Identified! Canada - Vancouver, 2 WhtMale Brothers, 7-10, "Babes in the Woods", Jan'53 - Derek and David D’Alton

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Brian, thanks for joining us. We get a lot of our info from the bits and pieces we can pick up from different media articles, and then try to work off of that. Please feel free to correct any misinformation that we may have. Anything you can tell us, that isn't posted here will be welcome info, though I know there is certain info that you need to protect. But anything you can give out would be a help.
And no one here means to imply anything about the investigation that was done. We all know that how investigations were handled, what you had the ability to access, and the problems with accessing it are all much different now than they were then. This is one area where where computer access to info would have been a big help.
As far as what remains you have kept, I don't think anyone here wants to know that info. It is reassuring to know that you had the forethought to do that though.
How throughly was the surrounding area searched, after the boys were found? Were there any unidentified females found in surrounding areas at any point? Say within a 50 mi radius?
The fur coat- synthetic?
The woman's shoe, that is an odd thing to leave behind. You can't walk very well with only one shoe.
 
Brian,

I was in Stanley Park in 1990. Its a beautiful place, but not the kind of place I would walk around "all dressed up".

Its a leisure area... and it sounds like it was very uncleared then. Although a cape fur coat and nice shoes with heels were in style then, I don't see it. The description of the boys clothing sounded more appropriate for a meeting, or "official business" than a stroll in the wilderness.

To me, it sounds like they were wearing their "sunday best" when it happened.

Do you think its odd attire for that environment? As in, they were unlikely to have been planning to go into the woods?

Also, how deep into the park were they found? Is it possible they were accosted on a path/street and marched into the park? Or were they found so far in it was likely to have been their original destination point upon entering?
 
mysteriew said:
Brian, thanks for joining us. We get a lot of our info from the bits and pieces we can pick up from different media articles, and then try to work off of that. Please feel free to correct any misinformation that we may have. Anything you can tell us, that isn't posted here will be welcome info, though I know there is certain info that you need to protect. But anything you can give out would be a help.
And no one here means to imply anything about the investigation that was done. We all know that how investigations were handled, what you had the ability to access, and the problems with accessing it are all much different now than they were then. This is one area where where computer access to info would have been a big help.
As far as what remains you have kept, I don't think anyone here wants to know that info. It is reassuring to know that you had the forethought to do that though.
How throughly was the surrounding area searched, after the boys were found? Were there any unidentified females found in surrounding areas at any point? Say within a 50 mi radius?
The fur coat- synthetic?
The woman's shoe, that is an odd thing to leave behind. You can't walk very well with only one shoe.
Click to expand...
Mysteriew, that's what keeps bugging me about this is that one shoe. I think maybe her kids were killed , she covered them up and then was killed herself, but why didn't they just leave her body there as well then.......or maybe she had to get rid of the kids, it was for their own good, she thought because no life was better than the life they were living now so she killed them and then was so distressed she left her shoe behind.....but that seems almost silly, that she was calm enough to cover them up and then forgets her shoe??? Maybe the shoe was completely unrelated but just happened to be there??? Anyways, I was on newspaperarchives checking vagrancy arrests from that time period, what a daunting task, they give the names of those arrested and usually even their addresses at the time, but every day there were three or four arrests for vagrancy. Very big job.
 
Hollow, my theory is that the mother didn't do it.

The woman who was there did cover the boys, and she could have been the mom, but not necessairly. She could have been an accomplice who was carrying out the "job" for money, or favors.

I do think it was the mom, because of the type of shoe it was, but just because she was a witness doesn't mean she was involved in the killings. She may have been unable to do anything about it.

I can imagine that once it was over a woman could have been so upset that she fainted, or was crying hysterically. If someone picked her up in their arms, then her shoe could, and probably would, fall off.

Problem is... how far would someone have to carry her to get out of the park? Or was their camp within the park and they were a vagrant?
 
