Wanda Watson:
In 1991, Wanda Watson was a beautiful, talented 20-year-old from Victoria, BC who had aspirations to be a singer or actor. She moved to Vancouver to live with her sister Vicki and both women worked at the Marble Arch Hotel, a notorious stripper bar on Richards Street. Vicki was a cocktail waitress and Wanda was a food server.
They each had an apartment in a Mount Pleasant heritage house that their mother owned and which Vicki managed in exchange for reduced rent.
On August 2, 1991, 23-year-old Vicki returned to Victoria and checked herself into rehab. The following day her sister was dead.
Robbery gone wrong?
There was surprisingly little information in the newspapers of the time. The conclusion was that Wanda had surprised a robbery in progress and died from stab wounds to the chest. The thieves then poured gasoline around the basement and set the house on fire.
Vicki is not so sure. She says for starters, nothing was stolen. She thinks it’s more likely that Wanda answered the door to someone; it may have been strangers, someone who followed Wanda home or someone they both knew. An ex-boyfriend of Vicki’s had made threats against her sister, the Marble Arch was full of sketchy characters, and Mount Pleasant wasn’t the trendy area it is now. In 1991 it was plagued with prostitution, drugs and gangs.
Police Investigation:
The first police investigation took place just after Wanda’s murder and did not go well for Vicki. She feels the detectives were biased because of her history with drugs and less interested because of where the sisters worked, and because their mother was a slum lord in Victoria.
“We weren’t a high priority,” she says. “My sister was judged by where she lived and worked and by my lifestyle.”
Wanda’s case was reopened by the Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit in 2004. This time, the detectives were more thorough and Vicki was treated well, but no arrests were made and the case went cold again. In 2010, Wanda’s case was taken out, dusted off and given a third look.
Vicki reached out to VPD’s major crimes in December 2024. She demanded to speak to the lead investigator. Instead, she reached the head of major crimes. He told her that the case was reopened in 2021 and that they had tested DNA found at the crime scene. Once again, no arrests were made.
Justice:
Vicki and Wanda were extremely close, and even after 35 years, she still feels her sister’s loss.
Wanda was beautiful, she says. She had strawberry blonde hair and huge blue eyes. Their mother had put both daughters into modelling when they were little.
“People who knew Wanda adored her,” says Vicki. “She was this happy, innocent go lucky person. She was extremely kind and patient and empathetic, and she was very protective of me as I was of her.”
Both their parents have passed away and Vicki wants justice.
“I would like the case to be solved,” she says. “I know police are busy and there are lots of other crimes out there. I get that. But I just want them to always keep looking back at this one, not forgetting about it, because Wanda deserves for the people who did this to her to pay.”
I pray that one day they will solve this hideous crime. I am sure that more than one person knows more about what truly happened that fateful night.