Cold Case Canada

Twenty-year-old Wanda Watson was an aspiring actor and model who moved from Victoria, BC to live with her older sister in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant. On August 3, 1991 she was stabbed to death in her home. The intruders then poured gasoline around the house and set it on fire.

There was surprisingly little information in the newspapers of the time. The conclusion was that Wanda had surprised a robbery in progress. Wanda's sister Vicki is not so sure. She says nothing was stolen. She thinks it’s more likely that Wanda answered the door to someone; it may have been strangers, someone who followed Wanda home or someone they both knew.

Photo of Wanda, courtesy Vicki Watson

For more information, please visit my website: evelazarus.com or join us on the Facebook page Cold Case Canada.

In this Halloween special we're travelling up Indian Arm to visit the Wigwam Inn, one of Metro Vancouver's most storied old mansions. Built in 1910 by Alvo von Alvensleben as a hotel for the rich, it's been a brothel, an illegal casino, used to print counterfeit money, and now owned by the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. Is it haunted? Of course. The ghost of Martha lives in room 209. 

With special guest Greg Mansfield, author of the Ghosts of Vancouver

Image: Wigwam Inn, 1912, courtesy Vancouver Archives

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In 1995, a partial skull was discovered in a slough just outside Mission, BC. Forensic testing revealed that the skull belonged to a Caucasian woman aged between 20 and 40. Missing person files were searched, but nothing matched her description, and the skull was named Jane Doe, placed in an RCMP storage facility and forgotten.

Then in 2002 police searched serial killer Robert Pickton’s Coquitlam farm. Among the dozens of truly gruesome discoveries were human bones that matched the DNA of Jane Doe’s skull. Of the remains of 33 women found on the pig farm, Jane Doe is the only one who has yet to be identified. That may soon change. RCMP say they are submitting her DNA for forensic genetic genealogy testing, and hopefully 30 years after her murder, Jane will finally get her name back.

Composite image of Jane Doe released by the RCMP in 2011

For more information, please visit my website: evelazarus.com or join us on the Facebook group page Cold Case Canada.

In 1962, 20-year-old Ann Spiller was hired as a bank teller at the Penticton branch of the Royal Bank. After she’d been on the job for about a year, Ann spotted a flaw in the bank’s accounting system. By 1968, she had stolen nearly half a million dollars, and this former farm girl, was living the life of the rich and famous.

Drawing of Ann Spiller by Roy Peterson, Vancouver Sun, November 9, 1968

For more information, please visit my website: evelazarus.com or join us on the Facebook group page Cold Case Canada.

In 1910, American-born Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen was living in London with his wife Belle, when he fell in love with Ethel Le Neve, his 20-something assistant. Crippen poisoned his wife and buried most of her in the cellar of their Hilldrop Crescent home. When Scotland Yard started to investigate Belle’s disappearance, Crippen grabbed his young lover, cut off her long brown hair, dressed her in a boy’s suit and fled to Belgium. The couple booked passage aboard the SS Montrose. As the ship left Antwerp for Canada, Crippen had no idea that they had been identified and that Scotland Yard’s Inspector Dew was racing across the Atlantic to intercept and arrest them.

This episode is based on a chapter from Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck

For more information, please visit my website: evelazarus.com or join us on the Facebook group page Cold Case Canada.