Cold Case Canada Podcast by Eve Lazarus
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.
On August 4, 1989, Barbara Bohun and her two daughters, Casey 3, and 14-month old Stacy were at a family barbecue in Maple Ridge. Barbara’s sister Beverly drove them home to Delta, tucked Casey into bed, and Barbara’s partner, Jonathan Poile showed her the way home via the Alex Fraser Bridge.
Gail Sandra Rogers, 26 known as Sam to her friends, was last seen on February 17, 1975, after working a shift as a go-go dancer at the Penthouse Night Club on Seymour Street. Gail’s sister Karen reported her missing and when police went to check her Kitsilano basement suite, they found a carpet and a claw hammer stained with blood.
In 2019, I was asked to put a post up about Brenda Byman, a 12-year-old girl who went missing from outside Invermere, BC on May 7, 1961. Despite one of the biggest searches in the province’s history, no trace of her has ever been found. I read a few newspaper articles, talked to Brenda’s sisters, and wrote up a short post on the anniversary of her disappearance with a photo provided by her family.
Twelve-year-old Elisa Wakabayashi waited for two hours for her mother to pick her up after school. Ordinarily, her mother arrived promptly at 3:00 p.m. At 5:00 p.m., Elisa called her father to give her a ride home. When they let themselves into the house, they found Gladys Wakabayashi lying on her back in a pool of blood.
On the day that 14-year-old Lindsey Nicholls disappeared, she was last seen walking down Royston Road, outside of Comox on Vancouver Island. It was August 2, 1993—the Monday of the BC Day long weekend, and Lindsey was meeting friends at the annual Comox Nautical Days Festival.
Comox:
Lindsey was a slim five foot three with green eyes and long blond hair.
Vanessa was four years old when her mother, Gloria Levina Moody, was murdered. Her brother, Dan, was three. Gloria, who everyone called Lee, was from the Bella Coola reserve of the Nuxalk Nation. She was the second oldest of eight children.
This podcast is based on a story in Cold Case Canada: The Stories Behind the Province’s Most Intriguing Murder and Missing Person Cases
On October 23, 1969, Lee, her brother Dave and her parents left for Williams Lake.
On Friday March 10, I held a Facebook live event through my Facebook page Cold Case BC, and the podcast group page Cold Case Canada. It was a good excuse to introduce myself to the thousands of new members who have joined in the past year and talk about the process of writing my book Cold Case BC: the stories behind the most intriguing murder and missing person cases.
