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Esther Castellani

Murder by Milkshake Part 2

by Eve Lazarus on October 1, 2021
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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 my book Murder by Milkshake: an astonishing true story of adultery, arsenic and a charismatic killer

Rene Castellani:

Rene Castellani was known for his outrageous stunts. Shortly before his wife’s death, he had climbed to the top of the BowMac sign on West Broadway and vowed to stay there until every last car on the lot sold. It took nine days.

Clowning around at Joyce Dayton’s children boutique with Esther and Jeannine, ca.1963. Courtesy Jeannine Castellani

While Rene was selling cars for a CKNW promotion, his wife Esther was in hospital. She had been ill for several months. At first she had stomach and lower back pain severe enough to keep her off work at the Kerrisdale children’s boutique, and then she had bouts of nausea and diarrhea which quickly turned into intense pain and vomiting. Her fingers and toes went numb. Esther saw several specialists, spent seven weeks in hospital, and went through more than 120 different tests before she died.

Mabel Luond (Esther’s mother), Esther and Jeannine on Granville Street, ca.1960
Disneyland:

The day after Esther’s funeral, Rene took Jeannine, Lolly and Don to Disneyland and soon the couple moved in together. In Vancouver, Esther’s doctor was still looking into the cause of her death. He went back over everything and realized that arsenic could have caused the symptoms. Dr. Moscovich had Esther’s body exhumed and the autopsy revealed that her arsenic levels were 1,500 times the normal arsenic content of the body.

Rene in handcuffs after his trial. Vancouver Sun, November 12, 1966
Arrested:

Rene was eventually arrested several months later when he and Lolly applied for a marriage license. While the case against Rene was all based on circumstantial evidence, there was a lot of it, including a box of arsenic-laden ortho triox weed killer found under his kitchen sink.

The Vancouver Police Department Homicide Squad in 1967. Bill Porteous second from right first row; Alex Reid top row left; Archie McKay top row, second from left. Courtesy Mike Porteous

New forensic technology was able to chart the amount of arsenic Esther had received through her nails and strands of her hair. What helped to convict Rene though, was that for the nine days he was sitting up on the BowMac sign there wasn’t any sign of poison and she became violently ill the evening Rene came down.

Roy Peterson’s depiction of Rene Castellani’s murder trial. Vancouver Sun, October 9, 1967

For many years Jeannine clung to her father’s innocence, even committing perjury during his trial. Rene was convicted of capital murder, but the death penalty was commuted to life in prison two weeks before he was scheduled to hang.

Within a few years, he was out on day parole, often visiting Jeannine with a different woman in tow. Within 12 years he had full parole,  remarried and became Rene the Roadrunner for an Abbotsford radio station.

Jeannine and Rene out on Parole, ca.1976. Courtesy Jeannine Castellani

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

My new book: Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck is coming out in April 2025

Show Notes:

Music:   Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’

Intro :   Mark Dunn

Interviews: Jeannine Castellani; Mike Porteous (retired) superintendent Major Crimes Vancouver Police Department; George Garrett (retired) CKNW investigative reporter

Buy me a coffee promo: McBride Communications and Media

Promo: Blood, Sweat and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance

Sources:

Related:

Murder by Milkshake Part 1 https://evelazarus.com/s2-e22-murder-by-milkshake-part-1/

Guy in the Sky https://evelazarus.com/guy-in-the-sky-the-bowmac-sign/

The Maharaja https://evelazarus.com/the-maharajah-alleebaba/

Lolly, CFun and the brill bus https://evelazarus.com/lolly-cfun-and-the-brill-trolley-bus/

 

 

Murder by Milkshake Part 1

by Eve Lazarus on September 24, 2021
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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 my book Murder by Milkshake: an astonishing true story of adultery, arsenic and a charismatic killer

Audio clips from CKNW’s Owl Prowl, 1961. Photo Rene Castellani and Jack Cullen (courtesy Colleen Hardwick).

