Constable Leonard Hogue was one of three rogue cops who supplemented their police paychecks through an escalating series of robberies. It started small. He and partner Joe Percival used their inside knowledge to commit a series of B&Es. But when David Harrison came onboard, they quickly escalated to bigger payoffs. They robbed a Hunter’s Sporting Goods on Kingsway and their haul included 14 guns and ski masks which they put to use in bank robberies.
The first job at the CIBC on Kingsway in Burnaby went off without a hitch, and they escaped with $106,000. In 1964 they knocked over the Simpson Sears on Kingsway. The following January they robbed the Bank of Nova Scotia at Dunbar and West 41st Avenue.
Vancouver Sun, June 22, 1964
Things started to get really interesting early in 1965 when the gang learned of a $1.2 million shipment of cash scheduled to arrive at the CPR Merchandise service on West Pender Street. The cash was old money taken out of circulation by the banks and on its way to the mint in Ottawa to be destroyed. The robbery was perfectly planned and executed and they had pulled off the biggest heist in Vancouver’s history.
$1.2 million in recovered cash. Courtesy Vancouver Police Museum PO3286, 1965
What they didn’t know was that the $1.2 million in cash (about $9.5 million in today’s dollars) had been drilled with three large holes and was virtually worthless. Retired CKNW investigative reporter George Garrett, dubbed it the Holey Money case.
If you lived in Vancouver’s West End after 1981 you may not know that street barricades and parklets are a leftover from the West End’s prostitution era
West End:
Aaron Chapman’s latest book Vancouver Vice, is a colourful history of the West End in the 1970s and ‘80s. In those days up to 300 sex workers—male and female—strolled the streets—40 to 50 of whom might be working on any given day or night. As Aaron says, the only evidence that this open-air brothel existed is a memorial dedicated to sex workers on Jervis Street and the barricades that created those charming cul-de-sacs and parklets.
“The barricades were first proposed to calm traffic in 1973,” says Aaron. “But when they were eventually installed in 1981, the City of Vancouver was so desperate to look like they were doing something about the sex worker issue in the West End that their purpose was renamed.” The idea was that barricades would discourage motorists from driving up and down residential streets in search of sex.
Barricades going up in the West End in November 1981. Courtesy Aaron Chapman
Prostitution:
Up until the 1970s, prostitution was mostly tucked away behind closed apartment and rooming house doors, and later nightclubs and hotel lounges. A couple of high-profile cases managed to push sex workers out onto Davie Street. “Then people are upset that there is prostitution on Davie Street, so it goes to the residential streets and the people get upset who live there,” says Aaron. Increased patrols and a greater uniformed police presence in the West End had mixed results.
A West End sex worker, Courtesy Aaron Chapman, ca. 1980
“It seems like everything that the VPD tried to do to curb street prostitution had the worst unintended effect, including the street barricades,” he says. “The street barricades don’t really work because they just slow traffic down and that allows the sex workers more time to negotiate a price with their clients.”
On November 16, 1981, City of Vancouver workers began installing $28,000 worth of temporary barriers. These were little more than chain link fences made permanent the following year.
West End residents protesting, ca.1980. Courtesy Aaron Chapman
Residents upset:
At the time, says Aaron, this upset residents who couldn’t park outside their apartment buildings. Even local Fire Hall #6 worried about longer response times and complained about the barricades. “If you proposed removing those barricades today and opening the streets back up to traffic, you’d have the same amount of people saying they don’t want cars going down their streets and parking in front of their buildings,” says Aaron.
It’s been over seven decades, but I’m confident that the mystery of who blew up one of the courthouse lions in 1942 has now been solved. No one will be charged for this crime, but it’s thanks to a reader—we’ll call him Dave. It was his grandfather who made a bang loud enough that Vancouverites thought the Japanese were invading the city.
The lions were created by Scottish sculptor John Bruce in 1910. This 2021 photo by Tom Carter clearly shows the split.
Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus, coming April 2025. Preorder through Arsenal Pulp Press, online retailers or your your favourite indie bookstore
Blast rocks city:
According to the Vancouver Sun, the explosions could be heard as far away as Point Grey. The blasts rocked the city centre, smashing more than 70 windows at the Hotel Vancouver, the Devonshire, the Georgia Hotel and the courthouse.
The first explosion came at 9:37 pm and blew off the hind quarters of the lion on the right of the door. A second explosion quickly followed, and filled the air with flying chunks of granite.
Vancouver Sun, November 4, 1942
Inspector JFCB Vance:
Inspector JFCB Vance of the Vancouver Police Department (and my podcast and book Blood, Sweat, and Fear) was called in to examine the fuse and wire. Vance found that dynamite ‘time bombs’ were placed one on each side of the lion. The wire was likely used to bind the sticks of dynamite together.
There were no reports of stolen dynamite, and police told the public that they believed the dynamiter was a crank. His crime called “an isolated incident of vandalism.”
