DREAMING OF DOGS AND DR MACLAUCHLAN

Few subjects interest me as much as Dr Robert Henry MacLauchlan, his life and his murder. Another topic of interest to me is that of dreams. Several mornings ago these two primary fascinations came together when I had the following dream:

I have some trouble getting on a bus because there are two guys standing in the doorway. Irritated by this obstruction, I look at them angrily and yell, “Why the Hell do you people insist on standing in the doorway?” and grab them, throwing them out of the bus. The driver is surprised and says, “Hey, you can’t do that!” Ignoring him, I go nearly to the back of the bus and sit down opposite a tall fellow with brown hair who is wearing a blue T-shirt. On his lap, he is also holding an animal carrying case in which he has a small dog. Striking up a conversation with me he says, “You know that doctor with all the dogs, the guy you’re writing about? Well, he bought a lot of land.”

Now, aside from the fact, that I am definitely not in the habit of throwing people out of buses and have never done so, the dream does refer to the research that my colleague Ken McIntosh and I have done on Dr MacLauchlan (and each of his three wives). One of the things we have learned about him is that he seemed fond of dogs. In the case of his second and third wives, Evelyn Hambly and Margaret Anne Cunningham, respectively, he always had at least one canine around.

We have noted this before but, in light of the above dream, it is worth repeating: In the several years before his death (along with Margaret Anne) on March 21, 1966, his habit of walking Pogo, a small dachshund, was often noted by his Fifth Street neighbours. Intriguing always to Ken and me, within the whole story of the MacLauchlan Murders, is Pogo’s behavior during and after the murders. The little Dachshund, regular readers of this blog will recall, must have been in the house when Dr Robert Henry and Margaret Anne MacLauchlan were shot to death. Yet no one heard the dog bark around the time of the murder.

Is it reasonable that Pogo would not have barked? A little research on the Internet among websites dedicated to dogs in general and Dachshunds in particular confirms indeed that the breed is very “yappy.” Press reports of Pogo’s behavior on March 22^nd (the day after the murder) indicate that the dog was out on the sidewalk in front of 912 Fifth Street – you guessed it -- yapping. However we have covered that conundrum before and have concluded that Pogo knew the MacLauchlans’ murderer. In turn that indicates that the MacLauchlans knew their murderer – or at least one of them did.

The dream figure’s concluding comment, “You know that doctor with all the dogs, the guy you’re writing about? Well, he bought a lot of land,” raises the question of whether MacLauchlan might have in fact been reinvesting his money from his role in the drug trade. Remember, when he and Margaret Anne were arrested and charged with trafficking in narcotics on December 22, 1965, he was found to have $200,000 worth of heroin in his possession at a time when houses in New Westminster were selling for between $8700 and $12,700.

If the doctor was investing his ill-gotten gains in land and that land was in the Vancouver area, where might it have been located? This is one of the avenues we are looking into at present. More information may be forthcoming. Visit this site often to keep updated.