I’ve had a fascination with the Castellani murder case ever since I first saw the true-crime exhibit at the Vancouver Police Museum in the 1990s. This crime had all the ingredients for a movie of the week: an adulterous middle-aged celebrity husband, who, rather than fight for divorce and face the wrath of the Catholic Church, decided to poison his wife with arsenic so that he could marry Lolly Miller, the 25-year-old receptionist.

Esther and Rene Castellani married in 1946 they were both 21. Photo courtesy Jeannine Castellani

I’ve read various accounts of the murder over the years, even written about it myself in At Home with History, grounding the story in the house, or in this case, the duplex, where most of the poisoning took place. Occasionally, I’ve told the story on the radio, usually around Halloween, and then, in 2011, I wrote a post about it on my blog Every Place Has a Story.

2092 West 42nd, where Esther Castellani was slowly poisoned to death in 1965. Eve Lazarus photo, 2018

The blog post changed everything, because, fortunately for me, I had made a mistake.

Debbie Miller wrote to tell me that Lolly had a son called Don, not a daughter, as I had written. And her husband Don would very much like to find Jeannine Castellani, because he’d been searching for her for nearly 50 years. I wrote back and thanked Debbie and said I would also like to find Jeannine.

And then, in June 2017, Jeannine found me.

Jeannine and her daughter Ashley came to my book launch for Blood, Sweat, and Fear at the Vancouver Police Museum. The museum had put their true crime exhibits in the morgue which was next to the autopsy suite and where we had set up our cash bar, and where Esther’s body had once lain.

I told Jeannine that Don had been looking for her, and she got quite emotional. She had also been searching for Don for nearly half a century.

So why write a book about what is already one of the most sensational and well-known murders in Vancouver’s history?

Well, for several reasons. It took place in the 1960s—a decade of incredible change. On the one hand, you have conservative, small-town Vancouver and two juries that convicted Rene mostly because of his infidelity. On the other hand, you have free love and be-ins, hippies and the Beatles, and a seismic political, cultural, and legal shift happening all over North America.

It was the era of Mad Men, of gin breakfasts and martini lunches­. It was a 19th century-style murder solved by a 20th century doctor and old-fashioned police work.

And it was a time when the death sentence was still on the table.

Esther and Jeannine ca.1964. Courtesy Jeannine Castellani

But, most of all, I wanted to write the book and now create this podcast to tell Jeannine’s story.

My new book: Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck is coming out in April 2025

SHOW NOTES

Sponsors: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours and Erin Hakin Jewellery

Music:   Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’

Intro and voiceovers:   Mark Dunn

Interviews: former CKNW staffers George Garrett and Norm Grohmann; Jeannine Castellani.

Buy me a coffee promo: McBride Communications and Media

Sources:

Related:

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Would you buy a murder house?

by Eve Lazarus on February 27, 2021
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You wouldn’t buy a house without having a building inspector check the foundation, so why wouldn’t you research your potential home’s history?

A heritage house at Fraser and East 10th went up for sale last week for $1.4 million. It wasn’t the price-tag though (low by Vancouver standards) that captured people’s attention, it was the house’s murder history.

2549 Fraser Street. Jesse Donaldson photo, February 2021
Unsolved Murder:

The Mount Pleasant house has sat empty for 30 years—since the day in August 1991 when the 20-year-old resident was murdered. Wanda Watson had recently moved from hometown Victoria and was living in the house owned by her parents. It’s believed that Wanda surprised two robbers and was stabbed to death, and the house set on fire. Wanda’s murder remains unsolved.

Old houses have stories, but over the years they fade in people’s memories. Murders that happened before newspapers went online are just not that easy to find. House numbers change, neighbours move away, people forget, and while some homeowners will serve up a murder as dinner party fodder, most live in fear that a murder will bring down the value of their home.

