Bernice Beenie Peak, 50, a White woman, was attacked in her family s new home by Hidden Lakes, just off Gunbarrel Road in Grand Island, Nebraska, on the night of September 9, 1972. Her father stopped by the next day to watch television and instead found an eerie quiet and, in the master bedroom, a scene of sudden violence: Bernice; her husband, retired Army Colonel William O. Peak III; and their 14-year-old daughter, Barbara, each shot in the head with a. 22-caliber firearm.
William and Barbara died at the scene, while Bernice gravely wounded, her face shattered was still alive when help arrived. She could not speak or write, but when asked how many attackers there were, she raised several fingers, a fragile, fleeting sign that never yielded a full account. Weeks later, complications overtook her; she died of infection on November 8, 1972, and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Investigators found no signs of sexual assault or struggle. It looked as if William had been lighting a cigarette when he was shot; a lighter was still in his hand and a cigarette beneath his body. His wallet and credit cards later turned up in a Grand Island street, wiped of fingerprints, and nothing else in the house appeared to be missing. A mysterious car seen nearby belonged to an amorous couple, not a killer, and two men picked up on unrelated drug charges were ruled out. Even an off-hand claim years later that the deaths might have been a murder-suicide collapsed under renewed reviews by the Nebraska State Patrol and the FBI, which reconfirmed a triple homicide. Governor J. James Exon ordered a state-level review, reward posters went up, and family members floated theories in the vacuum left by the absence of hard leads, but no clear trail ever held.
The timing of the discovery has been reported as the evening of September 9 or the following day, September 10, but all contemporary retrospectives and memorials agree on the essential facts: the Peaks were shot in their bedroom with a. 22-caliber weapon, Bernice survived the initial attack but succumbed two months later, and the case remains unsolved. No one has been arrested, and authorities have never publicly named a viable suspect. Decades on, the story endures in Nebraska newsrooms and family memorials as one of Grand Island s most haunting cold cases.
