Loose Lips

The apartment on Adanac Street was photographed and dusted by the R.C.M.P. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and a part roll of toilet tissue was seized so it could be compared with tissue found on the body.

Kathleen McKenzie, the victim if you remember from Monday's post, worked as a topless dancer at the Gulf Club. The Gulf Club was a seedy night-spot on Hastings Street, which was involved in prostitution and narcotics. Kathleen herself was arrested three times in 1972 for possession of marijuana and police suspected the young woman of trafficking drugs on a street level.

Police located an ex-boyfriend of McKenzie's, Douglas Stewart, on February 8. Stewart told them he last saw Kathy on the evening of January 18. He, Kathy, Horvat and Irish drank beer together at the Dominion Hotel beer parlour. Another girl, known as "Momma Sonny" was also there. They were having a party in Kathy's honour because she was leaving for Toronto the next day.

When the bar closed, the group continued the party at the Adanac apartment. There, they drank beer, did some marijuana and mescaline and played cards. Stewart left around 4:30 am but the party was still going strong.

Stewart informed the police that Horvat was heavily involved with heroin dealing, had recently obtained three ounces of the narcotic from a man known as "Screwie Louie" at the Penthouse Cabaret on Seymour Street. Horvat was dealing the stuff with a man named Jake.

According to Kathy's ex, Douglas last saw Horvat and Irish on January 31. They were driving to Calgary.

A week later, on February 15, the police brought Douglas Stewart in for further questioning. They had received information that Stewart knew more about the murder than he was saying.

Stewart cracked. He told the police that two days after the party, Horvat told him that he and Irish dumped Kathy's body in Mission. When Douglas asked why she was killed, Horvat answered the young woman had been talking too much about the drug business. The couple also weren't in Calgary. Their car broke down so they went to Victoria instead.

Thanks to the book, Policebeat: 24 Vancouver Murders by Joe Swan for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Mission Murder

On January 28, 1973, a 14-year-old boy, David Watson, and his two younger sisters were searching for bottles beside the Cade Barr Road in Mission, BC. What they found was the body of a dead girl. The youngsters ran as fast as they could to the General Store - which was owned by their father - and told him about their find. The elder Watson called the R.C.M.P.

Corporal Bomba of the Mission Detachment of the R.C.M.P. went to where the children had found the body. There he found the corpse of a young woman, approximately 20 years old. She was fully clothed and didn't not appear to have been sexually molested. The only signs of injury were bruises on her face and neck. There was no identification on the body - only a business card  for a Vancouver Cab Company. Her face and hands were covered with a white, paste-like substance later found to be garden lime. Was this an attempt to destroy the young woman's identity?

Photographs were taken of the body and then it was removed to the morgue. An autopsy was performed by Dr. Sturrock the next day and it was determined the cause of death was suffocation.  A wad of tissue was in the girl's mouth and another, heavily bloodstained, was in her blouse.

The lime caused third-degree burns on the face and the decomposition suggested death  had occurred days prior to the body being found.

The murder had taken place elsewhere and the children found a body, which had been dumped from a vehicle than rolled into the gully. The R.C.M.P. supplied the media with a description of the victim. Following the news broadcast, four young boys turned in a flight bag containing women's clothing. The boys had found the bag in the bushes beside a railroad track. That location was two miles from where the body was found.

On January 31, the victim was identified as Kathleen Mary McKenzie. Her parents identified the body and the police later confirmed the identity through fingerprint comparison.

Kathleen was in fact 20-years-old and she was living in a basement suite with a young couple Ivan Horvat and Dorothy Irish at 2679 Adanac Street.

February 1, 1973, R.C.M.P. officers went to the Adanac address and spoke with the landlord, Mr. Gobler. Gobler told the officers the suite was rented to Kathy McKenzie on December 30, 1972. Just after the first of the year, a couple - Horvat and Irish - moved in with McKenzie. The landlord had last seen McKenzie in mid-January and the other two had moved out on January 31. They left no forwarding address.

The suite was little more than a cupboard below the front steps of the house and was used as a wine cellar by a previous tenant. When the R.C.M.P. examined it, they found a few personal belongings of Kathleen McKenzie and furniture.

The above information is from the book Policebeat: 24 Vancouver Murders by Joe Swan. Thank you.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Backwards and Forwards

So did you spell Adanac backwards and learn how the street got its name? No? Adanac is Canada spelt backwards so that is how the name came to be. However, that wasn't the original name of this street.

This stretch of road was originally named Union Street - this street first started on the other side of Main Street in Strathcona and ran to Boundary Road. The western side of Union was an exciting place to be - it was an area full of activities such as prostitution, gambling and drinking.

However, the eastern side of Union was one where families lived and didn't engage in such disreputable activities. In the 1920s, Mrs. Mary Ann Galbraith started a battle to get the name changed.

Mrs. Galbraith was active in community politics and wasn't about to let this project die. In 1930, her efforts paid off and the street's name from Vernon Street on was changed to Adanac.

Mary Ann was born in 1886, her husband, Harold, in 1884. The Galbraiths and their nine children lived on Adanac for over 60 years. When the book I am using for reference was written in 2001 - Namely Vancouver by Tom Snyders and Jennifer O'Rourke - four of those children were still living and near Adanac. (Mary Ann died in 1974 and her husband the following year.)

Now the name change may have distanced the two sections of the same street but Adanac wasn't entirely able to emerge unscathed. In the 1990s, there was a boozecan, which operated on Union was pretty close to Vernon and the respectable "Adanac.

Let's go over to White Rock where there are 76 hectares of undeveloped park land at Admiral Point. It was originally set aside for a military reserve and it is still subject to use by the Armed Forces if needed. You never know - our neighbours to the south could decide to invade! Honestly, it could happen.

If you go to West Vancouver, off West Vancouver's Fisherman's Cove and just beside Eagle Island  you will find a tiny islet known as Adobe Island. There is one home that manages to perch on the island and Eagle Islanders have been known to refer to the perch as The Egg. This is an expensive egg though - asking price in 1996 was $2.9 million.

You know that Vancouver got its name as a tribute to the sea captain who discovered it; Victoria was named after a Queen but what about British Columbia? However did that come about? Friday I will tell you.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Adanac, history, Vanier Park, Union Street British Columbia,Galbraith,The Egg