Roddy Moore, 7 was killed on the way to his East Vancouver school in 1947. Why were his step-fathers suspects?
Begbie Annex:
On Friday October 17, 1947, seven-year-old Roddy Moore waved goodbye to his mother and left for his grade one class at Begbie Annex school in Vancouver’s Renfrew area. It usually took him 10 minutes to walk along East 8th Avenue to Rupert Street. There were only four houses on the west side of Rupert, while across the road the land was still undeveloped and mostly bush skirted what is now Thunderbird Elementary school.
This podcast is from a chapter in Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murders and includes interviews with Roddy Moore’s two half-sisters Leona Moore and Patty Turner.
He never arrived.
Body Found:
The search for Roddy continued for two days. Roddy’s body was eventually found at the bottom of a trench near in bush just three blocks from his house. His head had been smashed in with an axe.
- 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
Roddy was a slight, dark-haired friendly little boy. He had grey eyes and long lashes and a small, but prominent scar over his right eye. He stood just four-feet-tall and weighed sixty pounds. His mother said he was scared of the dark and wary of strangers.
Roddy’s mother, Nettie was 18 when Leona was born and 31 when she had her eighth child. At the time of Roddy’s murder she was eight months pregnant. As police started investigating Roddy’s murder and his background, suspicion fell on his two step-fathers.
Family Secret:
Patty Turner was born in 1950, three years after Roddy died. Like her four brothers and sisters she grew up not knowing that she had a murdered half-brother, or that she had seven half-sisters and brothers still in Saskatchewan.
“Roddy was never spoken about in our house,” says Patty.
While more than sixty years have passed without resolution for the family, and against all evidence to the contrary, Patty Turner believes she knows the name of Roddy’s killer. “Deep in my heart, I still believe my father had something to do with it,” she says.
SHOW NOTES
If you have any information about these murders please call Vancouver Police at 604-717-3321, or if you wish to remain anonymous, call crime stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or visit the website solvecrime.ca
The Moore/Turner family:
John Roderick Moore (Roddy) 1939-1947
Mother: Natalie Melissa Moore/Turner 1914-1973
Step-father #1 – Lemuel Edward Moore 1890-1978
Step-father #2 – John Harvie Turner 1912-1980
Alice Williams Hooper (mother of John Turner) 1887-1961
Leona Moore – half sister & oldest of Nettie’s 13 children 1932 –
Patricia (Patty) Turner – half sister 1950 –
Music: Identity Crisis and You by: thedarkpiano.com
Intro: Mark Dunn
Promo: Blood, Sweat, and Fear: the story of Inspector Vance, a true crime podcast with Eve LazarusWith special thanks to Roddy’s half sisters Leona and Patty for contributing to this podcast.
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, content copyright Eve Lazarus.
23 comments on “Who Killed Roddy Moore?”
That was another great podcast Eve!!
Thanks Sandra – I’m so glad that you enjoyed it!
Hi Eve…..do you have any information regarding the murder of, Liela Anderson? I remember as a young girl living in the area where her body was found , in a vacant lot, by Knight St. It was New Year’s Day, around 1960? This was an event that really frightened me, as was about 10 years old at the time.
Yes, I wrote about Lila in Cold Case Vancouver and produced a podcast about her last year: https://evelazarus.com/episode-07-the-christmas-day-murder-of-lila-anderson/
Was last to see him alive
I think there could be a link between Roddy’s murder and Babes in the woods murders in stanley park who were also killed with an axe around 1947. I wonder if police would investigate if this Turner guy maybe had other children with another girlfriend maybe he killed them too.
Thank you for an excellent podcast. I have read all your books. Your reporting is brilliant!
Thanks so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to write!
As much as Iike your pcasts this one proved unbearable to me that a parent could be that evil to a child.
Something set him off and the mother I am so sure knows just what did it. Her mouth said something so personal no doubt implying his manliness was in question or similar . So if true , who is really the killer in this case? Just a thought from experiencing that ball busting behavior before.
If the father did have anything to do with it, he paid someone else as he wasn’t in town. It’s most likely it was a pedophile, wrong place wrong time. I am disturbed though James, that you’ve suggested it was somehow the mother’s fault.
I agree it was a creepy pedophile. And someone that lived in one of the homes close by. I remember my father telling me about this story, and about his grandmothers creepy husband that lived in one of the homes in the area. He always had suspicions. So very disturbing.
Awesome podcast once again Eve.So interesting,I want to know more! If John Turner did kill him,there’s a lot of why’s? But then again we can’t get led down a rabbit hole. It could be he knows who and is (was) hiding it? Plenty of questions?
Eve, as always your writing is so interesting, and brings us the readers/viewers in to a time Vancouver’s wild, weird and often dangerous past. There is no more awful death than that of a Child. When it’s murder of an innocent child, and end up a Cold Case, it stays with most people forever! I personally find it hard for any Mother to just “pack away her memories of her Son”, and never speak of him again. I do grant the Mother some grace, because have lived during those harsh years, and having so many children from such a young age, had to have been very difficult for her, and living under such extreme lacks of emotional, mental, social and financial supports. Little Roddy died long before I was even born, but I have never forgotten him since I first heard his story from your book. Thank you for remembering, and sharing his story. His life was important, even with his early, violent demise. I’m thankful his Sisters helped provide a Headstone for him. I have one question….was a Weapon left behind, or was the tool just an assumption? I remember a certain trail in West Van, where we were warned of a similar child attacked. He would hide up in the Trees, and drop big rocks on unsuspecting children! We took the long way to school after that!
Thanks so much for writing Sherri! As far as I know, they never found a weapon.
Poor little boy.
Someone bullied him , abused him..so sad that this happened..and someone got away with it..I hope if they are still alive..would at least bring some closure to this family.
https://www.pressreader.com/canada/vancouver-sun/20061028/282295315697432
I would think that a sex offender in the area, such as Robert John Arnold would be a viable suspect, more so than one of Roddy’s family members?
We were (sister ) with him that morning
walking to school on seventh ave,
He wanted to take the trail to school but
me and my sister took seventh ave instead.
We waited for him to come out,
Never to been seen.
How sad, I bet that’s stayed with you. The newspapers said that Joyce Jensen, 12 and her little brother were the last to see him. Did they get the name right?
I’m enjoying your podcast but had to comment to say I really wish you had not used the word “seduced” to describe what a pedophile may have attempted to do to this child. If he’d done anything like that, it would have been assault or rape. There is nothing “seductive” about either of those things. This was a seven year old child and children cannot be “seduced”.
I just discovered your podcast, Eve. I am in love! I am very interested in the Roddy Moore case. Such an absolute tragedy.
I am very familiar with the Rupert and 8th Avenue area. I didn’t live there, but spent a lot of time on 8th ave with my Aunt and cousins. They all attended Thunderbird Elementary ( formerly known as Begbie Annex)
Do we have an address for where Roddy lived? And where is his headstone?
Thank you very much! Keep doing what you do- you are amazing
I’m so happy you’re enjoying my podcast, thanks so much for taking the time to comment! The house was at 3174 East 8th Avenue – it’s long gone now though. As far as where he is buried, if I ever knew that, it’s buried in one of my files somewhere. My guess would be Mountain View. His actual name was John Roderick Moore (1939-1947)
He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Burnaby, BC.