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3 Unsolved Homicide Cases In Vancouver From 1958-1959 Including The Dec. 25 Case.
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Gregory Carr
Dec 26, 2021, 11:03:04 AM12/26/21
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Lila Anderson, 38, was murdered on December 25, 1959, her naked body dumped in a ravine at Knight Street and 45th Avenue.
Two little boys were out walking their dog the next day when they found her naked body with a black skirt wrapped around her head. She had been abducted from a bus stop, dragged into a car, beaten with a tire iron and her head was then smashed against a rock.
Lila’s body was found about a kilometre from the Pauls' house, the couple and their young daughter murdered 18 months earlier, and who I wrote about in V.I.A. earlier this year.
Lila came from small-town Rock Creek, B.C. and during the war served with the Royal Canadian Air Force as a sergeant cook. She moved to Vancouver after her discharge and first worked as an assistant night manager at the White Lunch and later as a cashier at the Safeway store at Broadway and Main Street.
In 1950 she bought a property at 30 East 15th Avenue and drew up blueprints for a boarding house. She hired a construction crew and supervised the work. When it was finished, she moved into the bottom suite and rented out the upstairs.
Lila made it clear that her private life was her own business, and she expected her neighbours and friends to respect that. What they did know was that she loved to garden; she loved Mikie, her eight-year-old cat, and she was happy to stay at home and listen to the radio or watch television. Relatives and friends painted a picture of a quiet woman who liked her own company and preferred to live alone. She laughed at funny things, they said, was friendly to small children, and had a nice smile.
Lila told her sister and a neighbour that she had made plans for Christmas dinner but she didn’t say who with. No one saw her after she left home on Christmas Day. An autopsy determined that Lila had eaten about an hour before she was murdered.
“It is a dreadful commentary on a type of city as ours that such a crime could occur,” Vancouver Police Chief George Archer told the media. “Someone must have seen her travelling about the city, or at her Christmas dinner. Yet not one single witness had come forward to help with the investigation.”(Greg: The previous police chief a Mr. Mulligan had fled the city in disgrace after being exposed as taking lots of bribes and having a mistress a few years earlier.)
Lila had two children both of whom she adopted out. Ross Dewar was born in 1947 and believes he has an older half-sister in Ontario. Ross recently connected with a half-brother from his father’s side after adding his DNA to the Ancestry.com genealogy databank. (Greg: In that era women unmarried who had children were very rare.)
If you have any information about Lila Anderson’s murder, please contact Vancouver Police at 604-717-3321 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
For more information listen to the Cold Case Canada podcast: The Christmas Day Murder of Lila Anderson
Eve Lazarus is a reporter and author, and she hosts and produces the Cold Case Canada true crime podcast. Her books include the B.C. bestsellers Murder by Milkshake; Blood, Sweat, and Fear; Cold Case Vancouver and Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History. She blogs at Every Place has a Stor.y
Vancouver cold case files: The Pauls family was the city's first triple murder
The only clues police had to go on were a partial footprint in the garden, a bloody, but unidentifiable palm print on the bedroom wall, and a dislodged rock in the garden that indicated the way the killer had fled.
Eve Lazarus
Jul 29, 2021 9:00 AM
Helen, Dorothy and David Pauls. The three family members were murdered in their home in June 1958 and the case remains unsolved.
The Pauls family lived in this house on East 53rd Avenue in 1958.
Helen, Dorothy and David Pauls. The three family members were murdered in their home in June 1958 and the case remains unsolved.
On June 10, 1958, David Pauls, 52 was shot three times in the head with a .22-calibre revolver by the back door of the family home. The killer then went upstairs and clubbed 11-year-old Dorothy Pauls to death in her bed. When Helen Pauls, 45, returned from work a short time later the killer shot her twice in the head and then beat her dead body with a blunt instrument.
It was Vancouver’s first triple homicide. (Greg: There was a house right next door why didn't anyone hear anything?)
The Pauls were originally from Russia, spoke German, and before moving to South Vancouver in 1953, farmed in Aldergrove. David worked as a janitor for Woodwards, and in a period where most mothers stayed at home, Helen worked the afternoon shift at the Home Fancy Sausage Shop on East Hastings Street. Dorothy attended Walter Moberly Elementary School.
No one knew much about the Pauls, but that’s not surprising. They had stopped attending the local Mennonite Church after David no longer wanted to tithe a percentage of his earnings. They still farmed most weekends. Neighbours and co-workers described them as hard working, frugal, financially sound and having no known enemies of any kind.
