Pamela Darlington turned 19 on October 21, 1973. Seventeen days later her body was found at the edge of the Thompson River in Kamloops. She claims the number four spot on E-Pana’s list—the RCMP’s task force that was set up in 2005 to investigate 18 Highway of Tears cases of missing and murdered women.
Monica Jack, 12 was riding her bike near her home in Quilchena when she was abducted and murdered in 1978. And, even though Garry Taylor Handlen was a suspect early on in this investigation and questioned in the 1975 murder of 11-year-old Kathryn-Mary Herbert, it would take another 36 years and a Mr. Big sting to convict him.
They called themselves the terrible three. Three dirty Vancouver cops who met during training in the notorious “Class of 1956.”
This story is from Cold Case BC: The stories behind the province’s most sensational murder and missing person cases
Constable Leonard Hogue was one of three rogue cops who supplemented their police paychecks through an escalating series of robberies.
Tanya Busch disappeared on the way to her Vancouver school on June 2, 1972. She was the second 7-year-old abducted in just over two years. Was there a connection?
Klaus Busch, 33 and his wife Ingrid, 29 moved to Vancouver from Germany in 1966. They lived with their two children Tanya, 7 and Ralphie, 5, in a duplex at the corner of Clark Drive and East 14th Avenue, several blocks from the Charles Dickens Elementary School in East Vancouver and just over 4 kilometres from the Azarcon’s home.
When 7-year-old Evangeline Azarcon disappeared on her way home from Edith Cavell Elementary on November 20, 1969, her abduction sparked the biggest search in BC’s history.
This episode is based on original research and interviews conducted for my book Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murders.
In February, we learned that the Babes in the Woods, the two little boys who were murdered in Stanley Park 75 years ago—were Derek D’Alton aged seven and his brother David, six. Genetic genealogy—the latest crime fighting tool was able to do what seven decades of police work could not—identify the little boys through familial DNA.
Since I write about history and cold cases, it’s not often I’ve get to break an actual news story. But thanks to a young woman named Ally who went searching for her Great Uncles—I can now tell you the names of the Babes in the Woods—the little boys whose skeletons were found in Stanley Park in 1953.
Thursday November 25 is International Day. Remembering Olga Hawryluk, 23, murdered May 3, 1945.
From Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance and the Blood, Sweat and Fear podcast.
Granville Street:
On May 2, 1945, Olga finished her shift at the Empire Café on West Hastings at 2:30 am and was walking to her home in the West End.