Stock market crash in 1930, the country was in desperate straits, no money and no way to make money as many businesses went under. But by 1947 when these boys were probably buried....the economy was picking up. Still maybe hadn't reached the bottom though. Women were pretty dependent on men to work and support the family. Most didn't work, and had no job prospects. Therefore if there was no man, there was no other means of support. So women were very dependent on the men in their lives, no matter what they did. A woman alone with that type of background would very often turn to prostitution. The war was over, men were returning, properity was picking up and men had more money to spend.
A woman involved in prostitution often has to have a male protector. Someone to help with the collection, make the deals, and help her look legit.
Certainly even in this day and age, alleged mother's have been known to cover for boyfriend's who have killed their children. It doesn't always mean they didn't care about the children to some extent. Sometimes they cover up out of fear of the guy, sometimes they fear loss of the guy, sometimes they just feel it is too late for the kids and they are probably better off anyway...rather than the life they were leading. A prostitute with a history of arrests will often be leary of reporting things to LE, out of fear of being arrested themselves.
So let's say a male did kill the boys. He could have forced the mother to help with the disposal of the bodies. She, as a last late attempt at mothering, may cover the kids. She could even have become overwhelmed at the loss. At the fact that she couldn't bury them. In that scenario, the man may have been urging her to leave the area with him, and thus the loss of the shoe might not have been noted.
 
Postwar Vancouver was a lot like the earlier years in Vancouver but with more of a "mix". Vancouver is a port city, so sailors, from around the world, have always been part of the landscape.

In addition, many War Brides came through Vancouver for the long journey to their new homes.

Many families immigrated from Europe and settled in communities in B.C., and points further east.

You also have people who had settled there from earlier generations, enticed to the area because of its rich farmland nearby, its pristine beauty, its location, the railroad work, the logging work, the hunting and fishing opportunities.

They came to Vancouver as it was a city... a staging area... for a new life, work in the logging camps, or on the ships.

A woman did not have to be a prostitute to "need a man". The old system of a man as the head of the household, and primairy wage earner, was very entrenched. Many new immigrants reenforced those beliefs.

In addition, the kind of work that Vancouver grew rich on, was considered "man's work". There were very few Lumberjackesses in those days.

I really think its wrong to believe the woman was a prostitute just because of the degree of violence that befell her children. There were no recognised safe houses for battered women in those days, and sometimes the churches that appeared to assist were of no help as they too feared a powerful authority figure.

A woman's place was still in the home. The sexual revolution had not happened. Equality wasn't even a concept!
 
Hollow said:
maybe we should all look for the unidentified female corpse with one red shoe.
Click to expand...

That is my thought. If there was a man in the mother's life with that much violence in him, chances are good that she didn't survive. However, she would not have had to have been killed then and there. Her death may have occurred later, and at a different place. However, chances are her body was most likely disposed of in the same manner.
 
This is a long shot and I'm not sure what info we have is true and false now.


Frederick Post
Wed June 22, 1955
Another lead in the identity of the red-haired woman strangled to death over five years ago in the Berkely Springs section of West Virginia turned out to be false Monday afternoon after State Police questioned a man here who thought the murdered woman may have been his estranged wife.......
............
...State police reported they were sure the woman the man is trying to find and the murdered woman were two different persons......
.............
The murdered woman was found five years ago, May 10, 1950 on a little traveled road leading to the Potomac River bridge into Hancock. She had been strangled by a rope and apparentely thrown from a moving vehicle, the fall causing a broken neck.
Investigation showed she had natural red hair, was five feet six inches, and weighed 125 lbs. She also had abdominal operation scars.
Morgan said Tuesday his wife had light hair which had been dyed red, but State police pointed out the dead woman's hair, as shown by laboratory tests, was a natural red. Morgan said his wife had never been operated on and the dead woman definately showed abdominal scars. However police reported since she had been seperated from Morgan for seven years, it was highly possible the operations could have been performed later.
Morgan reported his wife had a dental plate and State police records showed the "redhead" had natural teeth. Also Morgan reorted his wife wore a seven and one-half shoe and the murdered woman wore about a four and one-half shoe..........
Morgan reported he was married in Myersville Nov. 16, 1927 to Lottie Rahe Himes and that they had a number of children including two boys. september 1947 one of the boys saw Mrs Morgan board a bus and said she was going to Chicago to live with a half sister....
.....The half sister in Chicago reported that about five years ago, according to Morgan, that Mrs Morgan (his estranged wife) had boarded a bus for Frederick. None of the family has apparentely seen her since.....
 
