TwoTwo Murdered Children In Stanley Park, Vancouver WW2 Finally Identified Along With Their Mother.

[Gregory Carr]

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Babes in the Woods: After nearly 70 years, remains of children found in Stanley Park finally identified
When Ally Brady spit into a tube in 2020, she had no idea that her DNA would solve one of Vancouver’s oldest and coldest murder mysteries.
Eve Lazarus
about 22 hours ago

Doreen, Eileen’s fraternal twin is shown with Derek and David. Date unknown
Photos of Derek and David with the family. Diane holding David at right
Diane with Derek.
Derek pictured top row, second from right at Henry Hudson Elementary in Kitsilano
Derek on the right, with his cousin
Eileen is pictured on the right walking with one of her sisters
Cindy, Eileen Bousquet holding Ally at 3 months. Diane is far right. 1996
Where the bodies of the 'Babes in the Woods' were found. Crime scene photo of Stanley Park, January 1953
The murder weapon from the Babes in the Woods cold case at the Vancouver Police Museum and Archives.
PreviousNext1 / 9 Doreen, Eileen’s fraternal twin is shown with Derek and David. Date unknownPhoto courtesy Ally BradyExpand
Previous
Doreen, Eileen’s fraternal twin is shown with Derek and David. Date unknownPhotos of Derek and David with the family. Diane holding David at rightDiane with Derek.Derek pictured top row, second from right at Henry Hudson Elementary in KitsilanoDerek on the right, with his cousinEileen is pictured on the right walking with one of her sistersCindy, Eileen Bousquet holding Ally at 3 months. Diane is far right. 1996Where the bodies of the 'Babes in the Woods' were found. Crime scene photo of Stanley Park, January 1953The murder weapon from the Babes in the Woods cold case at the Vancouver Police Museum and Archives.Next
When Ally Brady spit into a tube in 2020, she had no idea that her DNA would solve one of Vancouver’s oldest and coldest murder mysteries.

Ally Brady, 26 was flicking through the family album one day when she discovered that she had two great uncles who she had never met. The older boy had blonde hair and blue eyes, and the younger had darker features. When Ally asked her grandmother Diane who they were, she found out they were Diane’s younger brothers David and Derek Bousquet.

“I remember my mother sharing stories with me about her mother’s poverty and how they used to jump out of windows at places they were renting in Vancouver to avoid having to pay because they were just so poor,” Ally says that she was told the two little boys were taken away by social services because their mother Eileen, a sex worker of Metis heritage, was too poor to look after them. Diane remained with her mother.

But when Ally’s Mum pressed her mother for more information, Diane would tell her: “we don’t talk about that” or “that’s in the past.”

In 2020, Ally decided to search for her great uncles—hoping to find them still alive, or at least trace their children or grandchildren.

Her mother took a swab from Diane, who was by then suffering from Dementia, and sent it off to MyHeritage. Ally spit in a tube and sent it to 23AndMe—a genealogy database where people go to learn about their ancestry and locate lost relatives.

Ally didn’t have the boy’s birth certificates or know the year they disappeared, but she knew that Diane was born in July 1937 and was the oldest and then came Derek and David. All three children attended Henry Hudson Elementary in Kitsilano.

Ally uploaded her DNA to Ancestry, MyHeritage and several other genealogy platforms including GEDmatch—which was used by law enforcement to identify the Golden State serial killer in 2018. She hoped her DNA would lead her to her uncles, instead, what she found was devastating.

Last May, the Vancouver Police Department partnered with the BC Coroners Service and Massachusetts-based Redgrave Research Forensic Services, to try and identify the Babes in the Woods. Most of their remains had been cremated in the 1990s and only a few fragments were left. Because they had been handled by many people over the years—and been on display at both the Vancouver Police Museum and the PNE—the DNA was contaminated, making it difficult to get a sample. But in January, Redgrave announced that they had succeeded in extracting a DNA kit from the bone fragments of the older boy (Derek), had uploaded it to GEDmatch, and their team of forensic genetic genealogists were building out family trees and searching for living relatives.

Then, earlier this month, Ally’s mother was approached by a VPD detective who told her that her uncles were the two skeletons that had been found in Stanley Park in 1953 and who were known for the next seven decades as the Babes in the Woods.

