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A B.C. man convicted in the 1982 mass murder of a family of six on a camping trip in Wells Gray Provincial Park has been denied parole once again.

David Shearing, now known as David Ennis, is serving a life sentence for six counts of second-degree murder. He pleaded guilty following his arrest which came after a long, cross-Canada investigation.

In August of 1982, Ennis shot grandparents George and Edith Bentley and their daughter Jackie Johnson along with her husband Bob as they sat around a campfire. He then kidnapped the Johnson’s two girls, Janet, 13, and Karen, 11, and sexually assaulted them before shooting them days later.

He then put all six bodies into the Johnsons’ car and set it on fire.

After reviweing impact statements from friends and relatives of the Johnson-Bentley family, the Parole Board found that while Ennis has made many positive strides while behind bars, they didn’t think he was ready for release.

Families of the victims have maintained they’re all afraid Ennis is going to re-offend if he is released.

Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell told NL News in February that each parole request from Ennis open up fresh wounds for a lot of people in his community.

“The newer citizens who haven’t been here for a long time, go ‘oh really, that happened here, right.’ The older citizens, some of whom I worked with who personally knew Shearing and worked with him before the murders, it hurt a lot of people. And it still continues to haunt a lot of people in this area,” he said.

Ennis’ parole hearing, the fourth overall, took place at the Bowden Institution in Alberta. He had previously applied for parole in 2008, 2012, and 2014.