The only clues police had to go on were a partial footprint in the garden, a bloody, but unidentifiable palm print on the bedroom wall, and a dislodged rock in the garden that indicated the way the killer had fled. The murder weapon was never found, but forensics determined that the bullets came from a Rohm RG-10 Revolver. Another dead end, as the guns sold in stores throughout the US for $14.95.
Police investigated several theories in the Pauls murders including connections to Russia, the Mennonite Church and a communist plot. A botched robbery and a potential home invasion were also ruled out because nothing was stolen. Another theory was mistaken identity. The Pauls had bought the house the year before from a Vancouver Police Department sergeant who was the same age as David and lived there with his wife and young daughter. Police believed that David may have caught a peeping tom looking through Dorothy’s window.
Police found a chalked inscription that said DP-HT scribbled on the back door. It turned out that HT was a boy at Dorothy’s elementary school that she had a crush on, but he had an alibi. Another HT—an 18 year old boy from Mission, BC and who four days later raped and murdered a woman and sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl in Bellingham, was also cleared.
When the Pauls case was reinvestigated again in the 1990s by the Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit, the theory was that because Dorothy was found with her head wrapped in her robe and wearing just her pajama top that she was the intended target of a sexual assault and the adults became collateral damage.
There were no suspects identified and the murder weapons were never found. The $14,000 reward—the largest ever posted—went uncollected and the murders remain unsolved.
For more information see: Cold Case Canada podcast: The Pauls
Eve Lazarus is a reporter and author, and she hosts and produces the Cold Case Canada true crime podcast. Her books include the B.C. bestsellers Murder by Milkshake; Blood, Sweat, and Fear; Cold Case Vancouver and Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History. She blogs at Every Place has a Story.
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/history/vancouver-cold-case-files-the-pauls-family-was-the-citys-first-triple-murder-3986401
https://evelazarus.com/tag/evelyn-roche/ shows the dead Mom's body not for the faint of heart. The dead daughter's bed has black discoloration where her head would have been which is odd.
https://evelazarus.com/tag/chief-george-archer/ Another unsolved rape murder from that year.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/porchlightcanada/1958-evelyn-roche-vancouver-bc-unsolved-murder-t4161.html she was the mother of two raped and knifed to death while the children were alone at home what the Dad was doing at the time is not mentioned.
Two little boys were out walking their dog the next day when they found her naked body with a black skirt wrapped around her head. She had been abducted from a bus stop, dragged into a car, beaten with a tire iron and her head was then smashed against a rock.
Lila’s body was found about a kilometre from the Pauls' house, the couple and their young daughter murdered 18 months earlier, and who I wrote about in V.I.A. earlier this year.
Lila came from small-town Rock Creek, B.C. and during the war served with the Royal Canadian Air Force as a sergeant cook. She moved to Vancouver after her discharge and first worked as an assistant night manager at the White Lunch and later as a cashier at the Safeway store at Broadway and Main Street.
In 1950 she bought a property at 30 East 15th Avenue and drew up blueprints for a boarding house. She hired a construction crew and supervised the work. When it was finished, she moved into the bottom suite and rented out the upstairs.
Lila made it clear that her private life was her own business, and she expected her neighbours and friends to respect that. What they did know was that she loved to garden; she loved Mikie, her eight-year-old cat, and she was happy to stay at home and listen to the radio or watch television. Relatives and friends painted a picture of a quiet woman who liked her own company and preferred to live alone. She laughed at funny things, they said, was friendly to small children, and had a nice smile.
Lila told her sister and a neighbour that she had made plans for Christmas dinner but she didn’t say who with. No one saw her after she left home on Christmas Day. An autopsy determined that Lila had eaten about an hour before she was murdered.
“It is a dreadful commentary on a type of city as ours that such a crime could occur,” Vancouver Police Chief George Archer told the media. “Someone must have seen her travelling about the city, or at her Christmas dinner. Yet not one single witness had come forward to help with the investigation.”(Greg: The previous police chief a Mr. Mulligan had fled the city in disgrace after being exposed as taking lots of bribes and having a mistress a few years earlier.)
Lila had two children both of whom she adopted out. Ross Dewar was born in 1947 and believes he has an older half-sister in Ontario. Ross recently connected with a half-brother from his father’s side after adding his DNA to the Ancestry.com genealogy databank. (Greg: In that era women unmarried who had children were very rare.)
