Rhona Duncan

Sweet Sixteen: The Murder of Rhona Duncan

by Eve Lazarus on July 16, 2021

Rhona Duncan, 16 was murdered in the early hours of July 17, 1976 after walking home from a high school birthday party. She was in sight of her North Vancouver house, when she was intercepted, raped and strangled. Although 45 years has gone by, Rhona’s friends still get together to remember her and to try and solve her murder. Some believe they know who did it.

The Party:

I’m not sure when I first heard about the murder of 16-year-old Rhona Duncan, but I do remember that it was through my daughter and that she was quite young. We lived across the road from Shawn and Peggy Mapoles, our kids are around the same age and our daughters are still close friends. Shawn Mapoles was Rhona Duncan’s boyfriend and on July 16, 1976, he took her to a party on East Queens Road. It was meant to be a small celebration for his friend Margaret’s 16^th birthday, but the party quickly got out of hand and teens poured in from all over North and West Vancouver. Around 1:00 am the family called police and broke up the party.

Shawn, Rhona and their friends Marion and Owen took their time walking in the direction of their homes. The teens, who were to enter Grade 12 at Carson Graham in the fall, stopped at the district hall on West Queens. Owen and Shawn lived up the hill, and Rhona and Marion lived in the Hamilton area. The girls wanted to be by themselves to talk about the night; it was an easy walk down Jones Avenue. They stopped at Marion’s home and Rhona disappeared into the darkness. She was at the intersection at West 15^th, the quiet residential street where she lived, when someone stopped her.

Duncan home on West 15th. Eve Lazarus photo 2015

In sight of home:

By 4:00 a.m. Rhona, the oldest of four girls, was dead. She had been raped and strangled in sight of the safety of her home.

Initially, the RCMP had Shawn Mapoles firmly in their sights. A polygraph and his DNA taken decades later cleared him completely, but 45 years later Rhona’s cold case—one of 17 unsolved murders in North Vancouver—remains a stain on this tight knit community. Every year her high school friends get together to remember her and try and solve her murder. Some believe they know who did it.

If you have any information about this murders please call North Vancouver RCMP at 604-985-1311, or if you wish to remain anonymous, call crime stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or visit the website solvecrime.ca

This episode is based on original research and interviews with Shawn Mapoles, Rhona’s friend Don Curl and North Vancouver RCMP Sgt. Gord Reid. The story first appeared in my book Cold Case Vancouver: the city’s most baffling unsolved murders.

Show Notes:

Sponsor: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours

Intro & voiceovers: Mark Dunn

Theme music: Andreas Schuld – ‘Waiting for You’

Buy me a coffee promo: McBride Communications and Media

Podcast Promo: The Man in the Balaclava with Tara Moss, available on Audible.ca

Tags Carson Graham Secondary, Cold Case Vancouver, Rhona Duncan

Brenda Young Murdered at the Good Earth

by Eve Lazarus on July 2, 2021

On January 7, 1976 Brenda Young was found murdered at her store the Good Earth in the Lower Lonsdale area of North Vancouver. It was a brazen murder and it felt like a hit, but why would anyone target this much-loved 38-year-old mother of four?

The Good Earth, 238 Lonsdale Avenue. Courtesy Vancouver Sun, January 8, 1976

Brenda was an attractive, petite woman with long black curly hair, rosy cheeks and always smiling. She liked to dress in the clothes that she sourced from Guatemala and Mexico—long flowing denim skirts that she wore with big dangling earrings. She was well-known and much loved in North Vancouver, especially Deep Cove and the adjoining Dollarton area where she lived. Neighbours described her as a beautiful person, warm, generous and kind.

The Good Earth:

Bruce Young dropped his wife off at her store on January 7, 1976, The morning was uneventful. Brenda talked to a few regulars and served several customers. Bruce tried to phone her several times that afternoon. When he failed to get through, he phoned their friend Harry O’Day who operated the bookstore next door. Harry went to check on Brenda, but found the front door locked. He broke in through the bookstore and found Brenda’s body.

The Brenda Young murder was the last case Staff Sgt. Fred Bodnaruk worked on before his retirement in July 1976. Bodnaruk thought that Brenda’s murder was so rapid and risky that it smacked of professionalism. As it turns out, he was probably right. After Brenda’s story came out in Cold Case Vancouver a retired detective contacted me. He told me that RCMP had pursued the theory that a hit had been put out on a female police informant—who ran a store right across the road from the Good Earth. It made more sense to me than anything else I’d heard.