In 2007, I wrote a booked called At Home With History: the secrets of Greater Vancouver’s heritage homes. The idea behind the book was that a house has a genealogy or a social history, and I included a chapter on murders that happened in houses that still stood.

2092 West 42nd, where Esther Castellani was slowly poisoned to death with arsenic in 1965. Eve Lazarus photo
HOUSE MURDERS:

The duplex where Esther Castellani was slowly poisoned to death by arsenic in 1965 and featured in Murder by Milkshake is still standing in Kerrisdale.That same year, 17-year-old Thomas Kosberg made milkshakes for his father, mother and four siblings, drugged them, and after they fell asleep, hacked the family to bits with a double-bladed axe. That story is in Vancouver Exposed and is now a podcast.

The Kosberg house at Main and 22nd where six people were killed in 1965. Eve Lazarus photo

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.

The house on Lillooet Street where Louise Wise was murdered in 1971. Eve Lazarus photo

In 1975, Vancouver poet Pat Lowther, 40 was beaten to death by her husband in her house on East 46th Avenue. And, in that same year, Shaughnessy’s 68-year-old Marion Hamilton was strangled by her cousin so that she could inherit her Nanton Street house.

Patricia Lowther was murdered in this East 46th Ave house in 1975. Photo courtesy BC Assessment

In the same neighbourhood, five decades earlier, 23-year-old Scottish Nanny Janet Smith was found shot in the head in the basement of her employer’s home. Her murder remains unsolved.

Janet Smith was found shot in the head at this house at 3851 Osler in Shaughnessy in 1924
Selling a murder house:

Grant Stuart Gardiner is a North Vancouver realtor who specializes in selling heritage houses. He says in British Columbia, a realtor is only obliged to disclose a murder if asked.

“I’ve never had somebody ask me if there has been a murder in a house, although I have had somebody ask me if there has been a death,” he says. “If there has been one you are duty bound to disclose it, but there’s no duty to research it and try and figure it out.”

Marion Hamilton was murdered in her Shaughnessy house in 1975

Grant doesn’t know about any murders in the houses that he’s sold, but he has had a death. He was showing a Grand Boulevard house one day when a woman came to look but refused to go up the stairs. “She said there’s some weird spirits or something spooky about this house.”

Much later a neighbour told him that a man had hung himself in the attic back in the ’50s. “If it’s not disclosed when you buy it the neighbours sure as hell tell you when you move in,” he says.

Tips on How Not to Buy a Murder House:
  1. Ask your realtor if there’s been a murder or suspicious death in the house
  2. Ask the neighbours
  3. Google the address. The caution here is that occasionally savvy owners have kept the house and changed the street number.
  4. Same idea, but this time do a free online search through your library on local papers, or if you have a subscription, through newspapers.com
  5. Both the Vancouver and the Victoria public libraries have murder files packed full of old newspaper clippings.
  6. Check the index of my true crime/history books—I may have already written about it.

I was invited on CKNW this week to talk about Would you Live in a Murder House?

Related:

George Garrett: Intrepid Reporter

by Eve Lazarus on February 23, 2019
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If you listened to CKNW any time from the mid-1950s to the end of the ‘90s, you’ll remember George Garrett.

George Garrett in the CKNW news cruiser in 1959

His memoir, George Garrett Intrepid Reporter has just been published, and it’s a great ride through four decades of politics, disasters, consumer investigations and murders.

I met George in the mid-1990s, when I was a Vancouver Sun reporter at the beginning of my career and George was nearing the end of his. I’d studied some of his investigative work in journalism school which included going undercover as a tow truck operator to expose a scam in the ‘70s and covering a riot at the B.C. Pen.

George reporting from the North Shore in 1982. Alex Waterhouse-Hayward photo

Known as “Gentleman George,” because in the competitive world of journalism, he was just so darn nice. Daphne Bramham told me she once arrived late to a scrum and George handed her his notes. She asked him why he’d do that—a reporter from a competing media outlet—and he just said ‘why not?’

