Blood Sweat and Fear

Remembering Olga Hawryluk (1922-1945)

by Eve Lazarus on November 20, 2021

Thursday November 25 is International Day. Remembering Olga Hawryluk, 23, murdered May 3, 1945.

From Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance and the Blood, Sweat and Fear podcast.

Granville Street:

On May 2, 1945, Olga finished her shift at the Empire Café on West Hastings at 2:30 am and was walking to her home in the West End. She noticed a man following her and stopped in at the Good Eats Cafe on Granville Street to try and get rid of him.

Olga sat on a stool at the counter near the front door. May Chalmers, who was working that night, saw a tall civilian dressed in a grey coat and hat follow her inside. Olga clearly didn’t know him and told him to go away. May told him to get out of the café.

In 1945, the year before this photo was taken, the cafe was called the Good Eats. The building is still at 906 Granville. Vancouver Archives photo.

Olga ordered a coffee and chatted to a soldier sitting on the stool next to her. Rose Uron, the cashier, heard the soldier ask Olga out and Olga refuse. When he tried to pay for Olga’s coffee, Rose told him that Olga would take care of her own bill. Rose asked Olga to wait in the café for a little while before heading home, but Olga told her she would be fine and left.

English Bay:

Georgina Robinson and her daughter Hazel were on holidays from Calgary, where Hazel was a writer. They were staying at the English Bay Mansions when they were woken by a woman screaming “Help me! Help me! God help me!”

Hazel went into the kitchen and phoned police. She threw on some clothes, grabbed a flashlight and ran through Alexandra Park, passed the monument to Joe Fortes, and down to the beach. She saw a soldier near the water. The fearless Hazel ran after the soldier and shone her flashlight in his face. He turned away from her and walked quickly down Beach Avenue.

When Hazel returned to the beach, she followed a trail of blood on the sand where a body had been dragged down to the water. Others had gathered and could see a woman lying face down in the water. When they turned her over it was obvious that she was dead.

Police arrested William Hainen on Drake Street on the way to his room in the Astoria Hotel on West Hastings. He had cut his hand and broken a finger. There was blood on his uniform and sand in his hair.

The Trial:

Angelo Branca represented Hainen. Over his career he had defended 63 people on murder charges, and only one—Domenico Nasso received the death penalty in 1928. Branca established that Hainen drank a 13-ounce bottle of rye at noon the day before the murder, up to 30 beers between 2:00 and 8:00 pm, another 15 beers between 9:30 and 11:00 pm and more than half a bottle of rye after that. Branca argued that Hainen was too drunk to know what he was doing. It didn’t work, Hainen was executed at Oakalla Prison Farm on October 20, 1945.

Tags Blood Sweat and Fear, Empire Cafe, Good Eats Cafe, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Olga Hawryluk

Episode 04: Lay Off or We’ll Bump You Off

by Eve Lazarus on April 26, 2019

By the 1930s, Inspector Vance had become a familiar face at crime scenes and was often called to testify in court because of his knowledge of forensics. In fact, his skills and analytic abilities were so effective that in 1934 there were seven attempts on his life—including a car bomb—and for a time he and his family were under constant police guard from criminals afraid to go up against him in court.

Inspector Vance in his lab ca.1930s. Courtesy Vance family

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.

Photo logo: Threatening letter from the personal files of John FCB Vance

Credits

Intro and outro: Duke Ellington’s St. Louie Toodle
Background track created by Nico Vettese www.wetalkofdreams.com
Inspector Vance’s voice by Mark Dunn

Photo logo: Threatening letter from the personal files of John FCB Vance

Sources:

Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator, by Eve Lazarus (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017)
Primary source material from Vancouver Sun, Province, Vancouver News Herald, The World; Nanaimo Free Press, Daily Colonist, and the personal files of Inspector John F.C.B. Vance including his diary.

Tags Blood Sweat and Fear, Inspector J.F.C.B. Vance, the story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver Police Department

Nanaimo Mysteries

by Eve Lazarus on March 1, 2019

With Aimee Greenaway, Nanaimo Mysteries curatorAimee Greenaway was reading Blood, Sweat, and Fear when she came across George Hannay, a safe cracker from Nanaimo. She’d heard a story about the former BC Provincial police officer turned criminal, but this was the first time she’d seen evidence of his crimes.

Aimee thought Hannay’s story would make a great inclusion in the museum’s new exhibit—Nanaimo Mysteries.

The exhibit opened February 16, and my friend (and book editor) Susan Safyan and I went over to check it out. It’s the first time I’ve been to the Nanaimo Museum, and it blew me away.

