Crime Stories David Shearing

TIMELINE OF A TRAGEDY . . . AND THE KILLER'S BID FOR FREEDOM


1980: David Shearing runs over a body on the Wells Gray Road. He doesn't stop to confirm whether the person was dead or alive. Details only come out when he is sentenced for the Johnson-Bentley murders.

Aug. 6-13, 1982: Shearing comes across the Bentley and Johnson families, who were on a camping trip in the forests behind Clearwater. He secretly watches them and at some point during that week, he shoots the adults and disposes of their bodies.

Aug. 16, 1982: Shearing shoots and kills 11-year-old Karen Johnson, according to Sgt. Mike Eastham.

Aug. 17, 1982: Shearing shoots and kills 13-year-old Janet Johnson, according to Sgt. Mike Eastham.

Aug. 23, 1982: Police are contacted when Bob Johnson, a reliable employee, doesn't return to work from holidays as scheduled. An extensive search of the province begins for the two families.

Sept. 13, 1982: The burned wreck of the Johnson family car is located 50 metres off Battle Mountain Road and down a slight incline. Skeletal remains are found in the back seat. What appeared to be two small bodies are found in the trunk.

Sept. 14, 1982: Police find six .22-calibre shell casings at the old Bear Creek prison camp, later identified as the murder site.

Nov. 19, 1983: Shearing is arrested in Tumbler Ridge. He had moved there from Clearwater four months earlier.

April 16, 1984: Shearing pleads guilty in B.C. Supreme Court to six counts of second-degree murder.

April 17, 1984: Shearing is sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility to apply for parole for 25 years.

1984 to 1995: Shearing changes his surname to Ennis, his mother's maiden name.

1995: Ennis marries a Prince Albert, Sask. resident named Heather.

Oct. 22, 2008: Ennis is eligible for a legislated full parole review. He has applied for day parole, which will also be reviewed at the same hearing.
The parole board members looked surprised, and Shearing read out his first public apology in 25 years.

"My crime was an enormous, brutal and inexcusable tragedy ... resulting in tremendous loss to the community that I can never make up for," he said.

"It makes me hate to be in my own skin."

Outside the prison gates, cousins of the dead girls said the apology meant nothing.

"Don't listen to anything he says. He has no remorse," Shelley Boden said.

"It was like looking at the devil," said Botelho, promising to return for each parole hearing Shearing gets.

"He's a waste of a body."
Killer denied parole says he hates 'own skin'.