George helped me when I was researching Murder by Milkshake, my book about the murder of Esther by her husband CKNW personality Rene Castellani who was having an affair with Lolly, the young receptionist. George worked with Rene and knew “Lolly the dolly,” and covered the case for the station during Rene’s two trials for capital murder.

George covered the murder trial of Jeannine’s mother by her father Rene Castellani in 1966, but this was the first time he met Jeannine. Ashley Waller photo, 2018

George was there for all the major events. He covered the Second Narrows Bridge collapse in 1958 that claimed 19 lives and the Hope slide of January 1965.

He wrote the book the same way he reported his stories, with humour and compassion, relying on brief notes and memory. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t go to great means to get a good story, and some of the methods he used are not only very funny, but should be required reading for journalism students.

He covered some of the most sensational murders of last century. There was the disappearance of Lynn Duggan in 1993, and the discovery of her skull in the North Vancouver forest a year later. Her boyfriend, a former VPD police officer was eventually charged in her murder and that of another girlfriend.

George covering the arrest of a woman in Clayoquot Sound in 1993 for CKNW

There was 19-year-old Sian Simmonds, sexually assaulted by her doctor and murdered by a hitman to stop her reporting him and ending his medical career.

George personally knew Doris Leatherbarrow and her daughter Sharon Heunemann who ran a lady’s wear shop in North Delta, and whose son/grandson Darren recruited two teenage friends to murder them so he could inherit the money. George went to the funeral and was shocked when Sharon’s husband wrote a eulogy with an unflattering description of her in gym wear. “After the service, I complimented the minister on how well he had conducted the service and commented on the husband’s eulogy, saying I wanted to make sure I quoted it correctly,” writes George. It was a thinly veiled attempt on my part to get that eulogy—and it worked! The minister reached into his inner jacket pocket and handed me the eulogy. I admit that sometimes I was shameless in order to get a good story.”

You can meet George at his Vancouver book launch at the Book Warehouse on Main Street, on Tuesday March 12 at 7:00 p.m.

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

 

The Maharajah of Alleebaba

by Eve Lazarus on January 26, 2019
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Last week, Bob Shiell sent me a note telling me that he worked with Rene Castellani at CKNW in the early 1960s, and was a huge force in one of the station’s most visible promotions—the Maharajah of Alleebaba.

From Murder by Milkshake: an astonishing true story of adultery, arsenic, and a charismatic killer

I wrote about Rene the Maharajah in Murder by Milkshake, but Bob added a personal twist.

Rene Castellani and Bob Shiell in 1963, courtesy Bob Shiell
1963:

In 1963, Bob was 22 and worked in the promotions department for CKNW. Rival station CKLG had brought up Marvin Miller, an actor in a US-show called the Millionaire (1955-1960) where Miller give away money to people he’d never met. CKLG saw this as a great way to boost ratings in the upcoming BBM wars and had Miller go around town handing out cash.

“We had to come up with an idea for something that would counter that,” says Bob, and the Maharajah was born. “The idea was that he was coming over to buy the province of British Columbia.”

When I was researching Murder by Milkshake, Tony Antonias (who just died on Friday at age 89 and will always be remembered for Woodwards $1.49 day jingle), told me that he had come up with the title Maharajah of Alleebaba.

Courtesy Bob Shiell
Rene Castellani:

Rene was hired and dressed up as the Maharajah. Bob played Ugie, his driver and wore a red tunic and striped pants. The black Rolls Royce was a loan from one of the station’s owners—Robert Ballard, of Dr. Ballard’s dog food. They hired an off-duty motorcycle cop who provided an escort, and two women who normally did in-store food demonstrations for the station were dressed up as harem girls.

“We had a crossed sword logo made with sticky tape and we put that on the passenger and the driver’s door, and I found a little flag—the kind of embassy flag that you see on the President’s car. It was actually the flag of the Republic of Germany, but nobody noticed,” says Bob.

