Podcast: Cold Case Canada

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… Continue reading S4 E37 The Box-Cutter Murder: Gladys Wakabayashi

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… Continue reading S4 E36 Lindsey Nicholls: Vanished

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… Continue reading S4 E35 Gloria Moody: The Highway of Tears

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… Continue reading Cold Case Canada Podcast: Introducing Season 4

In the Halloween Special of 2022, we visit the Victoria Golf Course, two mansions in Burnaby, and travel to a haunted highway in BC’s interior. Keep the lights on while you listen! Based on stories from: The April Ghost: Victoria is the laid-back capital of British Columbia. The city is known for its stunning ocean… Continue reading S3 E34 Halloween Special 2022

On June 26, 1969, 16-year-old Philip Porter left his home in Townsite, Kimberley to run some errands for his mother. The son of the Cominco boss never came home. A ransom note demanding $100,000 for his safe return arrived instead. In the late 1960s, Kimberley was a one-company town located in the East Kootenays. The… Continue reading S3 E33 Kidnapped: The Philip Porter Story

Ronnie Jack, 26, Doreen Jack, 26, Russell 9 and Ryan 4 were last seen on August 2, 1989 in Prince George. They told their family they had jobs at a logging camp and they’d be gone for about 10 days. And then they vanished.  This story is from Cold Case BC: The stories behind the… Continue reading S3 E32 The Missing Jack Family from Prince George

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… Continue reading S3 E31 The Monica Jack Murder

Saanich residents Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18 and Jay Cook, 20 were murdered while on an overnight trip to Washington State in 1987. Episode includes interviews with Detective Jim Scharf of the Snohomish Country Sheriff’s Office and CeCe Moore, Chief Genetic Genealogist at Parabon Nanolabs, who cracked this case three decades later. On November 18, 1987,… Continue reading S3 E30 Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook Double Murder

Len Hogue was one of three dirty VPD cops who supplemented their salaries initially through B&Es, escalated to bank robberies, and in 1965 pulled off the biggest heist in Vancouver’s history – $1.2 million worth of bank notes that were being sent back to Ottawa to be destroyed. When police officials caught on, 33-year-old Hogue… Continue reading S3 E29 When Cops were Murderers Part 2

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… Continue reading S3 E28 When Cops Were Robbers Part 1

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,… Continue reading S3 E27 Tanya Busch: The Prison Guard’s Daughter

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. The Azarcon family lived in a duplex… Continue reading S3 E26 Evangeline Azarcon: Abducted

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… Continue reading S3 E25 The Babes in the Woods have their names back

Halloween is my favourite unofficial holiday of the year, so it was especially rewarding to end Season 2 of Cold Case Canada with a Halloween Special. I reached out to five fabulous story tellers to tell me their favourite ghost stories—stories that take place in some of Metro Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods. The Chinatown Ghost: Will… Continue reading S2 E24 Halloween Special 2021

In 1965, Rene Castellani, a 40-year-old radio personality decided to murder his wife Esther with arsenic-laced milkshakes so could marry Lolly, CKNW’s 25-year-old receptionist. The couple had an 11-year-old daughter called Jeannine, who became the collateral damage in one of the most sensational murder cases of the 20th century. This podcast episode is based on… Continue reading S2 E23 Murder by Milkshake Part 2

In 1965, Rene Castellani, a 40-year-old radio personality decided to murder his wife Esther with arsenic-laced milkshakes so could marry Lolly, CKNW’s 25-year-old receptionist. The couple had an 11-year-old daughter called Jeannine, who became the collateral damage in one of the most sensational murder cases of the 20th century. This podcast episode is based on… Continue reading S2 E22 Murder by Milkshake Part 1

When Pat Lowther was murdered in her East Vancouver home, she had just signed a contract with a major publisher. The 40-year-old mother of four was carving out a new voice in the Canadian literary scene and being recognized for her strong, often violent, feminist poetry. the lowthers: The mustard-coloured house where Pat and Roy… Continue reading S2 E21 Pat Lowther: Murder of a Poet

In the months leading up to her murder, Muriel Lindsay had been targeted and harassed. Her cat was stolen, she’d received bizarre anonymous letters, and someone had used her credit card to take out subscriptions and make a donation to the United Way in her name. Who was stalking Muriel and why was this 40-year-old… Continue reading S2 E20 Murder in Mole Hill: Muriel Lindsay

 In 1974, Debbie and Vicky Roe were living their dream. The sister act—Debbie was 22 and Vicky, 17 – had just returned from Nashville where they’d cut a country-and-western album called Soft, Sweet and Country. “We’d been singing together professionally for about four or five years,” Vicky told me. “We used to do talent… Continue reading S2 E19 Debbie Roe: From Langley to Nashville