Webby Award nominee in the Crime and Justice category.
Between April 1988 and August 1990, a serial killer murdered six sex trade workers and dumped their bodies in the laneways of Vancouver. Officially, the murders are unsolved and two were added to the Vancouver Police Department’s cold case website just last year. But two retired detectives who worked on a joint RCMP/VPD task force called E-Alley, say they know who killed these women, and he died in 2009.
Rose Minnie Peters
Rose Peters was the first of the Alley Murders. She was strangled, beaten and raped. Her body left in a lane behind the 4900 block of St. Catherines on Easter Sunday 1988. Rose was a 28-year-old Indigenous woman from Port Alberni. Ten years before her murder, she was shot in the neck by a police bullet as she walked too close to the scene of a bungled robbery. Rose was left partially paralysed with a slight limp. Shortly after she got out of hospital, she moved to the Downtown Eastside and began using the street drug Talwin—an addictive prescription drug used as a substitute for heroin.
Lisa Marie Gavin
The second woman found dead in an alley, was 21-year-old Lisa Gavin. She was also strangled, beaten and raped. Her body found in the lane behind Knight Street and East 49th on August 13, 1988. Lisa was born in a prison hospital addicted to heroin. She lived with a family in Richmond from the time she was a few months old until just after her ninth birthday. Lisa’s foster sister, Sharon Tuerlings says: “She was a great kid, she was a funny kid, she loved horses. She would walk up to Shadow and hold onto his leg and that old horse would just walk around the corral with that kid on his leg. Lisa had no fear. It was a wonderful happy childhood. We had it all, and then we didn’t.”
Glenna marie Sowan
Just over six weeks after Lisa was murdered, the body of her best friend Glenna Sowan, 25 was found strangled, beaten, and left behind a house on West 24th Avenue. An Indigenous woman, Glenna was born in High Prairie, and at the time of her death, had a baby daughter who was four months old and living with her mother in Alberta.
Tracey Leigh Chartrand
Tracey Chartrand, 25 was last seen in early October 1988. Like her friends Lisa and Glenna, she was a habitual cocaine user and resorted to sex work to pay for her drugs. When her body was found six months after her murder, it was in a shallow grave at the UBC Endowment lands. Originally from North Vancouver, Tracey was separated from her husband, and had a son.
Frances “Annie” Grant
Like Tracey, Frances “Annie” Grant, grew up in North Vancouver. She had been off the streets for about a year but was back about a month before her death working the Broadway stroll. Annie knew Lisa, Glenna and Tracey. Her body was found in a shed behind a Mount Pleasant rooming house on June 4, 1989.
Karen Lee Taylor
The sixth Alley Murder victim was Karen Taylor. She was a bubbly 19-year-old from Ontario. On the night that she died she had been out with friends at the Cecil Hotel on Granville Street and left with a girlfriend to get a pizza. It’s not clear whether a man had followed them from the pub or if she met him there, but she left with him and her body was found in a Shaughnessy lane on August 24, 1990.
At the Missing Women Inquiry in 2012, retired RCMP inspector Don Adam and the officer in charge of the task force said that the E-Alley investigation led to the discovery of the serial killer responsible for the Alley Murders. Because he died during the investigation, he was not charged and his name was not made public.
Retired detectives Alex Clarke and Brian Ball want that changed. Ball was one of the original investigators on Rose Peters and Glenna Sowan’s murders, and he and Clarke worked on the E-Alley task force. Both are convinced that “Dan” was responsible for the murders, and they would like to see the VPD issue a press release with his full name and photo and close these cases.
“I’m certain that he was responsible for these murders, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind,” says Ball. “All of the investigators who I worked with feel exactly the same way.”
Show Notes:
Sponsors: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours and Erin Hakin Jewellery
Music: Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’
Intro: Mark Dunn
Script Editor: Mark Dunn
Buy me a coffee promo: McBride Communications and Media
Podcast promo: Blood, Sweat and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
22 comments on “The Alley Murders”
That is a sad story but very interesting. I am familiar with the name, Tracey Leigh Chartrand though. I used to reside in Dunbar and every morning I would ride my bicycle around UBC, on one of those mornings in April 1989 I was stopped as I rode on Imperial Drive while the Forensic team was investigating Tracey’s remains in the woods near the side of the road, the area was all taped off. Tracey’s name was obviously not known at the time but sometime later it came out in the news. I can’t put photos on this post but I still have a photocopy of the article from the “Vancouver Western News”.
I’m not sure how to change the settings to allow for posting pictures – but if you email me the clipping to eve@evelazarus.com I’ll add it. Thanks, Eve
I remember the murder of Rose Peters. I wrote a poem about it in my creative writing class at college. Of course now we know there were more serial killers operating on the downtown east side such as Robert Pickton who murdered 26 women although he claimed to have murdered 49.
hello my name is Dan Foster and was wondering if you would like to share your poem (if not I totally understand) . Rose Peters was my aunt but I was very young when I saw her. I only recently heard about this case from another cousin who has been checking in on it.
Do you still have the poem? I would love to hear it. Rose was my auntie .