The Maharajah at a BC Lions game at Empire Stadium. Courtesy VPL)
Borrowed a Rolls:

They stashed the Rolls at Bob’s Mum’s house on Granville Street, met there each morning and got changed in the basement. For two weeks the entourage drove around Vancouver—to clubs, restaurants, hotels, drive-ins, and a BC Lions game at Empire Stadium, often accompanied by a CKNW reporter named Sherwin Shragge (yes, that’s his real name) who would interview them on radio.

“I had this big leather suitcase handcuffed to my wrist full of silver dollars,” says Bob. “I would go around and give people a silver dollar from the Maharajah.”

Rene, says Bob, was a great guy to work with. “He just loved it, he was a born Maharajah, he loved the attention, he loved the harem girls, he loved riding around in the rolls Royce, it was the ideal role for him.”

In fact, it was so successful that locals got out with their hand made signs that said “Keep BC British.”

“A lot of people took it really seriously, they really bought into this whole idea, they did a really good job of selling this concept of a guy coming in to buy the province,” says Bob.

A little over a year later, Rene Castellani would become famous for poisoning his wife Esther with arsenic milkshakes . Read the story in Murder by Milkshake.

Murder by Milkshake is now a two-episode Cold Case Canada podcast:

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Glen McDonald: Vancouver’s Colourful Coroner

by Eve Lazarus on January 19, 2019
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Glen McDonald was easily Vancouver’s most colourful coroner. He called himself the “Ombudsman of the Dead” and served from 1954 to 1980.

Glen McDonald 1979
Glen McDonald, Vancouver Sun 1979

If I was able to go back in time and choose six people to interview, Glen McDonald would be high up on the list. I got to know him while I was researching Murder by Milkshake, and his 1985 book How Come I’m Dead? has a prime position on the book shelf above my desk.

McDonald was Vancouver’s coroner from 1954 to 1980. Unlike the star of CBC’s new show Coroner, McDonald was not a doctor. In BC—and I’m quoting from a government job posting—there are 32 full-time coroners with backgrounds in law, medicine, investigation and journalism.

Ombudsman of the Dead:

McDonald, who was a lawyer and a judge, called himself the “Ombudsman of the Dead.” He told people it was his job to find the cause of death in order to help the living, and he did this from his morgue on East Cordova Street (now the Vancouver Police Museum and Archives) where an average of 1,100 bodies passed through each year. He smoked 50 cigarettes a day, drank beer and spirits kept beside forensic specimens in an office fridge, and conducted one or two inquests a week that looked into deaths ranging from shootings and stabbings to drug overdoses and traffic accidents.

You can visit McDonald’s old morgue and Coroner’s Court at the Vancouver Police Museum, 240 East Cordova Street. Courtesy VPM
Finding Cause of Death:

His job was to assemble a jury and determine whether death was natural, accidental, suicide, or homicide. After he retired, he admitted to occasionally lying to priests so that his Catholic victims could be buried in consecrated ground. He’d say he hadn’t reached a conclusion. The funeral would go ahead as if the death was not a suicide and McDonald would sign the death certificate when the body was safely in the ground.

He said his job was to find the cause of death in order to protect the living, and he investigated everything from deaths by shooting, stabbing, and strangulation, to poisoning, suicide, drug overdoses, and death by traffic, rail and boat accidents.

Ironworkers Memorial Bridge

He officiated over the Inquest of 18 men who were killed when the Second Narrows Bridge collapsed while under construction in 1958. And, he was in charge when CP Flight 21 blew up over the BC Interior killing all 52 people on board in 1965.

One of his more famous cases was the death of Aussie actor Errol Flynn in 1959. Flynn, 50, was in Vancouver with his 17-year-old girlfriend trying to sell his yacht Zaca to a local millionaire. He had a heart attack while at a party in the West End and ended up in McDonald’s morgue. (The full story is in Sensational Vancouver).

