On July 26, 1924, Janet Smith was found shot in the head by a .45 calibre automatic revolver in the basement of a Shaughnessy house. The murder of the Scottish nanny rocked Vancouver. The murder touched on high-level police corruption, kidnapping, drugs, society orgies and rampant racism. This is a short excerpt from my book At Home with History: The Secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Homes
3851 Osler Street
Janet Smith was an attractive 23-year-old Scot who looked after Fred and Doreen Baker’s baby daughter. The Baker’s, with Janet in tow, had recently returned to Vancouver after three years in London and Paris running a “pharmaceutical business.” They decided to return home in 1923 after Scotland Yard began to investigate the business as a front for drug smuggling.
The following year, Janet was found murdered in the Shaughnessy house where they were staying.
Police botched the Smith case. First it took two days to find the bullet. Then the embalming of her body destroyed evidence at the eventual autopsy. Police first called it suicide, later saying that Janet had somehow accidentally shot herself while ironing. Finally, they clued in that there were no powder burns around the bullet hole, and unless Janet also beat herself in the back of the head, burned herself on the back with the iron, and changed her clothes after she was dead, her death was no accident.
Botched:
The newspaper headings changed to “Smith Girl Murdered.”
Wong Foon Sing, the Baker’s Chinese houseboy, found Janet in a pool of blood, and became a convenient fall guy. Frustrated that they couldn’t get a confession, at one point several men, including high ranking members of the Point Grey Police Department, dressed up as Ku Klux Klansmen, kidnapped him, dragged him to an attic, tied a heavy rope around his neck, put him on a stool, and pretended to kick it out from under him. After a staggering six weeks of torture, they dumped him in the middle of the night. Police found him stumbling along Marine Drive, rearrested him and shipped him off to Oakalla prison.
CHINESE HOUSEBOY?
Over the years, armchair detectives have come up with a few different scenarios in an attempt to solve her murder. Some say it was Fred Baker, who killed Janet to hide his drug use and illegal business dealings. Others say she was raped and murdered after a wild society party at Hycroft Manor, after which her body was dragged to Osler Street to throw off the investigation. Still others suggest it was Jack Nichol, son of Walter Nichol, the Lieutenant-Governor and publisher of the Province.
No one thinks it was the Chinese houseboy.
Wong was finally acquitted and fled to China in March 1926.
Janet’s body rests uneasily at Mountain View Cemetery, buried by Vancouver’s Scots. Around the corner from the headstone are some coins put there to pay the “ferry man” for her safe passage to the afterlife.
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27 comments on “Who Killed Janet Smith?”
Thank you for this post, Eve. Even more horrifying than the murder of Janet Smith (and that was horrifying), was the treatment of Mr. Sing at the hands of the fledgling Vancouver police. A ink black mark on our history for certain and one that I remember being highlighted on a ‘DaVinci’s Inquest’ episode.
I didn’t know DaVinci’s did an episode, I’d be interested to see how they handled the history. Thanks for letting me know.
I remember my mother worked for the Owners of the Powell river lumber who lived on Angus drive the said she still haunted the land the house was on and no one could build on it. I may have the wrong place in mind but it was across from the Hycroft Manor and it rand down to 16th and Granville. I see that recently it has had some town houses built on it . I often wonder why lion gate films has not made a movie about it.
Excellent idea. More to the story.
Reg….the Harold Foley family(friends of my grandparents ) owned that mill….their house at 1503 Angus , burnt to the ground a year after their deaths in 1974….the property was re- built and subdived ( the back yard became two large townhouses, 3483 and 3433 Granville.
One story I heard was that Wong liked Janet and gave her some silk from China as a present! And so he was implicated somehow! Janet’s stone was a half finished tower that symbolized her life cut short. On one of my visits to the cemetery to visit Joe Fortes and Janet Smith I noted he
r stone had been vandalized. Don’t know if it is fixed or not. The house on Osler still stands!!
The headstone has been repaired. And it’s always heartening to see fresh flowers placed there!
Where are they buried?
The story of Janet Smith is woven into Sky Lee’s novel Disappearing Moon Cafe (1990). Wong Foon Sing, in this story, is called in to take direction from the Wong Clan. He is told that if he did murder her he should not confess as it would be hard on all of them. I have since wondered, Is this true, a story told from the inside, an account not audible in mainstream accounts? Or is it not, simply a fictionalization of a true-crime account?
I had a friend whose job as a graduate student fluent in German was paid to read German novels in World War II for inadvertent social or technical or political indicators that might advance the British war effort, or so he said! What a job! Who knew? Not everything fictional is always fiction.
I’ll have to get a copy of this novel. And, they do say write what you know!
Interesting academic piece, as follow-up to my comment above:
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/scl/article/view/12804/13797
This seems too interesting to let go of. It should be put together and a entire book be written
I highly recommend you read Ed Starkins’ book Who Killed Janet Smith!
I did write an entire book on the subject. Who Killed Janet Smith? It was reprinted in 2011 as one of the 10 best books ever written about Vancouver. I was fortunate enough to have had a new introduction written by Daniel Francis, a very good British Columbia historian.
Hi Ed – thanks for dropping by my blog! Ten years later your book “Who Killed Janet Smith” is still one of the 10 best books every written about Vancouver. And Dan Francis has a new book out this fall – can’t wait!
Where can I purchase a copy of Mr Starkins’ book?
You can order direct from the publisher and get a 30% discount https://www.anvilpress.com/books/who-killed-janet-smith. Hey at those prices consider picking up a copy of one or more of my books as well! https://www.anvilpress.com/authors/eve-lazarus
Do you know where we can get your book? NLA at Indigo.
I can help you there. Order through Anvil Press and receive a 30% discount. Which makes a great excuse to add a copy of Sensational Vancouver, Sensational Victoria and/or At Home with History: the secrets of Greater Vancouver’s heritage homes! https://www.anvilpress.com/
For anyone interested, the Alexander Malcolm Manson fonds was donated to Rare Books and Special Collections at UBC in 2019. Manson was the Attorney General at the time of the Janet Smith case, and his mishandling of it effectively ended his political career. There are a few files about the case, and likely more mixed in other files not labeled specifically (general correspondence, etc). No one has really looked at it yet, but its ripe for research once we re-open after Covid restrictions end.
Hi Krisztina: thanks so much for this information, that’s amazing.
Ordered a copy of Who Killed Janet Smith, can’t wait to read it!
A few months ago I was up at Mountain View, in the smaller cemetery, to try and locate the grave of my mom’s older brother who had passed away from a childhood disease at the age of 3 (before she was born). The grave is very overgrown. But on the way to go back to my car, I turned around and there was the marker for Janet Smith’s resting place!
I wonder if the occupants of the house know about the murder… Is it required to divulge histories of death (especially murder) on a property when it is up for sale?
It is required to disclose any murders if they know about them, but the realtor does not have a duty to research the house. Here’s a blog I wrote on it: https://evelazarus.com/would-you-buy-a-murder-house-2/
Archivist here. I’m not sure if Ed Starkins had access when he wrote his book, but other useful sources for information about the murder are the inquests and the correspondence file kept by the Attorney General’s Dept. They are available through the BC Archives in Victoria. The correspondence file (which also contains copies of the inquests) is 800 pages and has just recently been digitized. It is not online but may be purchased.
[…] wife Lilian bought the house in 1908. In 1924, Jackson, a lawyer was charged with investigating the Janet Smith murder case. In one of the many bizarre turns in the case, Jackson was eventually charged with […]
Mr Sing was horribly mistreated so it’s a wonder he eventually flew the coop so to speak.