousand one, when he was granted supervised
access to nearby towns, but even this small amount of
freedom didn't last long. Would never experience true freedom again.
On May twenty first, two thousand four, Victor died in
(29:08):
custody from cancer, but the aftermath of his crimes would
linger for much longer. Cathy, the sister of one of
the victims, took on the responsibility of raising Phyllis the
only survivor of the massacre. She raised Phyllis alongside her
own children, giving her a second chance at life after
the horrors she had experienced. Eventually, Cathy and her husband
(29:31):
retired from farming and moved to a nearby town after
their family farm house burned down. But despite the years
that had passed, both Kathy and Phyllis couldn't shake their
frustrations about what happened. Phyllis had been a little girl
when the massacre occurred, and as she grew up, she
still struggled with the shadow of the tragedy. She spoke
(29:52):
about how difficult it was to live with the unwonted
attention that came with being the only survivor. People looked
at her differently, and it was hard to escape the
weight of the past. In an interview in two thousand
and four, Phyllis opened up about her struggles. She said,
it was always hard to adjust, always feeling like I
(30:13):
didn't fit in until I had my son, James. Having
James was a turning point for Phillis. It helped her
heal in ways she never thought possible. Sadly, Phyllis passed
away from cancer in May of twenty nineteen, a Canadian
journalist named Peter Tadman wrote a book titled The Shell
(30:33):
Lake Massacre where he covered the details of the case.
In the book, Peter interviewed Victor several times, and he
reported that Victor stood firm in his belief that he
didn't feel any guilt for his actions. He even claimed
that he still saw the devil who had compelled him
to murder so many innocent people. To this day, the
(30:55):
Peterson massacre remains one of Canada's most horrific random killings,
second only to the Porta Peak massacre in twenty twenty,
where twenty two innocent lives were taken. While the insanity
ruling in Victor's case is something we can't ignore, it's
definitely a tough one to digest. Just because someone is
(31:16):
deemed insane doesn't mean their actions can be justified. No
innocent life should ever be lost, no matter the circumstances.
But let's be real, none of this would have happened
if Victor hadn't been released from the mental hospital in
the first place. So what do you think. Was Victor
truly a psychopath who somehow got loose, or do you
(31:38):
think there's something else going on here
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com