This is the last episode of my podcast Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance. I’ll be taking a few months off to write a new book, and then my plan is to host and produce a second series based on Cold Case Vancouver. If you’re not already, please subscribe and I’ll let you know when the next series is out. Thanks so much for listening!
Of the thousands of criminal cases that Inspector John Vance was involved with over his four-decade long career, the most frustrating must have been the two unsolved murders he worked on. Both involved young women and both occurred during the second world war. The first happened just outside Victoria, British Columbia in 1943.
In January 1943, Victoria was experiencing the coldest weather in more than 30 years. Fifteen-year-old Molly Justice, took the 5:50 p.m. bus from her job on Government Street and got off near her Saanich home. Because war-time dim-out regulations were in force, there was no lighting along the streets, and that may be why Molly decided to take the short cut home along the unlit tracks by Swan Lake, shaving off almost half-a-kilometre from her walk.
Her body was found a few hours later lying face down in the snow. She had been stabbed more than 20 times and hit on the head with a rock.
What followed was one of the most seriously botched police investigations of the century. An innocent man was put on trial, a teenage rapist was ignored, evidence was lost, and rumours of a conspiracy that reached right up to the Attorney General’s office wouldn’t be investigated until more than 50 years after the murder.
Ironically, the Saanich Police Department’s home was built right next door to Molly’s crime scene in the 1960s. It serves as a reminder that this unsolved murder remains officially open, partially solved and most likely, permanently sealed.
Credits:
Intro: Duke Ellington’s St. Louie Toodle
Intro by Mark Dunn
Background track created by Nico Vettese www.wetalkofdreams.com
Interview: Constable Graham Walker, Saanich Police Department
Outro music: Audionetwork.com
Featured Promo: Our True Crime Podcast
Sources:
Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator, by Eve Lazarus (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017)
British Columbia Murders: Mysteries, Crimes, and Scandals, by Susan McNicoll (Amazing Stories, 2003)
Vital Statistics
Coroner’s Inquest for Molly Justice, BC Archives
The personal files of Inspector John F.C.B. Vance.
Newspapers: Daily Colonist, Province, Vancouver Sun
5 comments on “Episode 12: No Justice for Molly Justice”
I have never forgotten this. I was 3 and my brother 5 when this happened. At that time our house on Darwin Rd. was the closest one to the railroad tracks. My parents felt so sad for Molly Justice, and suffered a lot of fear when the murderer was not charged. It has stayed in my thoughts for many years.
Poor investigations soured by ridiculous assumptions and erroneous female stereotypes have seriously hampered crimes against women. How many murders have gotten away with it because ” she ran off with another man” … too damn many.
My Mother was pushing me in the buggy on her way to either visit the Justice’s or the Comer family (Saanich Rd.) She was stopped as the police prevented her from going any further and had to go up Darwin St. My Mother did mention a male name, who was a leading suspect and always felt he was murderer, however this was only speculation. Years later a man was arrested, held in custody and investigated, but nothing came of it. The name mentioned in this programme is the same one, which my Mother and her friends came to believe this was the guilty person?
My Mom and Molly were close friends. They walked to school together even day and she still haunted by the murder and hope it would solved and has checked over the years when the murder has been brought up!! She asked me even a couple of months ago if I could find out if anything has been done. Thank you for your pod cast I can tell her it’s still being researched
Frighting but I think it is a poor investigation and not listening to public opinion and investigating on that ground but overall a sad ending and with no results at the end