Dave is sure that the “crank” was his Grandfather, Carl Schmidt. Carl was born in Germany in 1869, received a degree in engineering from the University of Heidelberg, married and had a son. When his wife died, Carl immigrated to Canada. He met Dave’s grandmother Ruth McKibbon in Vancouver and they married in 1909.
Family Secret:
Witnesses saw a short man running down the stairs just after the explosion. Carl, who stood about 5 foot 5, died four years later at age 77. It was before Dave was born, but the details have been passed down through the family. It’s become one of those known but rarely talked about family secrets. “I’m the only one left who has all the details of the story,” he says.
According to John Atkin, the lions were not modeled on the lions in Trafalgar Square as widely reported, but from photos and measurements taken of some circus lions that visited Vancouver in 1908. You can clearly see where the lion was put back together and the discoloration between the two parts in this photo by John Atkin.
The details are sketchy, but Dave says his grandfather was implicated in a plot to blow up a bridge in Seattle at the start of World War 1. He and his wife and two small daughters relocated to Calgary—away from the coast and presumably other German sympathizers.
Things did not go well for Carl. He struggled to find work, and his son who fought for Germany, was killed in WW1.
Anti-German sentiment:
The family moved back to Vancouver in the early 1920s, and soon after their marriage collapsed. By 1939, Carl had moved into a room on East Cordova Street. Anti-German sentiment would have been high in 1942, and the lion—a symbol of British justice and imperialism was an obvious target.
The second Hotel Vancouver shown left of frame was still standing in 1942. Vancouver Archives photo, ca.1920
“When you look at his life there was a lot of promise there and it all just fizzled out. He may have thought by 1942 this is my last point where I can make a statement or whatever he was trying to do and figured out how to do it,” says Dave. “Even though I’m his grandson and there’s nothing to be proud about, you can see why he would have a lot of resentment.”
Fortunately no one was hurt in the incident. John Atkin’s writes that the cost to repair the damages from the blast was $5,000 (a whopping $80,000 in today’s dollars). You can still see the split in the lion.
On February 26, 1947, three teenagers planned to rob the Royal Bank at Renfrew and First Avenue in East Vancouver. Seventeen-year-old William (Fats) Robertson, was upset with his friends for leaving him out of the robbery and tipped off police. Just as the teens were putting on their stocking masks, police rolled up. A car chase ensued, ending when the boys bailed out of the car and tried to lose police in the rail yards of False Creek flats.
False Creek Flats showing the Great Northern Railway Round House in 1956. CVA 447 250
Detective Percy Hoare had managed to disarm William Henderson, 17 but was unable to stop the gun fight. Officers Oliver Ledingham and Charles Boyes were killed, and Hoare, was shot in the leg and shoulder. Badly injured, but still able to shoot, Hoare killed 18-year-old Doug Carter. Another of his bullets hit Harry Medos, also 18, in the leg.
False Creek Flats in 1966, much the same as it was in 1947. The area is 450 acres and bounded by Great Northern Way, Main Street, Prior Street and Clark Drive. Courtesy Vancouver Archives
Shots fired:
Vancouver lawyer and gun expert Richard Berrow tells me that Detective Hoare’s actions were quite incredible. “He struck Carter twice and Medos once, while they were running away. That’s three hits with six rounds, by an officer who’d been hit twice himself in the leg and his non-shooting arm by a big, heavy, .44 calibre bullet.,” he says. “The three hits Hoare achieved (with his .38 army special) would have been a fine result even if he had not been injured at all. In modern time, deadly force shooting data out of the US indicates that today’s officers achieve an overall hit rate of 22% to 52% in violent encounters.
VPD officers Charles Boyes and Oliver Ledingham killed in the line of duty. Courtesy Vancouver Police Museum and Archives
“The 1940s era police service revolver like Hoare’s Colt and the equivalent Smith & Wessons held only six rounds but were quite accurate, probably more so than the modern Glock-type pistols carried by most police nowadays.”
Vancouver Sun, February 28, 1947
Between 1912 and 1987, 16 Vancouver police officers have been killed in the line of duty. The officers are remembered in an exhibit at the Vancouver Police Museum and Archives.
Logo Image: False Creek Flats, 1954. Vancouver Sun photo
Credits:
Intro and outro music: Duke Ellington’s St. Louie Toodle
Steve Sweeney (retired VPD Deputy Chief of Police)
Richard J. Berrow (Vancouver lawyer and gun expert)
Intro and voice of Inspector Vance: Mark Dunn
Words of Detective Percy Hoare voiced by Matt Walton
Words of Mae Carter and Mary Magdalene Peterson voiced by Megan Dunn
By the 1930s, Inspector Vance had become a familiar face at crime scenes and was often called to testify in court because of his knowledge of forensics. In fact, his skills and analytic abilities were so effective that in 1934 there were seven attempts on his life—including a car bomb—and for a time he and his family were under constant police guard from criminals afraid to go up against him in court.