This bizarre “streeter” appeared in the North Shore News, January 14, 1976.

17 Unsolved murders:

Brenda Young’s murder is one of 17 unsolved cases currently with the North Vancouver RCMP that date between 1964 and 2003. Episode 17 looks at another murder in North Vancouver that happened six months after Brenda Young was killed. Rhona Duncan was a 16-year-old Carson Graham student murdered after walking home from a party.

The former convent where Albina Lequiea was murdered in 1973 on West Sixth in North Vancouver. Eve Lazarus photo from Vancouver Exposed, 2020

This podcast is based on original research and interviews and a story from my book Cold Case Vancouver: the city’s most baffling unsolved murders.

SHOW NOTES

If you have any information about this murder please call North Vancouver RCMP at 604-985-1311, or if you wish to remain anonymous, call crime stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or visit the website solvecrime.ca

Sponsor: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours

Music: Andreas Schuld – ‘Waiting for You’

Intro & voiceovers: Mark Dunn

Buy me a coffee promo: McBride Communications and Media

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

Tags 238 Lonsdale Street, Albina LeQuiea, Brenda Young, Carson Graham, Cold Case Vancouver, O'Days Book Store, Rhona Duncan, The Good Earth

The Murder of Albina Lequiea

by Eve Lazarus on December 15, 2018

On Sunday December 16, 1973, 96-year-old Albina Christiana Lequiea was found murdered in her bed. She lived on the second floor of the Sisters of Saint Paul School in North Vancouver.

This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History and is also part of a Cold Case Canada Podcast

The former convent on West 6th Street, North Vancouver. Eve Lazarus photo, 2020

The Convent:

At first, it was thought that Albina had died from natural causes. But once her body was examined at Lions Gate Hospital, they found that she had been raped and strangled with a nylon stocking. She was still wearing her pink nightgown.

The convent is still there at 524 West Sixth Street, its name is now the Sisters of Instruction of the Child Jesus. The building became part of St. Thomas Aquinas High School in 2003 and backs onto Keith Road.

In 1973, when Albina was a resident, the convent also served as a home for the elderly.

One of the nuns told police that she had found a man in his early 20’s wandering inside the convent at around 3:30 in the morning. He had a beard and shoulder-length dirty blonde hair. He wore jeans, had “striking eyes,” and reeked of booze. He said to her: “Where’s the door? How do I get out?” After he left, she reported it to her superior, but not to the police.

Later they found that he had got in by smashing a glass panel in the front door.

Search for Psychopath Killer:

A few days later the Vancouver Sun ran a story with the headline “Psychopathic killer hunted in strangling at convent.”

There was nothing mentioned about Albina’s long life, so I went searching for a death certificate to find out where she was born. Instead, I found an article written in 2007 by Elizabeth Withey, Albina’s great granddaughter.

According to Withey’s story, she was born Albina Christiana Proulx in Nicolet, Quebec in 1877. When she was 19, she married Phillip Lequiea and they raised nine children on a farm near Battleford, Saskatchewan. Albina was a “fervent catholic” who was “tiny, gentle and devoted to her family and God.” She went to church every morning before breakfast, and it must have made her happy that one of her sons became a priest.

Ed Lequiea led the funeral mass for his mother.

The second floor of the convent. Courtesy NVMA and Churches on Sundays blog

Unsolved:

Even with the description by the nun and a composite drawing that ran in the newspapers, Albina’s murderer was never found. His description sounds remarkably like the one that was given to police after the murder of 16-year-old Rhona Duncan less than three years later. Rhona had been raped and strangled on her way home from a party at 15^th and Bewicke, just blocks from the convent.

Rhona’s murder is detailed in a chapter of Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murders.and is part of a Cold Case Canada podcast The murders of Albina Lequiea and Rhona Duncan are two of North Vancouver’s 17 unsolved cases dating back to 1964. After 2003, new investigations were transferred to IHIT—the RCMP’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.

Top photo: courtesy North Vancouver Museum and Archives #3444 and Suzanne Wilson’s blog: Churches on Sundays

Tags 524 West Sixth Street, Albina Christiana Lequiea, Rhona Duncan, Sisters of Instruction of the Child Jesus, St. Thomas Aquinas High School

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