Vanessa was four years old when her mother, Gloria Levina Moody, was murdered. Her brother, Dan, was three. Gloria, who everyone called Lee, was from the Bella Coola reserve of the Nuxalk Nation. She was the second oldest of eight children.
This podcast is based on a story in Cold Case Canada: The Stories Behind the Province’s Most Intriguing Murder and Missing Person Cases
On October 23, 1969, Lee, her brother Dave and her parents left for Williams Lake. The family checked into a room at the Ranch Hotel. The following day, Lee and Dave hit the local bars before ending up back at the Ranch Hotel, where Lee was last seen at 10:00 p.m. No one remembered what time she left or who she was with, and no one had seen her get into a car.
Lee’s body was found the next day on a cattle trail outside Williams Lake. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death.
Her parents, David and Daisy, took in Vanessa and Dan and raised them along with their own children. “My grandfather really blamed himself,” says Vanessa. “He locked himself in my mom’s room, and he just lay there. He didn’t eat or sleep, and when he came out, everybody in the whole town talked about how his hair went pure white.”
Vanessa says the first time the family heard from the RCMP was nearly three decades after her mother’s murder. Two RCMP officers brought along several boxes of files from the murder investigation and told the family that they believed three men from Williams Lake were responsible. All three were dead.
In 2007, the RCMP’s E-Pana unit added Lee’s case to their list of 18 murdered and missing women along Highways 16, 97 and 5.
Vanessa’s grandparents are gone, and sadly so is her brother Dan. “My kid brother would always introduce himself as, ‘Hi, my name is Dan, and I’m damaged goods,” Vanessa says. “Every one of our lives took a wrong turn after the murder. Even within the community, even today, people have a hard time talking about it.”
- Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus, coming April 2025. Preorder through Arsenal Pulp Press, or your favourite indie bookstore
Show Notes:
Sponsors: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours and Erin Hakin Jewellery
Music: Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’
Intro and voiceover: Mark Dunn
Buy me a coffee promo: McBride Communications and Media
Podcast promo: True Crime Files
Source: Cold Case BC: The Stories Behind the Province’s Most Intriguing Murder and Missing Persons Cases
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