VANCOUVER — In 1953, a groundskeeper stumbled upon the skeletal remains of two children near Beaver Lake in Stanley Park. The victim’s skulls had been bludgeoned with what was most likely a hatchet found nearby. .For 68 years the case has baffled law enforcement, however, VPD spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison suggests that answers may be on the horizon. .“We still don’t know who these boys were, why they were in Vancouver, or who killed them,” said Addison at a press conference..“But we hope genealogical testing will finally give us the answers we’ve been looking for.” .Redgrave Research Forensic Services is where police believe they will find these answers, much like Toronto police did in the case of Christine Jessop, a nine year old girl from Ontario who was raped and killed in 1984..Redgrave used DNA from the crime scene to build a family tree of a suspect who was then identified by Toronto police as Calvin Hoover, a “friend” of the girls’ family who committed suicide in 2015. .The Massachusetts-based company will now focus its gaze on the double murder that has left Vancouver perplexed for nearly 70 years.. Screen-Shot-2021-05-19-at-3.47.22-PMMurder weapon. Courtesy VPD .Redgrave will study DNA from the children’s remains and search for any matches among public DNA databases such as Family Tree DNA and GEDmatch, both of which have been used to solve other cases; most notably when GEDmatch was used by law enforcement in California to identify a suspect in the Golden State Killer case. .“We’re hoping this will help us identify the boys, to give them a name, as well as help us understand who may have been responsible for this,” Addison said..“We’re quite realistic … that it’s quite likely that the person who did kill these boys is no longer alive. However, that doesn’t stop us from investigating these cases. We do not close any homicide cases until we have solved them..“Over the years our investigators tried numerous things to try to solve this case. We’ve looked at birth records, we have looked at school records, we have looked through the national archive for children that may have been sent here from overseas.”.It is estimated that the boys, who were approximately six and seven years of age had been killed five years prior to their remains being discovered. A woman’s shoe, a picnic basket, and flaps from the children’s caps were strewn about the location. The children themselves had been found covered by a woman’s coat. This factor, along with an understanding that the children were never reported missing, has led Redgrave to suggest that the killer may have been a parent or someone who was close with the victims. .“With so many people curious about their ancestry and willing to submit DNA for genetic testing, we think the Redgrave team can build a family tree for these boys and possibly identify others who are related to these young victims,” said Addison..“This process could give us new leads to follow, and we hope it will finally help us give these boys a name and identify their killer.”.Small is a Western Standard reporter based in Vancouver
