Chapter 1: What happened in Stanley Park in 1953?
Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the case I'm going to tell you about today has been unsolved for more than 70 years. It's one of British Columbia's most notorious cold cases, with events and updates stretching between 1953 and 2022.
For decades, the press referred to this crime as the Babes in the Woods case, a nickname that cast a sort of haunting folkloric shadow over the incident. But by the time the investigation entered the 21st century, police were more determined than ever to get to the bottom of what for so long so many people had considered, for lack of a better expression, ancient history.
The story takes place in Stanley Park, British Columbia, Vancouver's first and largest urban park. According to the City of Vancouver's website, the park holds nearly 1,000 acres of coastal temperate rainforest, almost 70 miles of trails, and mountain-to-sea views that are spectacular. The park is surrounded by water and shares a peninsula with downtown Vancouver.
Looking at the area from above, there's a stark contrast between Stanley Park's deep green forest and the city skyline. The park is filled with over half a million trees, including centuries-old western red cedars, big leaf maples, and Douglas firs, which have stood as tall as 164 feet.
Woods is the dominant terrain throughout the park, with fewer open green spaces than what you'd see in, say, New York's Central Park, for example. Some of the best viewpoints to take in sights at the park can be found north of an area known as Beaver Lake.
And it was in this area that the discovery of two children's remains became one of the most notorious crimes in British Columbia that still needs closure. This is Park Predators. Park Predators so so On Tuesday morning, January 13th, 1953, a park worker named Albert Tong was clearing brush to plant trees north of Beaver Lake in Stanley Park when he heard something crack beneath his foot.
When he lifted his shoe, he noticed he'd stepped onto a pile of leaves that were somewhat deep. It seems that because of the way the pile crunched when he stepped on it, Albert suspected that something might be buried beneath it, and he even turned to his coworkers and told them that. But then, for some reason, he just went back to work and put it out of his mind.
Two days later, though, he found himself thinking about it again and couldn't shake a nagging suspicion that something was hidden beneath the surface of the area he'd been working in. So in the morning on Thursday the 15th, he went back.
And for reference, the location where he'd been working wasn't very far off the beaten path, only about 50 yards south of a trail in the park known as Reservoir Trail, which is about 150 yards from a road called Stanley Park Drive. When Albert arrived, he raked at the leaves and quickly unearthed a dark fur coat that had badly deteriorated.
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Chapter 2: How did the discovery of the remains unfold?
Investigators explored other avenues of investigation too. For example, I found one instance where detectives looked into the disappearance of a father and his sons from Teaneck, New Jersey, that they suspected could possibly be connected.
Detective McKay told Vancouver News-Herald reporter Jim Smith that at some point in 1953, his department had received a tip about a guy named George Peffel, who'd vanished while reportedly taking a trip to Canada with his two young sons in July 1949. George had gotten permission from his ex-wife to take his kids there, but the trio had never been seen again.
George then became a fugitive wanted for parental kidnapping. McKay told Smith that authorities became more aware about the 1949 case while reading a June 1951 issue of an American magazine called Coronet. And it seems that's when McKay decided to look into whether there could be a possible connection.
According to Jim Smith's piece, after receiving a tip about a possible sighting of George in Vancouver, McKay showed up at a hotel room where the father was suspected of staying. However, the man McKay and his team found inside that room turned out not to be George.
In the end, authorities ultimately ruled out George's boys as the Stanley Park victims, mostly because George's two boys were three and five years old when they vanished in 1949. And like I mentioned earlier in the episode, the estimated ages of the Stanley Park skeletons were believed to be slightly older than that.
And by 1960, nearly three years into the investigation, the police had hit a wall. In that time, they'd looked into a total of 72 pairs of missing children using information from immigration officials and trans-oceanic travel logs, as well as tips from divorce court judges. But nothing had panned out.
Detective McKay himself had dedicated a lot of time and energy to the case, but unfortunately, he'd been required to move on to new cases during that time. By April 1960, McKay straight up told journalist Bob Porter that he didn't have much hope that they'd ever identify the two children or their killer. After that, 43 long years would pass before a cold case detective revisited the case.
And his approach was simple. Apply new science to old evidence. Like I mentioned earlier, when Albert Tong first found the children's remains, they were sent to Vancouver City Morgue for testing. For at least seven years after they were found, the bones were kept there. But by 1991, the morgue had moved locations and was actually operating out of a hospital.
Somehow, when the transition occurred, the victims' bones stayed behind with the building, and that structure eventually became home to the Vancouver Police Museum and Archives. Coverage by cold case files and the province explained that by 1991, some of the bones and physical evidence were actually on display at the museum in an exhibit.
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Chapter 3: What were the initial findings about the skeletons?
It appears that just getting the identifications was super important to the boys' relatives. Cindy Brady's daughter, Allie, told Eve Lazarus that getting some kind of answer to the huge question mark that had always lingered around David and Derek's fate was nice. She said, "...even though it came to a devastating resolution, at least we know what happened."
I wish we could learn more about who David and Derek were before their short lives were taken. But there just isn't much there, at least not much that is known definitively. As a mom myself to a spirited, curious, carefree little boy who was about the same age Derek and David would have been when they were killed, I can imagine them being a lot like him.
In the photos that are available of them, they're doing handstands, going on outings, and making cute faces at the camera operator. They probably found all sorts of ways to be both loving and mischievous at the same time. Above all, they were innocent and deserved so much more than what happened to them.
It may seem like a long shot, but if this case has proven anything wrong, it's that time, advances in science, and human curiosity can move an investigation forward that previously seemed destined to languish. If you know anything about the unsolved murders of David and Derek Dalton, please contact the Vancouver Police Department at 604-717-3321.
You can also leave a tip anonymously at the Vancouver Crimestoppers tip line, 1-800-222-8477. Park Predators is an audio Chuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, at parkpredators. I think Chuck would approve. Bark! Hey, park enthusiasts, it's Delia.
And if you enjoy unraveling the haunting tales that we explore here on Park Predators, there's another podcast that dives deep into all things mysterious and bizarre that I think you'll enjoy. It's called So Supernatural.
Hosted by my friends Rasha and Yvette, So Supernatural explores some of the most puzzling and eerie cases, ones that often leave investigators and witnesses wondering if the truth lies beyond the realm of the explainable. From mysterious disappearances to legends and lore steeped in history, Rasha and Yvette break down every possibility, no matter how strange it gets.
So after you're all caught up on episodes here, be sure to listen to So Supernatural wherever you listen to podcasts.
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