Inspector Vance in his lab ca.1930s. Courtesy Vance family
The stories for this first series are from my book Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance (Eve Lazarus, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017). Vance was one of the first forensic scientists in North America, and during his 42-year-career, helped to solve some of the most sensational murders of the 20th Century. Each episode focuses on one of those cases.
Vance took this photo of the home made bomb sent to him through the mail at the Vancouver Police Department, 1934
Photo logo: Threatening letter from the personal files of John FCB Vance
Credits
Intro and outro: Duke Ellington’s St. Louie Toodle
Primary source material from Vancouver Sun, Province, Vancouver News Herald, The World; Nanaimo Free Press, Daily Colonist, and the personal files of Inspector John F.C.B. Vance including his diary.
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.
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.
Vancouver was the only police department in Canada that had a forensic scientist on staff and one of the few police departments in North America to use forensics in criminal investigations. Forensic samples found in one of the boxes
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’s science was so successful that in 1934 there were seven attempts on his life. This was a home made bomb sent to Vance’s lab through the general police mail
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.
One of the many fascinating things that Inspector John Vance packed away when he retired from the Vancouver Police Department in 1949 were several true crime magazines. He appeared in all of them. Reporters were intrigued by this scientist who was able to convict criminals through the tiniest piece of trace evidence, or determine death by poison, or through his forensic skills in serology and firearms examination.
Reporters moonlighted for these magazines and had cozy relationships with police and sources that gave them access to information and photos unheard of on any crime beat today.
The early magazines ran fictionalized versions of sensational crimes. In one ironically called Real Crime Cases, Vance takes a starring role in a story called the “Mystery of the Missing Mrs. Millard” based on a 1914 murder investigation. The case is the first chapter in Blood, Sweat, and Fear, and it’s fascinating to read the “real” version in the magazine. In the magazine, Vance becomes a detective and is even given lines and solves the case. In reality, it was the first police case he worked on, and his job was to test a stain found on the carpet to see if it was blood.
A typical drugstore display of magazines in the early 1940s. Courtesy CVA 1184-3279
In another case that I wrote about in Blood, Sweat, and Fear, the story of two murdered police officers in Merritt written up in Master Detective was so detailed and accurate with accompanying crime scene photos that it resulted in a sharp warning from the trial judge.
Later Vance appears in Inside Detective with the headline “They couldn’t kill the crime doctor.” He appears again in Special Detective Cases in a feature called “He makes his own miracles,” and in May 1942, Vance is the subject of a three-page feature in Greatest Detective Cases “Vancouver’s Police Wizard: Inspector Vance.”
According to a recent Vancouver Sun story the Canadian market for detective magazines came to an end when “moral outrage led to a 1949 Canadian law banning pictorial depictions of the commission of crimes real or fictitious,” sucking all the fun from the articles.
Predictably, Canadian true crime was a lot milder than its US counterparts. These were more like soft porn that featured cartoon-like pictures of women bound and gagged.
Detective magazines had a longer run in the U.S., they lasted into the 1970s, True Detective, which launched in 1924, managed to hang on until 1996. While interest in true crime never waned, tabloid television replaced the magazine.
Joe was a kick-arse Italian cop who worked for the Vancouver Police Department between 1912 and 1928 and didn’t get bogged down in the details. He’d kick down the doors of opium dens, shoot first and ask questions later, and not worry too much about legal things like warrants and warnings.
The Black Hand (La Mano Nera) was an extortion racket, a sort of early form of the Mafia, that was well established in major Italian communities in American cities in the early part of last century.
Typically, a member of the Black Hand Society would send a letter to a target threatening violence, kidnapping, arson or even murder if they didn’t pay protection money. The letter was often decorated with a smoking gun, a noose or a knife dripping with blood, and accompanied with the message: “held up in the universal gesture of warning” drawn in thick black ink.
In November 1923, Joe was flipping through the circulars and pictures of wanted criminals, when he stopped at one, sat back and whistled softly. Starring back at him was the face of Dominic Delfino, a lieutenant and hit man for the Black Hand Society who was wanted by every police department in the U.S. after his escape from jail several years before.
Just a few hours earlier one of Joe’s informants had tipped him off that a “very bad Italian—maybe a murderer” was being held in a jail cell in Nelson, BC, on an immigration charge. The prisoner had boasted: “I shot my way out of the death house, and they’ll never hold me very long.”
Delfino had been held in a county jail in Pennsylvania charged with multiple murders. Before he could be transferred to his execution in New York, two of his colleagues disguised as nuns managed to smuggle in a saw and a revolver. Delfino escaped, murdering four guards on the way out.
Joe decided to play a hunch and went to Nelson to see for himself. Delfino wouldn’t talk, but the detective identified him from the mug shot. Delfino was sent back to the States and electrocuted. Ricci received front page headlines and collected a $500 reward.
