Len Hogue was one of three dirty VPD cops who supplemented their salaries initially through B&Es, escalated to bank robberies, and in 1965 pulled off the biggest heist in Vancouver’s history – $1.2 million worth of bank notes that were being sent back to Ottawa to be destroyed. When police officials caught on, 33-year-old Hogue went home, shot his sleeping wife in the head, and then hunted down and shot his six kids aged between three and 14 before turning the gun on himself. Or did he? This is part two of two.
The following story is from my book Cold Case BC
Listen to: When Cops were Robbers, Part one – Episode 28
Harbour Drive:
Two days after his partners in crime—Joe Percival and James McDougall—were arrested, Constable Len Hogue was involved in a car accident. He booked off work. When he didn’t turn up for his shift the next afternoon and couldn’t be reached, two VPD officers drove to his house to check on him.
There was a Vancouver Sun on the doorstep and there was a black lab waiting by the back door. All the curtains were closed, but they could see a single light on in the basement. One of the officers got down on his hands and knees and peered into the ground level basement window. He could just make out the body of a young girl lying on the Chesterfield with a bullet hole in her forehead.
Eight Bodies:
When police kicked in the door of the Hogue’s house, they found eight bodies scattered over all three floors of the house. Each one had been shot in the head. Larry, 14 was lying face down in an upper bunk bed. Richard, 3 was found in his cot upstairs. At this point it seemed that the other four children were woken by the gunshots and scattered throughout the house trying to hide from the killer. Darlene, who would turn five in a few days, was lying in the corner of the basement. Noreen, 12 lay on the couch. Raymond, 8 was lying face up on the bathroom floor. Six-year-old Clifford was found in the room next to the laundry. He was hiding in a closet when he was executed.
There were six shots still in the gun, meaning that the killer had stopped to reload before continuing to hunt down the children.
Guilty, Case Closed
The coroner’s jury rejected the suggestion that Hogue and his family could have been killed by an outsider. He had already been tried, found guilty and convicted by the media. To this day members of the police force and media are divided. Some believe that Hogue murdered his family and killed himself, others believe that one or more of his partners thought Hogue was about to give them all up and decided to get rid of the problem.
Listen to the podcast and see what you think.
Show notes:
Sponsored by:
Sponsors: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours and Erin Hakin Jewellery
Music: Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’
Intro: Mark Dunn
Interviews: George Garrett (CKNW reporter, retired); Paul Ballard (retired VPD detective and Hogue neighbour); Colin Gray (Hogue neighbour)
Buy me a coffee promo: McBride Communications and Media
Source:
12 comments on “When Cops were Murderers Part 2”
Was it something in the water in Vancouver at this time? Seems like so many gruesome crimes went down. Anyway, keep the great stories coming.
Sure couldn’t make them up!
yikes! what a travesty on all levels.
Great stuff, Eve. I applaud your work here.
In my opinion there is no doubt that Hogue murdered his family and then committed suicide. He was a cornered rat, with his life crashing in around him. Everything he had worked so hard for, his job, his family, his summer home on Hatzic Lake — Hogue was about to go to prison and lose them all.
At least one of the people you interviewed said Hogue wasn’t the type of person who would do something like that.
The profile of a family annihilator is “a middle-aged man, a good provider who would appear to neighbors to be a dedicated husband and a devoted father.” — Professor Jack Leven, Professor of Sociology and Criminology Emeritus at Northeastern University in Boston
That’s how Hogue was described by people in your podcast.
If an accomplice, such as the CPR constable who owned the .357 wanted to take Hogue out, he could have done so without murdering his wife and children, and he could have even done so in a remote area and simply made Hogue disappear. If he did do it, that would make him one of the most diabolical and cold-blooded murderers in modern history. Or, he could have just lent a guy a gun.
