Mattress Money

If you remember from my last entry, enumerator Irene Lenard had walked up to 1817 West 5th Avenue and found a body lying on the floor in the neat, sparsely furnished house. Wisely, she left and called the police.

The police also found a piece of wood on the bed by the body. It was three feet long and two inches thick. The two constables, realizing it was a homicide, left the scene and called for homicide detectives and crime scene experts.

Photographs were taken of the scene and the slow search for physical evidence on the premises began. You've seen those crime shows where the techs explore every nook and cranny of the crime scene haven't you? It is a tedious process.

Surfaces were dusted for fingerprints, which would later be compared with the fingerprints of the victim and known visitors. The remaining unidentified prints would be compared to the prints of known criminals in the hopes of finding a suspect.

Now it was time for the detectives to take over. The scene led them to believe the murder was committed during a robbery or a burglary. Living-room dresser drawers were pulled open and appeared to have been ransacked; the handset of a wall-mounted telephone was ripped off and lying on an armchair and there was an empty plastic identification wallet on top of the television set. Signs of a struggle were evident in the living-room and the bedroom.

Once the scene was thoroughly investigated, the victim's body was taken to the City Morgue for an autopsy.

The pathologist discovered the cause of death to be the result of both lungs being punctured by broken ribs - probably caused by a fall. After the detectives described the scene of the murder, they theorized that the victim had been tied to a chair and left there by his attacker. While trying to free himself, he had fallen to the floor and broken his ribs.

The victim was identified as George William Dickinson. Almost blind and deaf, he would have turned 90 years old in a few weeks.

Dickinson kept a candy shop on Granville Street and generations of children had named him 'Candy Bill'.

A close friend of Bill's, an 82-year-old woman who lived on the block, informed the police she last saw the victim about three weeks ago. He had asked the lady to count some money for him since his eyesight was too bad for him to do it himself.

He had over six hundred dollars at the time, which he was saving to go on a trip to California. His niece, and only relative, lived there.

The woman advised Bill he shouldn't keep so much money in the house but he laughed and said he kept it under the mattress where it was safe. The police searched the house but the money wasn't found.

So now there is a motive for the murder but is there a suspect? Will more evidence be found on the scene? Did someone see something? What about the fingerprints? So many questions! I will have more answers on Friday. Answers, which I will get from the book PoliceBeat by Joe Swan.

And don't forget. If you are on Facebook, at 4pm PST today, I am having a book launch for my latest release, On The Right Side, My Story of Survival and Success. Come join the event.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Kitsilano, History, murder,Burrard, 1978, constables, cottage, On The Right Side, Multiple Sclerosis