YES, our story of a long unsolved March 1966 double
murder in New Westminster, British Columbia, NO DOG BARKED: Who Killed the MacLauchlans? is now ready for sale.
To recap: this book, by Ken McIntosh and me (Rod
Drown), is about the reputedly Mafia-inspired murder of thrice-married
abortionist and heroin smuggler Dr Robert Henry MacLauchlan and his wife,
Woodlands School teacher Margaret Ann “Nan” MacLauchlan.
The former “Nan” Herring, Margaret Ann MacLauchlan
was a daughter of one of New Westminster’s most prestigious pioneering
families.
Graduating in 1919 as a prize winner from
Montreal’s McGill Medical School was probably the best thing Robert Henry
MacLauchlan ever did. The greatest tragedy he ever inflicted was when, late in
the 1950’s, he seduced and misled Margaret Ann “Nan” Cunningham, a quiet and
modest teacher from New Westminster’s Woodlands School for the Handicapped. She
died alongside him when MacLauchlan was murdered in cold blood
Following his initial academic triumph at McGill,
MacLauchlan’s life had taken a much less heroic path involving drug addiction,
illegal abortions and heroin smuggling. Along the way he charmed and
philandered his way through 1920’s San Francisco, 1930’s Shanghai (the
"Paris of the Orient") and the exotic settlements of the French
overseas community. After his first wife Montrealer Mamie Hoy died, the doctor
hooked up with a prominent Calgary stage actress, Evelyn Hambly. She dumped him
when he was arrested in Calgary for performing abortions in the late 1950’s.
After serving jail time in Alberta, MacLauchlan showed
up in New Westminster, where Margaret Ann first passed him off as her “uncle”.
Meanwhile the RCMP had had him tabbed for several years as a heroin smuggler
operating between Hong Kong and Vancouver.
Thus shock rippled through placid New Westminster twice
– first, when a few days before Christmas 1965, the doc tor and “Nan” were
arrested for heroin smuggling and again when, on March 21, 1966 in the couple’s
small 5th Street bungalow, MacLauchlan was executed Mafia style – a shot in the
face just to the side of the nostril and another in the stomach. Nan, who he
had recently married, met the same fate. Newspapers called it a Mafia hit,
speculating the underworld had silenced him just in time for his upcoming
trial, a suggestion undisputed by the police. Dead men tell no tales.
Ken and I have spent six years thoroughly probing
the murders and the drug trafficking underworld of Vancouver during the 1950’s,
60’s and 70’s. We have tried to answer certain important questions: just how
high up in the international drug trade was MacLauchlan, with his award for a “million
miles of flying” from United Airlines? Was “Nan” something more than a modest
schoolteacher? (After all, her former husband was rumoured to have had her
tailed by a private investigator). Who were the likely suspects in their
murders?
Reading this book, you will get to meet 1960’s and
70’s Vancouver underworld luminaries like Joe Gentile, Fats Robertson and the
Palmer Gang. You will become somewhat familiar with local hit men like Mickey
Smith and Murray Allan Boyd. You will shake your head over basic tough guy Andy
Bruce.
You will become acquainted with MacLauchlan’s
little crew: fallen Sechelt socialite Thelma Mosier, lifetime loser Joe
Sperling and the others who existed on the fringe of the Lower Mainland
Underworld. You will hear of tough 1960’s prosecutors William Heffernan and
Oscar Orr. Police Officers like RCMP Drug Squad Sgt Steve Bunyk will cross your
path
Our book
comes in two versions – a Basic Edition and a Library Edition. The former tells
the basic story of the MacLauchlans’ demise and comes with footnotes,
photographs and charts. The Library Edition has the same information as the
Basic Edition but also has a 100 page “Succinct Directory to Certain Crimes,
Criminals & Interested Observers with an emphasis on Vancouver & the
Province of British Columbia during the decades of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s &
early 1980’s.” The Basic Edition sells for $25 per copy and the Library Edition
for $30.
If you
are interested in buying a copy of either edition, please contact the following
email address rpdrown@hotmail.com
for further information.
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