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, in a duplex at the corner of Clark Drive and East 14th Avenue, several blocks from the Charles Dickens Elementary School in East Vancouver and just over 4 kilometres from the Azarcon’s home.
On Friday June 2, 1972 Tanya Busch left home at 8:25 and walked to school with a friend, as she normally did. When they got to school the friends separated and Tanya played on the swings in Sunnyside Park, across from the school.
School friends told police that Tanya jumped off the swing and ran back in the direction of her house. Two girls who knew Tanya said a man approached her. He was about six-feet-tall with reddish bushy hair and “very starey” eyes. About 25 years old they told police. The man talked to Tanya, then took her by the arm, led her across the road and shoved her into the passenger seat of a small dark car. Then he ran to the driver’s side, jumped in and drove away.
Reported Missing:
Tanya was reported missing at 9:10 a.m. Klaus Busch combed the area in his car while his wife searched on foot. School teachers joined in the search and police were phoned at 10:00 a.m. Newspapers and radio stations reported Tanya’s disappearance, and likely with the memory of Evangeline’s abduction and murder still fresh in their minds, several hundred volunteers joined in the search.
On June 14, two police officers were searching an area in Surrey. They came across the badly decomposed body of a young girl. Dental charts confirmed it was Tanya. She was found about six kilometres from where Evangeline Azarcon’s body had been recovered in 1970. Both Tanya’s and Evangeline’s dump sites were reached from the same exit off the Trans Canada Highway.
Police have a suspect:
Police quickly zeroed in on 26-year-old Charles David Garry Head. He was an inmate at BC Penitentiary and had a toxic relationship with Klaus Busch, a prison guard. At the time of Tanya’s abduction, Head was out of jail on a temporary four-day pass and staying at his mother’s house in Surrey. What was so shocking was that he had already been declared a dangerous offender and was supposedly serving life in prison. This was his third pass for the year and it was only June.
He was charged with Tanya Busch’s murder. After Head’s sentencing Busch told a reporter that he believed that Head had coldly and calculatedly murdered his daughter. He said that he believed that Head’s conviction and incarceration had saved the life of his then six-year-old son Ralphie.
Head died of natural causes at the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon on March 7, 2013. He was 66.
In 1969, when Evangeline Azarcon was abducted, raped and murdered, the prison records were in such a mess and the penal system was so lax and corrupt, that police and prosecutors could never determine whether Head was locked up or out on a pass.
SHOW NOTES:
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