re one shoe the one shoe is probably as a result of frenzy now you would have to be a nut case to do this thing anyway now put your self in the place of the killer and i believe their mother she is trying to whack 2 almost at once and i mean they were probably 5 and 7 years old not little toddlers that could not run away she is on unstable ground swinging a hatchet wearing ladies pump style shoes no damm wonder she lost a shoe i am amazed it was just one shoe . now with a head trauma such as the victims had there is always massive blood loss and of course what we call castoff blood and as such she was probably covered in blood all over her cheap fur coat. now she covered the victims for 2 reasons 1 to save her from trying to bury them and it also got rid of her blood soaked coat although i think that the prior was the most paramount reason. those kids were killed in a frenzy of activity lots of adrenilin maybe booze and maybe drugs now mix that al together with probably her background and see what you get. when trying to figure these cases out try to think like the probable killer rather than logical people cause what they do in such a case as this is generally not logical anyway i am not trying to be hard on you people cause i like your concern and ideas i am just trying to steer you in the right direction i know its hard to think like a nut case such as this person obviously was
 
the shoes were only available in north america from 1946 til 53 ish as the soles were a mottled rubber that came from the area of the pacific war ww2 i remember the type myself. the shoes were made in eastern canada in very large quanties and sold all over north america. the childrens leather avaitor helmets were very polular and sold in hudsons bay company in vancouver for a dollar twenty eight each regards to all brian
 
Brian, is there any indication as to whether the kids were killed at the site where they were found or were the bodies and murder weapon just dumped there?
How isolated was this site at that time? How near a highway, homes? How accessible was it?
 
the scene was near a islolated trail deep in the bush and although several years had gone by since the homicides the belief of the original investigators was that they were killed at the scene and i agree with that. with the suspect shoe left at the scene the difficulty in the transport of the bodies the murder weapon left at the scene the lunch box left at the scene all of these lead up to the probability that the murder happened there
 
That info leads me to believe more than ever that a male was involved. Besides the amount of violence involved, the reason I am thinking that, is the isolation-most women wouldn't seek out that type of isolation. An abandoned house or a nearby woods, maybe, but not this type of isolation alone. And, many women didn't have licenses then, and few owned vehicles- unless it was a vehicle owned by the husband.
Then, after the children were killed, this woman who was so upset that she left a shoe would have had to walk out of the woods alone, on one shoe. Then drive? Hitchhike? Without anyone seeing her or noticing how upset she was?
Another point is that taking them out that far in the woods. Yet no attempt to dig the grave or even cover them with brush. A person familiar with the woods or with hunting may have been expecting that animals would find the bodies and scatter the remains. Which would be good for the murderer.
Yet, some woman covers them with a coat, which of course wouldn't be expected to stop an animal. So not a bad thing for the murderer, yet something that someone who cared a little about the boys might do.
 
This is a news story that is happening now. It is not tied to the Babes in the Woods story - It are some similar aspects though!

http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060121/NEWS/601210431/1041


Boys, 14 and 7, killed; mother is abducted

STAFFORD — A family who took in an illegal immigrant as a boarder paid for it with the lives of their two children, whose skulls he bludgeoned with a hammer before kidnapping their mother, authorities said yesterday.
Click to expand...
 
Bumping this case up, as there have been no comments for a long time. Here is a case which seems to have a lot of forensic evidence, yet still no positive identification of these two little boys.
 
Estimates place the deaths of these two little boys around fall of 1947. Bumping case up.
 
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