PROJECT FUNDING HAS LAUNCHED on KICKSTARTER:

He brushed the leaves aside and uncovered the most baffling double murder Vancouver has ever had.

– The Vancouver Province April 15, 1953

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In this post, I continue to share a piece of actual evidence from this cold case.  I will do it daily until our Kickstarter campaign deadline is reached on September 11, 2011 at 5:17 PM.  Please consider donating, even just $1!

See more links and posts about this cold case and the project at GRAPHIC NOVEL.

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In the cool twilight of a January afternoon about six years ago, a fur-coated murderer crashed a shingler’s hammer into the heads of two small unsuspecting children, laid their bodies between a rotting log and clump of maple in Stanley Park, and fled…  

Detective Don McKay, head of the investigation team, and senior police officials, believe that either the children’s mother or a guardian struck them down from behind, covered their bloodstained bodies with her fur coat and then threw herself into the waters of nearby Burrard Inlet…

Each covering of leaves, each blanket of pine needles, was carefully removed and from this they determined the year and the season the children were placed there.[1]

Covering the bodies was the celanese lining of a woman’s’ coat and a small portion of the fur collar.  In the hairs of the collar were hemlock needles, which indicated that needles were falling at that time.[2]

Later from the scant clues, city furrier R.J. Pop. Fifteenth and Granville, laboriously reconstructed a duplicate of the coat of such accuracy that the original button, later found at the scene was identical to the one put on the duplicate.

Police say it was worn by a chunkily built woman about 5 foot 3 or 4…

 

BOX 2 item 13: Woman’s fur coat- large bag containing fur coat remnant plus lining

The coat discovered at the scene was reconstructed and featured in an article in The Vancouver Sun on April 20, 1953.  Initially it was described as an “oilskin coat” but it turned out to be a fur coat with its lining facing out.  “[The victims] were covered with a cloth later found to be the lining of a woman’s fur coat of the factory mass production type.”

The article described the coat as a “dark brown Coney (dyed rabbit) with leg-o-mutton shoulders, popular in 1943.”  “The lining of Celanese material (a synthetic fiber first spun in 1921) indicated the coat had been worn two or three years.”

The coat was described as size 16 and 40 inches (101.6 cm) long.   “From the length of the fur coat lining which covered the skeletons, police believe it was worn by a short, stocky woman about five feet three or four inches tall weighing between 125 and 135 pounds.”

This ad reflects the coat mentioned in the original news articles and appeared in The Vancouver Sun on October 6, 1943:

“The coat was reconstructed right down to the button by Vancouver furrier R.J. Pop.”   The button is in the evidence boxes (see BOX 2 item 22: One large button- Dark brown with tulip pattern- likely from fur coat).

A good comparison photo:

Bettie Page, Christmas, Nashville 1944 “I loved that old rabbit fur coat!”

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