Cold Case Vancouver

By Eve Lazarus

While Vancouver is much loved by tourists and locals alike for its spectacular natural scenery and diverse culture, behind that facade lurks a violent past. Cold Case Vancouver takes a look at the city's disreputable side by revisiting some of its infamous cold murder cases from 1944 to 1996.

There are literally hundreds of murders that remain unsolved in Vancouver, some dating back decades; their victims are now essentially invisible, forgotten by everyone except family and friends. Sometimes their cases are looked at again with a fresh set of eyes and the benefit of new technologies; sometimes they are even solved. Most often, however, the crimes remain a mystery, consigned to the city's dark history.

Part history book, part crime story, Cold Case Vancouver delves into 50 years of some of Vancouver's most baffling unsolved murders. In 1953, in what became known as the "Babes in the Woods" story, two little boys were found murdered in Stanley Park and remain unidentified to this day. In 1975, a 22-year-old country singer just back from Nashville was murdered, just as she was on the verge of an amazing career. Ten years later, Jimmy and Lily Ming were kidnapped from their Strathcona home and found murdered six weeks later. And there's the 1994 disappearance of Nick Masee, a retired banker with connections to the renegade Vancouver Stock Exchange who, along with his wife Lisa, were taken from their home, their bodies never found.

Meticulously researched, giving insight into police procedures and forensics, and including new interviews with those connected to the original cases, Cold Case Vancouver is a fascinating look at Vancouver's criminal past.