J.F.C.B. Vance

The life’s work of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s first forensic investigator

by Eve Lazarus on February 10, 2018

In July 2016, several large cardboard boxes filled with photographs, clippings, forensic samples, and case notes pre-dating 1950, and thought to be thrown out decades ago, were discovered in a garage on Gabriola Island. They form the basis of Blood, Sweat, and Fear: the story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s first forensic investigator.

Crime Scene:

I first “met” Inspector John F.C.B. Vance when I was writing Cold Case Vancouver. He turned up at a crime scene in Chapter 1, the murder of Jennie Eldon Conroy, a 24-year-old war worker who was beaten to death and dumped at the West Vancouver Cemetery. It turned out that Vance wasn’t actually a police officer–he ran the Police Bureau of Science for the Vancouver Police Department, and his cutting-edge work in forensics solved some of the most sensational cases in the first half of the last century.

Unfortunately, Jennie’s wasn’t one of them.

Blood, Sweat, and Fear — Vance examines a spent bullet through a comparison microscope in 1932. Courtesy Vance family

240 Cordova:

For most of his career, Vance worked out of 240 East Cordova Street, the building that now houses the Vancouver Police Museum. With their help, I was able to track down a couple of Vance’s grandchildren. Janey and David remembered that J.F.C.B.—as Vance was known in the family—had packed up several cardboard boxes full of photographs, clippings, and case notes from dozens of cases when he retired in 1949. He took them with him when he moved in 1960, but no one had seen them for years, and it was thought that they’d been thrown out. And then, in July 2016, more than half a century after Vance’s death, the boxes were found in another grandchild’s garage on Gabriola Island.

Jennie Conroy:

Incredibly, when Janey opened the first box she found a large, tattered envelope labelled Jennie Eldon Conroy murdered West Vancouver, Dec 28, 1944. Inside there were smaller envelopes marked with the VPD insignia and filled with hair and gravel samples from the crime scene, an autopsy report, crime scene photos, and several newspaper clippings.

Vance was skilled in serology, toxicology, ballistics, trace evidence and autopsy. He was a familiar face at crime scenes and in the courtroom, and was called the Sherlock Holmes of Canada by the international media. Yet few people have heard of him.

Hopefully that will change with the publication of Blood, Sweat, and Fear, but best of all, all those boxes, the crime scene photos, the case notes, even Vance’s personal diary, are now with the Vancouver Police Museum and Archives. They’ll be properly processed, cared for, and eventually made available to the public.

Blood, Sweat and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance is now a 12-episode True Crime podcast

Tags 240 East Cordova Street, J.F.C.B. Vance, Jennie Conroy, Police Bureau of Science, Vancouver Police Department, Vancouver Police Museum and Archives

The East Cordova Street Murder Factory

by Eve Lazarus on July 8, 2017

When I was going through John Vance’s personal files for Blood, Sweat, and Fear, a small article torn from the pages of the long defunct Vancouver Star caught my eye. Vance’s handwriting dated it October 23, 1931 and it mentioned the murder of Naokichi Watanabe. Vance had clearly kept the clipping because he had testified that blood found on the suspect’s clothing was human.

I looked up other stories around that date to find out more about the case and was intrigued to find that it was much bigger than one murder and revolved around a house that still exists on East Cordova Street, about a block or so over from the former Japantown.

Historical Map-Guide, Japantown. Courtesy Vancouver Heritage Foundation.

In the heart of the Depression, Shinkichi Sakurada, a 40-year-old Hastings Sawmill worker, set himself up as a medicine man and started a private hospital in the six-room East Cordova house. Problem was, people would enter the hospital, take out an insurance policy, name him as their beneficiary, and shortly after, die.

The site of the murder factory — 629 East Cordova Street. Eve Lazarus photo, 2017

The scheme began to derail when Watanabe’s body was found by Sakurada behind the American Can Company. Sakurada told police that Watanabe lived at his house and when he had gone out that night and not returned, he had became worried and went to search for him.

Watanabe, had injured his back on the job the previous year and was about to receive a cheque from the Workmen’s Compensation Board. He planned to return to Japan the following week. Knowing that if Watanabe left the country he would never recover the money from his insurance policy, Sakurada became desperate and told Tadao Hitomi, he would forgive a debt and share some of the insurance money if he was willing to kill his friend Watanabe.

Naokichi Watanabe’s body was found lying across the CPR tracks behind the American Can Company at the foot of Princess Street. Hastings Sawmill is visible. Photo courtesy Vancouver Public Library, 1926

The koroshi (killing) was reported widely in the Japanese papers, but the mainstream press took little interest until police called Sakurada’s modest house “a murder factory,” and the Globe and Mail ran a national story headlined “Murder Syndicate Collects Insurance on Victims’ Lives.” The newspaper reported that police suspected an “organized assassination ring” operated in Japantown and was responsible for as many as 20 deaths.

Sakurada and Hitomi were quickly dispatched to the gallows on December 30, 1931 at Oakalla Prison Farm.

You can read the full story in Blood, Sweat and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator, it’s one of the ten chapters in the book that follows individual crimes that Inspector Vance helped to solve during his 42-year career as head of the Police Bureau of Science (1907-1949).

Tags 629 East Cordova Street, American Can Company, and Fear, Blood, Hastings Sawmill, Inspector Vance, J.F.C.B. Vance, John Vance, Naokichi Watanabe, Shinkichi Sakurada, Sweat, Tadao Hitomi

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