If you have any information about Lila Anderson’s murder, please contact Vancouver Police at 604-717-3321 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
For more information listen to the Cold Case Canada podcast: The Christmas Day Murder of Lila Anderson
Eve Lazarus is a reporter and author, and she hosts and produces the Cold Case Canada true crime podcast. Her books include the B.C. bestsellers Murder by Milkshake; Blood, Sweat, and Fear; Cold Case Vancouver and Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History. She blogs at Every Place has a Stor.y
Vancouver cold case files: The Pauls family was the city's first triple murder
The only clues police had to go on were a partial footprint in the garden, a bloody, but unidentifiable palm print on the bedroom wall, and a dislodged rock in the garden that indicated the way the killer had fled.
Eve Lazarus
Jul 29, 2021 9:00 AM
Helen, Dorothy and David Pauls. The three family members were murdered in their home in June 1958 and the case remains unsolved.
The Pauls family lived in this house on East 53rd Avenue in 1958.
Helen, Dorothy and David Pauls. The three family members were murdered in their home in June 1958 and the case remains unsolved.
On June 10, 1958, David Pauls, 52 was shot three times in the head with a .22-calibre revolver by the back door of the family home. The killer then went upstairs and clubbed 11-year-old Dorothy Pauls to death in her bed. When Helen Pauls, 45, returned from work a short time later the killer shot her twice in the head and then beat her dead body with a blunt instrument.
It was Vancouver’s first triple homicide. (Greg: There was a house right next door why didn't anyone hear anything?)
The Pauls were originally from Russia, spoke German, and before moving to South Vancouver in 1953, farmed in Aldergrove. David worked as a janitor for Woodwards, and in a period where most mothers stayed at home, Helen worked the afternoon shift at the Home Fancy Sausage Shop on East Hastings Street. Dorothy attended Walter Moberly Elementary School.
No one knew much about the Pauls, but that’s not surprising. They had stopped attending the local Mennonite Church after David no longer wanted to tithe a percentage of his earnings. They still farmed most weekends. Neighbours and co-workers described them as hard working, frugal, financially sound and having no known enemies of any kind.
The only clues police had to go on were a partial footprint in the garden, a bloody, but unidentifiable palm print on the bedroom wall, and a dislodged rock in the garden that indicated the way the killer had fled. The murder weapon was never found, but forensics determined that the bullets came from a Rohm RG-10 Revolver. Another dead end, as the guns sold in stores throughout the US for $14.95.
Police investigated several theories in the Pauls murders including connections to Russia, the Mennonite Church and a communist plot. A botched robbery and a potential home invasion were also ruled out because nothing was stolen. Another theory was mistaken identity. The Pauls had bought the house the year before from a Vancouver Police Department sergeant who was the same age as David and lived there with his wife and young daughter. Police believed that David may have caught a peeping tom looking through Dorothy’s window.
Police found a chalked inscription that said DP-HT scribbled on the back door. It turned out that HT was a boy at Dorothy’s elementary school that she had a crush on, but he had an alibi. Another HT—an 18 year old boy from Mission, BC and who four days later raped and murdered a woman and sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl in Bellingham, was also cleared.
When the Pauls case was reinvestigated again in the 1990s by the Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit, the theory was that because Dorothy was found with her head wrapped in her robe and wearing just her pajama top that she was the intended target of a sexual assault and the adults became collateral damage.
There were no suspects identified and the murder weapons were never found. The $14,000 reward—the largest ever posted—went uncollected and the murders remain unsolved.
For more information see: Cold Case Canada podcast: The Pauls
Eve Lazarus is a reporter and author, and she hosts and produces the Cold Case Canada true crime podcast. Her books include the B.C. bestsellers Murder by Milkshake; Blood, Sweat, and Fear; Cold Case Vancouver and Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History. She blogs at Every Place has a Story.
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/history/vancouver-cold-case-files-the-pauls-family-was-the-citys-first-triple-murder-3986401
https://evelazarus.com/tag/evelyn-roche/ shows the dead Mom's body not for the faint of heart. The dead daughter's bed has black discoloration where her head would have been which is odd.
https://evelazarus.com/tag/chief-george-archer/ Another unsolved rape murder from that year.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/porchlightcanada/1958-evelyn-roche-vancouver-bc-unsolved-murder-t4161.html she was the mother of two raped and knifed to death while the children were alone at home what the Dad was doing at the time is not mentioned.
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