When my Aunt Jackie called with an invitation, it was the type of offer I usually accepted without hesitation: “We’re going camping in August. Would you like to join us?”
The plan was a two-week adventure into the wilderness of British Columbia’s mountains, alongside my Aunt Jackie, 41, Uncle Bob, 44, and their two daughters, my cousins Janet, 13, and Karen, 11.
Camping with them was a tradition of sorts. Uncle Bob was my mother’s twin, and despite living several hours apart, our families were tightly knit. I often made the cross-country drive to visit them twice a month.
At 18, though older than my cousins, I cherished the time spent being playful with Janet and Karen, whether it was bouncing on their trampoline or creating our own renditions of popular songs.
However, this time, my thoughts were elsewhere. “I’ve met someone new,” I confided to Aunt Jackie. “He’s my boyfriend, and I’m not sure I want to be away from him.”
She was understanding.
‘Don’t worry,’ she replied. ‘We’ll see you soon.’
I looked forward to catching up when they got back. I had no way of knowing it was the last time I would ever speak to her… or that my decision that day saved my life.
Shelley Boden (left) with her cousin Janet Johnson in an undated photo
Janet (left) with her father Bob Johnson
Bob (left) with Jackie, who had invited their niece Shelley to go camping with the family but she declined
I remember my uncle as quick-witted and funny. He worked hard to give the girls everything. My Aunt Jackie was bubbly and an amazing cook and mother. She’d suffered a few miscarriages before having the girls and they were very precious to her.
Janet was funny and energetic like her dad. Sweet Karen was shy and the quiet one of the family. I’d watched the girls grow up, and we were very close.
Jackie’s parents, Edith and George Bentley, 59 and 66, joined them on the camping trip.
Then, on August 23, 1983, a few days after they were due back, Bob’s boss called my mother. Bob hadn’t shown up for work. Mom knew her brother had never missed a day’s work in his life.
Years earlier, he’d lost his right ring finger in an accident at the sawmill where he worked. He went to hospital but was back at work the same day.
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His absence was so out of character that Bob’s boss reported him missing and a huge search started. My parents went to stay at Bob and Jackie’s house that weekend to help and came back even more worried.
‘It’s like they’ve vanished,’ mom fretted.
For the next few weeks my parents shuttled back and forth between our home and Bob and Jackie’s, to help with the search efforts.
On September 13, they were at Uncle Bob’s again and I was at my grandparents when dad called. ‘Shelley, we can’t come home yet,’ he said. ‘The police found Uncle Bob’s car. They’re all in it, dead.’
They’d been murdered.
Uncle Bob, Aunt Jackie, the girls and their grandparents had all been shot. Their bodies were placed in the car which was driven deep into the woods and set ablaze.
All that remained, I would learn, were burnt skeletal remains of the adults on the back seat and skull fragments of the girls in the trunk.
Uncle Bob was identified by a few false teeth, Janet by a bracelet in the trunk.
Janet during the camping trip on which she was murdered. She was 13 years old
Shelley (back row, right) is pictured with her cousins Janet and Karen (front row)
A few days after they were due back from their camping trip, Bob’s boss called Shelley’s mother to say that he (pictured with Jackie) hadn’t shown up for work
Janet, above with Shelley, was funny and energetic like her dad. Sweet Karen was shy and the quiet one of the family
I was devastated and terrified, too. I couldn’t escape the awful knowledge that if I’d gone camping with them, I’d be dead as well – or the fear that, whoever had done this, was still at large.
Soon, detectives found Uncle Bob’s campsite. Bullet casings were scattered around it and, cooling in a nearby stream, were bottles of the beer he liked. The Bentleys’ campervan was missing.
As a nationwide investigation started, I couldn’t sleep and had panic attacks.
Sometimes I’d just burst into tears. I was tormented by the horror of my relatives’ murders. I kept wondering what they suffered.
Did the girls see their parents or grandparents murdered? Did Uncle Bob and Jackie see the girls killed?
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Because there were so few remains, the entire family was buried in one coffin at a funeral attended by hundreds of mourners.
Months passed. Detectives followed thousands of leads, but they led nowhere. It was the largest manhunt in Canadian history.
Then, in October 1983, forest rangers found the Bentleys’ campervan hidden in a remote area of Wells Gray Provincial Park, in British Columbia, where my family had been camping. Only a local would know about it.
Sure enough, a month later, following a tip, they arrested local man David Shearing.
He’d been arrested in the past for drink driving, drug possession, theft and assault. The day after his arrest, my father told me, Shearing confessed.
He claimed that after spying on my family from the bushes, he had returned the next night with a rifle intending to rob them. As the adults sat round the campfire, Shearing shot them. Then, he said, he shot the girls in their tent.
He put the bodies in Uncle Bob’s car, drove it away and torched it. The next day, he looted the Bentleys’ campervan and dumped that.
None of us believed that he had killed six people for the contents of a campervan, but we had no idea of his real motive.
Newspaper photographs showed a hulking brute with a prominent hooked nose. I shuddered at the sight of him.
On April 16, 1984, Shearing admitted six counts of second-degree murder. He got life and wouldn’t be eligible for parole until he had served 25 years.
