The Shell Lake murders occurred on August 15, 1967, in Shell Lake, Saskatchewan, when 21-year-old Victor Hoffman, a recently released psychiatric patient, brutally murdered nine members of the Peterson family in their rural farmhouse. Armed with a .22-calibre rifle, Hoffman killed James and Evelyn Peterson and seven of their eight children while they slept. The only survivor was 4-year-old Phyllis, who was spared because, according to Hoffman, she was too young to remember the attack. The crime shocked the nation and remains one of Canada's worst mass murders. Hoffman was later found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a psychiatric institution.