Thanks, Eve, for yet another interesting local true crime article (which I had never heard about before). I always enjoy reading your blog, and I own a copy of your book “Sensational Vancouver”—-which I would recommend to anyone interested in local history and heritage buildings.
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed the read.
So sad, no closure for the families.
Lisa Marie Gavins story was a very sad one on a few fronts. Her mother Ruth was one of the most notorious Heroin dealers in East Vancouver in the 1970s, and her brother as you note in the podcast was a Clark Park Gang member, who himself died of a drug overdose–I believe in the early 1990s. Folks can read a bit about all of that in The Last Gang in Town (if you don’t mind me mentioning that book)
Like Ball, I do find it strange that Lisa’s case was spotlighted as such if the VPD do believe they know who the killer was, and what further would be gleaned. Did “Dan” confess the crimes to anyone else who would have been aware to tell that story today? Is there some doubt in Dan being the suspect that the case makes it all the more worthy to spotlight this way?
I would agree with Ball it’s time for the VPD to open the details and make some more public pronouncement, but I don’t think we’ll see that happen. Privacy guidelines can be frustratingly strict whether the case happened yesterday or 30 or 40+ years ago–and I think we would do well to have a public review of such things after a period, that the wider facts and details can be revealed to the public.
My father went to school with Ruth and John Gavin he was a taxi driver. Jerry was my Dad’s bud back during the Palmer Day’s, as he grewup with them and worked as a Trucker at their company Charger Transport. Ruth,and Jerry were hopeless but it’s so sad Lisa Marie didn’t escape this. John came over the night my son was born and asked my husband to give him a rude DT after 12 am,I went to bed,he called from jail 1st time ever at 33 at 6am to ok him up from jail,I didn’t. He and John went to Modern Medals next door to the American Hotel,filled it,got caught on Main & Hastings,his Ford car was sparking fire. This was Sept 21/81,crazy nut he ended up DTES,from a wealthy Vancouver Family.
Ruth Gavin and her heroin date back to the late 1940’s. I’ve done a fair bit of research on the woman and many of her heroin “associates” (one of whom is my maternal grandfather). Thankfully Lisa had a loving foster family pre-teens. The police should release the name of Lisa’s killer so the family has closure – murderers should not be protected with privacy laws/concerns.
[…] Pickton was not the only serial killer to prey on sex workers in the city. In a recent episode of her Cold Case Canada podcast, historian and journalist Eve Lazarus reveals how VPD detectives […]
i think these cases was from a serial killer who is organized, the person who did these murders had a method. strangled, beaten is a special method especially in a Lisa Marie Gavin,Glenna marie Sowan and Rose Minnie Peters and they all died in 1988. so the person who killed them could be same. and the way that the killer hide their bodies. also Clifford Robert Olson Jr.Span of crimes was between 1980–1981 after him Robert Pickton Span of crimes was between 1983–2002 and his method of the crime was gagging the victims, handcuffing them, and using a wire with looped ends so he loves gagging the victums so they could be connect with each other
There was another “alley murder” around the 1980’s that was mentioned on your website – Anita Threlfall. I went to school with her…
Sorry about your friend. Anita wasn’t part of the E-Alley investigation. This is likely because she was murdered in 1980 and the others happened between 1988 and 1990. If you have a photo of Anita please send it to me eve@evelazarus.com. I’ve only got a very grainy picture from a newspaper clipping.
I also went to school with Anita Threlall for many years in North Vancouver. Her family lived just up the street from us. I was shocked and saddened to hear that she had been murdered and why. I thought of her while listening to your podcast and wondered if there might be a connection or if they had caught her killer.
Sorry to hear that. Anita was strangled and left in an alley. I believe the reason why she wasn’t included in the Alley Murder investigation was because she was murdered in 1980, so outside the 1988-1990 time frame.
Calling prostitution “sex work” is a word game that only makes young girls think they can have a respectable job sizing people up for what they can get. They’re asking random men to provide for them, and use them, not in any kind of a relationship whatsoever. It’s destructive to them and the communities they do it to. They leave grieving family behind, often children, because changing words doesn’t change reality.
You should ask yourself who the master is that’s ordering word changes and getting such ubiquitous compliance among the social science faculty and the media. There is a source.
[…] podcast, Cold Case Canada is shortlisted for a Webby Award for episode 41 The Alley Murders. It’s the only Canadian entrant and I’d really appreciate your vote: Webby […]
[…] writer and podcaster Eve Lazarus broke the news in 2023 that Vancouver’s ‘Alley Killer’ was responsible for six murders of women working in the sex trade between 1988 and […]
I listened to this podcast today. My aunt was Frances “Annie” Grant. My mom, her older sister, never knew any of this. The police in 1989 always told her family she likely died of overdose, as the pathologists report did not determine a cause of death. They were never contacted with any of the results of the 2007 investigation, I don’t even think they knew it was being investigated. They had no idea she was a part of The Alley Murders. I had to call my mom and tell her not only were their suspicions true, that her sister was murdered, but also the police have known who did for over 15 years. Very tragic on all accounts.
I’m so sorry you had to find out this way. I’ll send you an email