Inspector Vance, the subject of Blood, Sweat, and Fear and founder of the Vancouver Police Museum’s building on East Cordova Street, gets a starring role. Vance was known as the “Sherlock Holmes of Canada” in the media at the time, and in 1934 there were seven attempts against his life. The last and most brutal was an attempt to blind him with acid and stop him from testifying against Hannay in court. The attack was thought to be instigated by Hannay—at least the note left in Vance’s garage was signed “Hannay’s pals”— (apparently criminals weren’t too smart back then either). The attack on Vance delayed the trial, but went ahead a few weeks later with the Inspector under police guard.

Vance linked Hannay to the robbery through trace evidence. But even though fibres found at the scene were from Hannay’s clothing and a splinter in his coat matched a floor board, the jury was unable to reach a decision because the foreman—a friend of Hannay’s—refused to bring in a guilty verdict.

The material for this chapter and the archival material that Aimee has curated for the display, was found in the garage of one of Vance’s grandsons, in 2016 while I was researching the book. He found several cardboard boxes filled with photos, newspaper clippings, forensic materials and case notes predating 1950. After the book was finished, the Vance family donated everything to the Vancouver Police Museum.

This is the first time any of these documents have been displayed, and there’s some intriguing, material including a letter that Hannay wrote to Vance’s boss in an attempt to discredit him. Aimee has also uncovered Hannay’s connection to Albert Planta, a corrupt senator from Nanaimo.

Nanaimo, it turns out, is quite mysterious. The exhibit has a section on hauntings and ghosts, another on murders and missing children, the red-light district and the infamous Brother X11, who started a cult in 1927 until 1932, when he and Madame Zee skipped town with donations from their wealthy followers.

The exhibit runs through until September 2, and if it’s your first time, there’s plenty of other things there to keep you fascinated, including the mystery of a samurai sword dug up in downtown Nanaimo in the late 1800s.

Tags Aimee Greenaway, Blood Sweat and Fear, George Hannay, Inspector Vance, Nanaimo Museum, Nanaimo Mysteries, Vancouver Police Museum

Our Missing Heritage: Vancouver’s First Hospital

by Eve Lazarus on June 30, 2018

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Last week, Michael Kluckner and I were over at Tom Carter’s studio looking out his seventh storey window onto the EasyPark—a cavernous concrete lot that fronts West Pender and takes up the entire city block from Cambie to Beatty Streets.

In 2013, Michael had the dubious honour (my words) of presenting the parking lot with a heritage plaque on behalf of Places That Matter.

He wasn’t recognizing the parking lot of course, but the buildings that were once Vancouver’s first city hospital and included a men’s surgical ward, a maternity ward, a tuberculosis ward, and the city morgue which faced Beatty Street.

Pender and Beatty Street in 1939. Note the Sun Tower left of frame and former Hospital buildings behind. Courtesy Tom Carter

If we’d been looking out Tom’s window back in 1912, we would have had a great view of the courthouse in what’s now Victory Square, the shiny new Dominion Building, and the former city hospital, built in 1888, which according to Michael’s Vancouver: The Way it Was consisted of a compound of brick buildings with wooden balconies set back from the street, flower gardens and a picket fence.

Aerial view of Larwill Park construction, the Sun Tower and the Vancouver hospital buildings. Note the Central School bottom right of frame demolished in 1946. Courtesy Tom Carter

By the turn of the century, the 50-bed hospital was too small for Vancouver’s growing population and a new hospital was built in Fairview in 1906 which became the Vancouver General Hospital as we know it now.

The first city hospital was repurposed into the headquarters for McGill University College (BC). And that’s another interesting story.

A former hospital building in 1949, shortly before it was turned into a parking lot. Courtesy CVA 447.61

In 1899, Vancouver High School joined forces with McGill to offer first year arts courses. Six years later the school moved to fancy new digs at Oak and 12^th Avenue (later renamed King Edward High School), and McGill moved into the former hospital buildings. McGill stayed in the old hospital until 1911 and faded from the landscape after UBC opened in 1915.

The tuberculosis ward, courtesy Tom Carter

JFCB Vance from Blood, Sweat, and Fear had a lab in there from around 1912 when the police station on East Cordova was demolished until the new station opened in 1914. According to City Directories, a former hospital building became the “old people’s home” until 1915 when Social Services (the City Relief and Employment Department) moved in and stayed until the late ’40s.

And just like that it’s a parking lot. 1951 photo courtesy Tom Carter

The city hospital buildings were gone by 1950 and now all that’s left is a plaque affixed to a parking lot.

Top photo: The first Vancouver Hospital in 1902. Courtesy CVA Bu P369

With thanks to Tom Carter for finding all these great photos and to Places That Matter for all the work that they do.

Tags Blood Sweat and Fear, Dominion Building, King Edward High School, Larwill Park, McGill University College BC, Michael Kluckner, Tom Carter, Vancouver City Hospital, Vancouver High School, Vancouver the Way it Was

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