Seventy years ago this week, two tiny skeletons were found in Stanley Park and quickly became known as the Babes in the Woods. Last February, they were identified through genetic genealogy as Derek and David D’Alton aged 7 and 6 when they were murdered in 1947.
This is an excerpt from my new book Cold Case BC: The Stories Behind the Province’s Most Intriguing Murder and Missing Person Cases
By the second week of February 2022, I was able to confirm with two different sources that the VPD had the names of the Babes in the Woods. This was huge, but it was all I had—the police weren’t releasing any more information at that point. Then a young lady named Ally contacted me and said that a Vancouver Police detective had been to see her mother, Cindy. The detective had given Cindy the devastating news that her uncles, Derek and David D’Alton, were murdered probably in 1947 and that they were the infamous Babes in the Woods.
Babes in the Woods:
Neither Ally nor her mother had heard the story of the Babes in the Woods. When Ally went online to do some research, she came across my podcast. Ally sent me photos that she’d scanned from the family album. It was incredible to put faces to these two little boys. There was a school photo from Henry Hudson Elementary in Kitsilano taken around 1946 or 1947 showing Derek, the older brother, a smiling little blond boy. There were a few photos of David, who had dark hair and features, with his older sister, Diane, and there were some with David and his mother, Eileen, and her twin sister, Doreen. There are houses in the background, one of them probably being the address the family lived at in Kitsilano during that period. Over that weekend, I worked with Ally to put together a story for my blog Every Place Has a Story.
Missing:
Ally’s mother, Cindy, was in her early twenties when she first heard that she had two missing uncles. It was back in the early 1980s, and she was looking at photos in the family album of her mother with two boys—probably the same photos Ally had sent to me. Cindy asked her mother, Diane, what had happened to her brothers, but she refused to talk about it. she would just cry.
Eventually Cindy was told that the family had been very poor, and Derek and David had been taken away by child protection services because their mother couldn’t provide for them. Diane had remained with her mother. Later, she told Cindy stories of having to jump out of the windows of places where they were living when the landlord came looking for his rent.
Genetic Genealogy:
Shortly before Diane died in 2020, Cindy wanted to find out more about her ancestry, so she took a swab from her mother and sent it off to MyHeritage. She discovered that Eileen’s father was Métis. Cindy’s daughter, Ally, then decided to search for her great-uncles, hoping to find them still alive or, if not, their children or grandchildren. She sent her own DNA to 23andMe.
When detectives paid Cindy a visit earlier this year, they told her that they couldn’t find any records to indicate that the boys were taken into the custody of child protection services, as she had been told. They said they would keep looking.
Police have always believed that the boys were killed by their mother, who covered them up with her coat. The problem that I have with this is that there were other family members who would have known the boys, or at least have been aware of their existence and of Eileen’s precarious financial situation. Why didn’t they help? And what about the fathers? Eileen’s children had at least two, possibly three fathers, who at the time of writing still hadn’t been identified. When asked at a media conference this February if the mother was still the prime suspect, Inspector Dale Weidman said, “I think we have to make that assumption, yes. She would definitely be a person of interest if this case had occurred today. Naturally we would be looking at the mother. Yes.”
But Cindy doesn’t believe that for a second. She says her grandmother, Eileen, was a lovely, gentle woman who babysat the kids, loved animals, and often seemed sad.
Eileen died in 1996 at age 78.
Related:
- The Babes in the Woods have their Names Back
- The Babes in the Woods Part 1 – Season 1, Cold Case Canada
- The Babes in the Woods Part 2 – Season 1, Cold Case Canada
- Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murders
- McCarter: the 20-year-old from Alabama who got the Babes in the Woods Case
- Vancouver Sun February 15, 2022
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
30 comments on “Still Unsolved: Babes in the Woods, 70 Years Later”
Wow… may I share this in Story Hub a private group in FB credit to you?
Sure – you can also share straight from my FB Cold Case BC page https://www.facebook.com/coldcasebc/photos/a.1130275083783123/3014041565406456/
No family members reported the children missing? The mother lived to 1996 or the aunt?
The story in the family was that the children were taken by social services because they were so poor. The mother of the Babes and their sister died in 1996.
Such a very sad story. The boys were so cute. It’s amazing what DNA samples can discover. I’m glad the little boys finally have names, although it’s heart breaking. Thanks for sharing the grim story.
It gets more interesting as I read it. Hope someone can put this unsolved case to closed someday. Very interesting.
If the boys had been killed by someone other than the obvious suspect, wouldn’t the obvious suspect have reported their disappearance to authorities instead of claiming the boys had been turned over to child services (a claim which appears to be false)?
Unless they were taken by social services, or someone claiming to be social services….
Why did she never try to get them back or find them years later if she believed they were taken?
If only we could ask her!
In the 1950’s when I was a child I can remember reading about the “Babes in the Woods” case. I was horrified. I could not understand why anyone would murder a child. I still can’t.
Georgia Tan….
Is there no matches of the fathers’ DNA’s in the data banks?
If there is, that information hadn’t been released.
Have old poetry book with “Babes in Woods” poem.
Used to read it when I was young one of my favs.
I grew up by Stanley Park and would wander there to lost lagoon when I was three and four around 1951. Went to Henry Hudson School.
Born December , 1947
Size 16 in 1950 was a small size – a size 16 dress had a 34 inch bust.
Well, that’s extremely interesting, had no idea
Excellent point! Marilyn Monroe’s dress size ranged between a 12-16….just to give a visual idea of a vintage size 16.
Thank you! They kept referring to the coat being too big, but there was a size 5 1/2 woman’s shoe left under the boys…as if she was startled and left in a hurry. I do believe it was the mother, but we may never know for sure. Great observation regarding the size difference back then…thank you!
So sad there’s no way to tell how they were killed.
They were bludgeoned to death with a hatchet. Police believe their mother killed them
I have believed that for many years. As for family members not helping or talking about it? Thats the way it was back then. It was still that way after i was born in the ‘50’s. “You just forget that ever happened if you know whats good for you” was life. If you wanted to live, you protected the evil.
I am extremely grateful that laws and times have changed in order to protect our children. I have investigated so many cases of child abuse, neglect, and sexual assault. I am very proud to have worked and done my best to protect children in my law enforcement career and my life.
My husband and I just watched the Crime Beat episode about this tragic story and we too think it’s unlikely that the mother killed her children. I can’t really understand why the police think she did, especially since a witness saw a man with her on that day, first with the two boys, and then without.
So hard to accept that a mother could kill her children. But this has happened. There is strong circumstantial evidence and no evidence pointing elsewhere.
A woman was seen entering the woods with 2 boys, And leaving the woods without them. This was one witnesses account. I cannot name the source offhand. But, It should be easy to find.
As someone who lives in the area and grew up with the story, all this does is confirm that she did, in fact, kill her own children. She made up the story about child protective services (we don’t have CPS here, they would have called it “the ministry”) and her family helped her cover it up by not questioning anything.
Yeah. I have a problem with no one in the family talking about it. And then Ally’s grandmother flat out refusing to give any information, Or further speaking about it. 2 boys just not around anymore?. It always baffles me when a child goes missing, No report is filed. Years go by, And no one questions it?. All of a sudden a child isn’t around anymore. No one questions it?.
It should be mandatory for teachers to report absent students!
You’ve got to remember that you were dealing with the war years and a lot of transients, homelessness and poverty, and no social services