Naively, I assumed that meant he would be locked up for the rest of his days.
Karen Johnson is pictured at a family wedding in an undated photo
Janet was identified by a bracelet in the trunk
Uncle Bob, Aunt Jackie, the girls and their grandparents had all been shot. Their bodies were placed in the car which was driven deep into the woods and set ablaze
Did the girls see their parents or grandparents (pictured) murdered? Did Uncle Bob and Jackie see the girls killed?
After the hearing, Shearing confessed to a detective what really happened. It was like the plot of a slasher horror movie.
He said the adults were just obstacles to what he really wanted: my young cousins. After killing their parents and grandparents, he admitted he tied the girls up and held them captive in a remote cabin for six days.
He repeatedly sexually assaulted Janet but denied assaulting Karen. Finally, he individually marched the girls into the woods and shot them in the back of the head.
Police found Shearing’s initials carved into the wall of the cabin where he had held the girls. Next to them was JJ, for my cousin, Janet Johnson.
What happened was worse than I could have imagined and gave me nightmares. Time passed but the pain didn’t. Sometimes, bursting into tears, I’d realize it was a significant day, like Karen or Janet’s birthday.
A few years later, I married the boyfriend I’d stayed home to be with but I struggled to be intimate. Images of Shearing with my cousins would flash through my mind.
When I had my daughter and son, I was incredibly overprotective. I tried to shield them, but sadly they grew up understanding that monsters who lurk in the dark are real.
Meanwhile, somehow Shearing seemed to get on with his life behind bars. He changed his surname to his mother’s maiden name, Ennis, and, in 1995, he married a woman called Heather. He even got conjugal visits.
In 2008, the day that my family had dreaded arrived. The monster applied for parole.
I campaigned against it, driving hundreds of miles to the hearing in a van emblazoned with the slogan, Say no to parole for David Ennis.
When I saw him, I shook and felt sick. I listened as he told the parole board, he was ‘mad at the world’ because he didn’t fit in.
‘He’s right,’ I told my mom, who was with me. ‘He’ll never fit into a community of honest, decent, caring people.’
My skin crawled as he admitted that he’d had violent sexual fantasies since he was 15. After crawling into the girls’ tent, he said he’d punched Janet in the stomach and she cried.
‘At that point, I lost the excitement that I had felt. I couldn’t continue any further in the sadistic part of it,’ he said.
‘Liar,’ I hissed to my mother.
All that remained were burnt skeletal remains of the adults on the back seat and skull fragments of the girls in the trunk
He said the adults were just obstacles to what he really wanted: my young cousins. After killing their parents and grandparents, he admitted he tied the girls up and held them captive in a remote cabin for six days
Shelley, above, believes a twist of fate saved her from being one of his victims
He was suspiciously silent about Karen. To me, it defied belief that he hadn’t molested that sweet girl, too. At the very least, she knew the horror her big sister had suffered.
Apologizing, he whined, ‘It makes me hate to be in my own skin.’
His wife, Heather, sat beside him. She said they had a ‘wonderful marriage’ and insisted that: ‘He couldn’t kill a fly.’
Mercifully, his parole was denied. The board said he still had violent sexual fantasies and hadn’t done sex offender treatment.
In 2012, he applied again. This time, our seats faced him. ‘I want something up so I don’t have to look at that monster,’ I grimaced to a guard. They found a bifold screen.
Parole was denied again.
He waived the right to apply in 2010 and withdrew his application in 2014. In 2016, he waived his right but tried again in 2021.
I helped organize a petition against his parole and we got over 100,000 signatures. The hearing was via video link because of COVID.
Confident of freedom, he told the board that he’d lined up the halfway house he would live in.
One board member asked what he’d done to the girls during the six days. As usual, he minimized it.
‘When I saw the effects of that violence in real life… Janet was crying, as was Karen. Those things stopped me from escalating to more violence. It did stop me using the violence for sexual gratification.’
Are they really going to believe a serial killer and pedophile? I worried.
Thankfully, they didn’t. Parole was refused, the board saying releasing him would ‘significantly compromise public safety’ and maintaining that he was still sexually sadistic.
This August, he is up for parole again. Given that it’s been 44 years, I think there’s a real chance he’ll be released. Equally evil men have been.
I’ve submitted a statement to the parole board.
‘I live with the terror another family could be torn apart,’ I wrote. ‘I do not want him to have the opportunity to destroy another family and leave them to live in fear for the rest of their lives.’
Shearing, Ennis, whatever he calls himself, must die in jail.
He has still not revealed what really happened. All we know is that he tied the girls up, punched Janet and, according to him, didn’t touch Karen.
My cousins were captives for six days. Did he feed them? Did they ask for their mom and dad? Did they cry and beg him to stop?
He’ll never say, because he knows if the parole board heard the truth of what he did to those poor girls the public outcry would mean he could never be released, and he’d probably be killed in prison.
A twist of fate saved me from being one of his victims.
I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure that animal pays for what he did to Uncle Bob, Aunt Jackie, the Bentleys and my beautiful cousins.
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