Murder by Milkshake:

The first time McDonald came across death by arsenic poisoning was in 1965 with the murder of Esther Castellani. The first thing he did was install himself in the science section of the VPL and read everything he could find about arsenic poisoning. As he wrote in How Come I’m Dead? he suspected that Rene Castellani had been at the library some months before, doing exactly the same thing.

My favourite McDonaldism is when he gained national notoriety for calling Bingo Canada’s most dangerous sport. He was referring to the number of seniors who were run over while walking to their weekly games.

McDonald died 23 years ago—on January 23, 1996. He was 77.

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

The BowMac Sign: Guy in the Sky

by Eve Lazarus on January 5, 2019
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Photo courtesy Angus McIntyre ca.1968. From the roof of the Fairmont Apartments at Spruce and W.10th

On June 4, 1965, CKNW personality Rene Castellani climbed to the top of the scaffolding next to the BowMac Sign and promised not to come down until every last car on the lot was sold.

It took nine days.

Courtesy Vancouver Archives, ca.1960.

The following story is an excerpt from Murder by Milkshake: An Astonishing Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and a Charismatic Killer.

Bowell McLean Motor Company

These days, the scene takes a bit of imagination. Auto row and the Bowell McLean Motor Company on West Broadway are long gone. The giant neon sign has been neglected and was partially covered over by the current tenant—Toys-R-Us—more than 20 years ago.

But back to 1965.

Courtesy Angus McIntyre, ca.1968
Jimmy Pattison:

The BowMac car dealership had a history of staging stunts to lure customers away from the Dueck Chevrolet Oldsmobile dealership down the road. Under Jimmy Pattison’s management, promotions included dressing up a performing monkey in overalls and hiring the Leavy brothers—seven-foot-tall twins—to hang out in the used car lot. In 1958, Pattison staged what was billed as the “world’s largest checker game” where models in red or black bathing suits became the checkers moving across a board of two-foot squares.

Pattison topped that the following year when he commissioned Neon Products (a company he later brought) to build a sign the height of a seven-storey building. It had orange and red letters that spelled BOWMAC, powered by a transformer that could light up 30 houses.

The sign cost $100,000, weighed 12 tons, and was briefly North America’s largest free-standing sign.

April 30, 1959. Vancouver Sun
Guy in the Sky:

Castellani’s assignment was called “the Guy in the Sky” and the stunt called for him to live in a station wagon next to the neon sign. The station wagon was equipped with a telephone and a direct line to CKNW, bedding, and a chemical toilet. Food was sent up to him in a bucket. The car was brightly lit, and he was quite visible from the ground most of the time. He would give regular broadcasts from the tower. Passerbys were encouraged to drive by and honk their horns, and they could see a clothesline strung from the station wagon to the sign with a pair of Castellani’s shorts swaying in the wind.

Rene Castellani and Jack Cullen, ;1964. Courtesy Colleen Hardwick
Capital Murder:

The BowMac Sign promotion became a central part in Castellani’s capital murder trial for the arsenic poisoning of his wife Esther. A Toronto lab was able to use a nuclear reactor to chart the progress of arsenic in Esther’s hair and fingernail growth and provide a rough timeline of when she received the poison and in what quantities. Esther, who had been in Vancouver General Hospital for the nine-day duration of the promotion, had greatly improved while Castellani was away. On the day after he came back down from the sign, she got really ill and never recovered. It coincided with the charts that showed she had received a massive dose of arsenic while she was in hospital and sometime within 35 days of her death on July 11, 1965.

As for the sign, it was the subject of a Heritage Revitalization Agreement in 1997 where Toys-R- Us was allowed to add their signage instead of demolishing the sign. That agreement now runs until 2022 or until Toys-R-U goes bankrupt.

Murder by Milkshake is now a two-episode Cold Case Canada podcast:

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

 

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