Their mother, Eileen Bousquet was born in Alberta, and as far as Ally is aware all three of her children—Diane, Derek and David were born in Vancouver. Detectives told Ally’s mother that they couldn’t find any records to indicate that the boys were taken into the custody of child protection services as she had been told.

Police have always believed that the boys were killed by their mother, who covered them up with her coat and most likely committed suicide soon afterwards.

Ally was three months old when her great grandmother Eileen died in 1996 at age 78. “My Mum always described my great grandmother [Eileen] as a non-violent woman and it’s hard for her to come to terms with the possibility that she may have done this.”

Ally says Diane did not know who her father was or who the fathers were of her half-brothers. “That’s something I’ve been trying to trace with Ancestry, but so far no luck,” she says. “Even though it came to a devastating resolution, at least we know what happened,” she says.

Further reading:

Babes in the Woods - The search for their identities

The Babes in the Woods murder mystery still haunts the city

This story originally appeared on the blog Every Place has a Story and appears on V.I.A. with permission.

For more information listen to Cold Case Canada podcast: Babes in the Woods
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/babes-in-the-woods-after-nearly-70-years-remains-of-children-found-in-stanley-park-finally-identified-5062397

The remains of two male victims (murdered about 1947) were discovered in Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on Wednesday, January 14, 1953. Police determined that a hatchet found at the crime scene, which was of a type commonly used by shingle weavers and lathers, had been used to kill the boys by striking them in the head. Their corpses had been arranged so that they were lying down in a straight line, with each boy's soles facing the other's, and then concealed with a woman's rain cape. The investigation was hampered when the medical examiner concluded that one victim was female. A DNA test conducted in 1998 proved that both victims were male and that they were brothers; they were between the ages of six and ten when they died.

In 2018, detectives were planning on using consumer DNA databases such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe to research the identities of the victims.[2]

This investigation bore fruit in 2022, when the children were identified as David and Derek Busquet, the sons of Eileen Busquet, who passed away in 1996.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babes_in_the_Wood_murders_(Stanley_Park)


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From the Archive
Oct 19, 2017
5 min read

Murder, Mystery and Intrigue in Review: Babes in the Woods
Updated: Jul 6, 2020

Babes in the Woods Mystery Vancouver Police MuseumBabes in the Woods Mystery Vancouver Police Museum
A newspaper clipping from The Vancouver Sun, 1998.



*This is a repost of a popular blog from 2014


Written by Sheena Koo


The final lecture in the Vancouver Police Museum’s Murder Mystery and Intrigue series capped off two months of incredible storytelling by some of our city’s most notable historians, authors and police authorities. Since March 13, 2014, people from across the province have come to the museum to hear about Vancouver’s most salacious crimes, and they weren’t disappointed.


Presentations included the following:

• The 1956 milkshake murder with Museum Director Robert Noon

• The 1927 Janet Smith murder with author Edward Starkins

• The 1963 Pauls murders with author and historian Eve Lazarus

• The 2001 Vivien Morzuch murder with retired Major Crimes Detective Steve McCartney and Forensic Expert Stu Wyatt


Fitting for a grand conclusion to the series, a sold-out crowd packed seats to hear retired Unsolved Homicide Unit Detective, Brian Honeybourn, speak about the 1947 Babes in the Woods murders—a case that is arguably the city’s most famous unsolved crime to date. Honeybourn shared his findings and unveiled some facts that surprised even the most informed Babes in the Woods aficionados.


He began with the scene of the crime. On January 14, 1953, sometime during the day, a Stanley Park Parks Board employee stumbled upon a patch of leaves that made a strange crunching sound. He dug a little deeper beneath the brush and found numerous bones embedded in the earth. He notified authorities and the next day investigators showed up close to Prospect Point to unearth a shocking crime.


Beneath a heavy layer of dirt, leaves, tree branches and a decomposing fur coat, they found the bones of two young children and a layman’s hatchet—which turned out to be the murder weapon. Detectives also found two children’s aviation caps, decomposed pieces of children’s clothing, a lunchbox and a woman’s size 7 ½ penny loafer.

