In 1936, Doris Gravlin’s strangled corpse was found on the 7th fairway of the Victoria Golf Course. People soon started reporting sightings of the April ghost. According to local legend, if a couple saw her, they would immediately break up, and her ghost wouldn’t leave until her son was told the truth about her murder.
This episode includes an interview with Patrick Dunae, a University of Victoria history professor who recounts his eerie encounter with Doris.
Oak Bay Beach Hotel
The stories for this first series are from my book Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance (Eve Lazarus, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017). Vance was one of the first forensic scientists in North America, and during his 42-year-career, helped to solve some of the most sensational murders of the 20th Century. Each episode focuses on one of those cases.
Credits
- Intro and outro music: Duke Ellington’s St. Louie Toodle
- Intro: Mark Dunn
- Background track created by Nico Vettese www.wetalkofdreams.com
- Logo: Victoria Daily Times, September 1936
Sources:
- Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator, by Eve Lazarus (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017)
- The April Ghost of the Victoria Golf Links, by Charles Lillard and Robin Skelton (Hawthorne Society, 1994)
- Newspapers.com: Victoria Daily Times, Times Colonist, Vancouver Sun and Province
- Inquests of Doris and Victor Gravlin, BC Archives
- The personal files of Inspector John F.C.B. Vance
- Interview with Patrick Dunae, May 9, 2019
- Interview with Lon Wood, December 1, 2016
Audio effects:
- Waves: https://www.zapsplat.com/author/alexandergastrell/
- Ghostly sounds: Skyclad Sound, Standard License
16 comments on “Episode 05: The April Ghost”
Enjoyed this podcast Eve. I’ve heard Victoria is very haunted City.I’ve also heard that it has one of the largest Witches Covens…
Thanks Sandra. What I love about Victoria is how the locals embrace their ghosts!
Just relistened to this Eve. Glad they solved that crime. She was a vindictive ghost! I guess I can’t blame her really.
tragic and eerie happening, am still thinking about it. a never ending story of a family committed murder and suicide with no thought from the murderer about his one and only son. sad state of affairs.
Thanks for listening!
In spring of 1977 myself and 4-5 other friends from grade 11 high school decided to park on the road and venture into the golf course and up to the rock circular seating area at the tee that overlooks the rocky waters edge to drink a couple of beers. It was around dusk and getting darker but none of us had previously been aware of any ghost reports previously but after about 15 minutes of sitting and chatting amongst ourselves we heard the bell ring at the bottom of the sloping fairway. We thought maybe a ground sleeping was blowing the whistle on our teenage gathering and figured but it was dark by now and didn’t know who might ring the bell. Then within a few minutes of bell ringing a glowing white figure appeared at the bottom of the sloped hill that we could see down to and it appeared to float across the grass rather that a walking motion. At this point as we saw this we all began to panic nd so we grabbed our unopened drinks and started to run from our spot back down the hill towards our vehicles but to our astonishment the sprinklers came on and we were all soaking wet by the time we breathlessly got to our cars and drove away as fast as we could get out of there.
The image of the glowing white figure floating across the fairway is still very much ingrained into my mind and I only later found out about other ghost sighting a few years later.
My Dad also claimed to have seen a woman’s ghostly image crossing the road as he was driving along the dark stretch of beach drive beside the golf course.
Thanks so much for adding to the sightings!
I love love love Ghost stories.. and this one didn’t disappoint. Thanks Eve!
So glad you enjoyed it!
Great follow-up on this story. I’ll have to replay at Halloween!
Thanks so much for listening!
I had the exact same experience as the above post ! I was 15 years old and was out walking with 2 other friends when the bell rang and we all turned around and we were literally chased off by a white mist. I felt it was a female and it was somewhat aggressive in the way it moved ,swooping and darting. I’m now 65 and to this day Ive never forgotten that night.It was most real !
When looking up her death record there is only a registration record posted. The details are at the Cloverdale library provincial files. Not mentioned in the article is that her husband Victor died in the same day, his record of death is also at the Cloverdale library. Would be nice to see what the coroner recorded as cause of death.
Hi Mel, thanks for writing. I go into a lot of detail in the podcast and in the book, the information is based on the coroner’s inquest in both cases. His cause of death was drowning.
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