The dermal nitrate, or paraffin test, which was used in 1965 to test for gun residue, is extremely inaccurate. It is not a test which detects gunpowder. It is a test which detects nitrates which gunpowder contains; fertilizers, cosmetics, cigarettes, urine, and many other items also contain nitrates, so effectively, if someone were to be convicted for a crime based on a paraffin nitrate test, it’s possibly he was only guilty of not washing his hands after going to the bathroom.
My involvement with this story began as a child, seeing several holes dug in the ground of Burquitlam Cemetery, now called Robinson Memorial Park Cemetery. I have never seen any evidence of anyone but Leonard Hogue committing these murders.
In my opinion, the incompetence of the VPD lies more with their failure of a proper investigation into criminal activities within their own department which preceded the murders. The Murray Report, which I spent weeks attempting to track down, unsuccessfully, was never released. Only a White Paper report from Attorney Murray was released which tells us little more than the methodology he used to uncover facts, but none of the facts which were uncovered. I believe the original Murray Report, which never saw the light of day, was long ago destroyed, likely by people sympathetic to the Vancouver Police Department.
Obviously, people like you and I have always had our opinions, but the first time I recall seeing anything about someone else possibly committing these crimes was in an online article written by Robert Sedlack, originally published in the Vancouver Sun on February 6, 1999, 34 years after the murders.
It’s been said that Tragedy + Time = Humour. By the same token, Tragedy + Time = Conspiracy Theories.
Examination of past history is a good thing. It is something we all do, but sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.
MGH
Hi, Liz;
I recall that story, its headlines and conclusions. And while I appreciate your perspective, and agree the “investigation” was poor, incompetent or even non-existent, my opinion as to the culprit is different from yours. Since that traumatic event – I was 20 years old – I have been morbidly fascinated by such horrific events in a family and studied others of that era and afterward. What I learned from the other cases is that to me, it’s entirely possible that Len Hogue was the perpetrator. And as for others with whom he ‘did business’ I think it would have been very messy, if they wanted to get rid of him, to have entered someone else’s home and hunted down all of them. Instead, I think such a person would have invited Len (and MAYBE his wife) out for dinner and done them in that way….yes it too would have been complicated to carry off and then cover up….but remember Nick and Lisa Massee… This to me would have been far simpler than trying to kill off a large family in the setting of a regular neighbourhood.
This way is les suspicious that someone from outside would kill them. I don’t think he killed his own family. Maybe he was involved in something fishy, maybe mafia or who knows.
Arm chair detectives aren’t hard to find. It seems the mystery isn’t anything sinister when you add the facts with names. Tanya was the Massee’s Daughter. Lisa maiden name was a Leung. The two adductors who took the Massee’s had a relative that lived 200 to 500 hundred yards from their house. Everything this monster committed was done in a straight line as was the murder of Colleen Shook and the murder of Silvia Leung.
I can’t reply because Eve Lazarus has stopped me from talking. It is okay because I will mention her in another sequel.
It was widely believed by those who knew Hogue that he would never have brought himself to harm his family who he cared for very much. David Harrison (also VPD) was beloved on the other hand was capable of the murders.
One thing I’m learning, the older I get, is that there is no way to predict what someone will or won’t do, depending on the circumstances. If Hogue believed “everything” was over, it doesn’t surprise me he killed his family and himself to “spare” their being executed by others, or perhaps because he believed he himself “had to” die, by his own hand, and rather than leave his family behind, “take them with him.” I certainly can understand feeling such despair and hopelessness and desperation that not only do you want to get out of this life but that you also take your family with you because they won’t be able to manage without you.
Yes I lived across the street from them and played with and went to school with all of them. Sad, sad time for our neighbourhood. I shall never forget. People driving up and down the street to get a look. Reporters everywhere. Rest in Peace♥
I tend to agree with Angelica. A savvy accomplice would have staged a family murder suicide. Investigation closed. If, however Hogue had been found murdered then a full scale hunt for a cop killer would have ensued.