Original evidence from the Babes in the Woods murders, archived at The Vancouver Police MuseumOriginal evidence from the Babes in the Woods murders, archived at The Vancouver Police Museum
Original evidence from the Babes in the Woods murders, archived at The Vancouver Police Museum


A doctor (not a forensic pathologist) was called to the site. He stated that the bones came from a young boy and girl, roughly aged 5-7, and 7-9. Detectives looked at the layers of brush and concluded that the bodies had been sitting in the woods for approximately six years, meaning that they had been murdered sometime in 1947.


Interestingly, while information from the 1953’s two-page report is still used today, Honeybourn believes that some pieces—such as the date and other facts—may be incorrect. He explained, for example, that nowadays detectives would have called in a forensic botanist among several other specialists to determine the age of the bones, brush and other evidence. Authorities in 1953 simply did not have access to these resources. This is important because Honeybourn believes that the bones may have been sitting in the park for more than six years, placing the murder much earlier.


After the discovery of the bodies, police called upon the public to help identify the children and their murderer—specifically, they asked anyone who saw a woman with a young boy and girl in Stanley Park throughout 1947 to come forward. They received hundreds of tips, but the leads were dead ends.

Babes in the Woods Sketches at The Vancouver Police MuseumBabes in the Woods Sketches at The Vancouver Police Museum
Detectives gathered evidence and bones from the scene and kept them in two boxes for safekeeping. Honeybourn pointed out that, nowadays, evidence management is very strict. This includes making sure it is preserved in various specialized bags and cases because the average box can cause acid erosion—which is exactly what happened to the Babes in the Woods evidence. As the case turned cold, one box found its way to the Vancouver Police Museum (at one point, the children’s skulls were also put on exhibition at the PNE).


In 1996, Honeybourn became the head of the Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit. Given the freedom to choose which case he wanted to work on, he decided to reopen the famous Babes in the Woods case. He did so because he had always been fascinated by the stories he heard as a child. The first step in reopening the investigation was re-collecting the evidence. He managed to wrangle the box of bones and other related evidence from the Vancouver Police Museum. He then decided to re-analyse the evidence with new technology. He contacted Dr. David Sweet, a professor and specialist at UBC who was able to extract DNA from the teeth of the children’s skulls. The results from the extractions revealed ground-breaking news: the two murdered children were not a boy and a girl, as initial reports suggested, but were two boys. Furthermore, they were brothers with the same mother but different fathers.


This completely changed the shape of the investigation, because Honeybourn was now looking for witnesses who had seen a woman with two boys in the park—not a boy and a girl.


Honeybourn revealed many of the promising leads he pursued over the past few years, including:


• A woman who stayed in the New Haven Hotel with two boys, and then disappeared

• A woman from Mission who hitchhiked to Stanley Park with her two young boys (the boys were wearing aviation helmets as well)

• A woman (allegedly a prostitute) who lived with her father and two young boys in a house by the lighthouse at Prospect Point in Stanley Park

• A woman and a man who was seen with two kids at Stanley Park with a hatchet. The woman was said to have disappeared into the woods with the kids and the man. She returned later with only the man. She also had blood all over her legs when she returned

Original VPD Crime Photos from the Babes in the Woods murdersOriginal VPD Crime Photos from the Babes in the Woods murders
With meticulous attention to detail, Honeybourn followed up on all of these stories, but surprisingly, found that the children in question were still alive, or the dates and times did not line up with the actual murder. Still searching for answers, Honeybourn is currently reviewing a lead about a deranged woman who was seen running from the bushes of the park in 1944 without shoes. He also hopes that with advances in DNA testing, he will eventually be able to track down a relative of the children.

Map of Babes in the Woods bodies were foundMap of Babes in the Woods bodies were found
One of the most intriguing parts of Honeybourn’s presentation did not deal with the murder investigation itself. Instead, it dealt with putting the bodies to rest. Several years ago, he decided to give the young children a dignified resting place. He cremated the majority of the bones and released the ashes into the sea as part of a small ceremony, hopefully bringing closure to the two nameless souls. He saved crucial parts of the bones for future DNA testing.


A thrilling end to the series, the Babes in the Woods lecture did not disappoint. Due to the success of this year’s series, we are excited to announce that we will be hosting our third series next spring, and we look to you, the public, for suggestions on what you would like to hear. Please feel free to contact us at in...@vancouverpolicemuseum.ca with ideas!

https://www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/post/murder-mystery-and-intrigue-in-review-babes-in-the-woods