Louise Wise, 17 was stabbed to death in her home on Lillooet Street in East Vancouver. Two years later 19-year-old Geraldine Forster, a BCIT student was shot four times and killed coming home from the bus stop at Renfrew and Granville Highway. Geraldine’s murder was eventually solved, Louise’s was not.
This podcast is from a chapter in Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murders and includes interviews with Louise’s friends and two homicide detectives who reopened the case in 1996.
Louise Wise, 17:
Louise Wise turned 17 the week before she was murdered. A Grade 11 student at Windermere Secondary, Louise was the oldest of four children and lived on Lillooet Street in East Vancouver. Her father, Jack Wise, was a constable with the Vancouver Police Department.
A photo that ran in the newspapers shows a serious looking girl with brown hair pulled back off a face hidden behind large round dark-framed glasses.
Louise’s friends knew her as a friendly, hard-working, and deeply religious girl who was a member of the Future Nurses Club, participated in Bible study class, and volunteered at the hospital.
Summer job as flower girl:
In the summer of 1971, Louise was hired as a flower girl for H & T Florists and became one of the ubiquitous teens stationed with flower carts outside liquor stores and hospitals. Louise had convinced her parents to let her stay at home by herself while they took the younger children on a family vacation to Birch Bay, just south of White Rock in Washington state.
The Wises left for their holiday on Saturday, July 7, and Louise worked a 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. shift outside the Kingsgate liquor store at Broadway and Main Street.
The following day, Louise became one of the 337 unsolved murders that the Vancouver Police Department has on its books dating between 1970 and 2015.
Geraldine Forster, 19:
A little less than two years after Louise was raped and murdered, 19-year-old Geraldine Forster was shot four times at Renfrew Street and Grandview Highway. She was returning home after walking her friend to the bus stop. She was shot with an RCMP-issued .38 calibre Smith and Wesson stolen from the Sechelt home of Constable Wayne Dingle.
Footprints found at the scene indicated that Geraldine had been running along the west side of Renfrew just before she was shot. Investigators thought that her attacker had jumped out from tall grass in a field next to the railway tracks. Possibly, it was an attempted rape that turned to murder when she fled.
From Fort St. John:
Two bullets hit her in the legs from behind as she ran. The other two shots entered the front of her body. One bullet passed through her red nylon jacket and hit her just above the chest, the other hit her in her lower right shoulder.
Geraldine was originally from Fort St. John, but had been boarding with a family on East Fourteenth Avenue for two years while she studied x-ray technology at the B.C. Institute of Technology in Burnaby. She’d recently graduated with honours and was about to complete her training at Vancouver General Hospital.
Her murder appeared to be random and baffled police for the next three years when it was solved because of a lucky break.
Sponsor: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours
Show Notes:
If you have any information about Louise Wise’s still unsolved murder please call Vancouver Police at 604-717-3321, or if you wish to remain anonymous, call crime stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or visit the website solvecrime.ca
This episode is sponsored by Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours. Save 15% off your booking by using the code COLDCASE
Intro: Mark Dunn
Music: Bittersweet by Myuu, The Dark Piano
Promo: Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance
Special Guests:
Retired VPD homicide detectives Brian Ball and Brian Honeybourn, Gail Harder and Diane Fisher.
Sources:
Lazarus, Eve. Cold Case Vancouver: the city’s most bizarre unsolved murders, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015.
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
11 comments on “The Renfrew Murders: Louise Wise”
Another interesting story Eve. I am leaning toward this person who killed this young lady was a multiple offender. To me, its a high number of unsolved murders over that period of time mentioned. Hopefully in the last five years, they have all been caught, and hopefully this family can see justice for Louise.
who was the boyfriend of Gail.
Her now husband Al
I found it disturbing to listen to this as I knew Louise. I was a teacher at Windermere just for the 1970-71 year. Then I got married and moved to Vancouver Island to teach. I was the teacher sponsor of the Future Nurses Club, a duty shared with our school nurse. That year we made stuffed bunnies for a local children’s hospital. Louise was an active part of the group. In hindsight I would call her a “pleaser”, in that she would always pitch in but perhaps need more positive reinforcement than most. I’m not sure I would have called her shy, more naive perhaps, as many of us were at that age.
I’m saddened that there are no DNA samples to be found. Surely they kept her clothes in a paper bag. Nowadays DNA can be tracked via samples from family members of the perpetrator.
After almost 50 years it will be hard to solve this. Perhaps someone will come up with a memory to help.
Thank you for your efforts.
Very disturbing that after all these years,
a lifetime has gone by and no one held responsible
Condolences to her family her friends😢
I was a student and good friend of Louise. I was horrified and still disturbed of her death and that the case remains unsolved. We were both on the Future Nurses Club. It was both our intents to become nurses. We spent a great deal of time after school conversing and doing our homework. Both of us had summer jobs I was aware that Louose would be staying home alone She asked if I wasted to stay over but unfortunately our work schedules were opposite. I phoned her for a couple of days only receiving a busy signal. Then I heard of her demise. I couldn’t sleep alone for months. Louise was a studious innocent naive girl. I couldn’t believe that this would happen to someone like her I was never questioned by police-not that I could add anymore.
All unsolved murders are horrible, but I feel so sad for Louise. So sorry this happened to your friend, it must have been devastating.
I was sure this case had a conviction of a Fellow who spent 25’years in jail. Am I to read this was and is unsolved ?
Geraldine Forster’s case was solved after three years and he got 25 years and is likely long out of jail. Louise Wise’s case (1971) is still unsolved. I got into a lot of detail in the podcast
I met Gerry and had partied a couple times with her not long before she was murdered. For years I have been searching for more information on her case. Your podcast was the first I have found but knew most of the basics you wrote about. Thank you for at least bringing her case to light again. Where might I be able to get more information on her case?
[…] In 1971, Louise Wise had just turned 17 when she was stabbed to death in her East Vancouver home. Her story is in Cold Case Vancouver and also a podcast. […]