Susan McNicoll - British Columbia Murders. Notorious Cases and Unsolved Mysteries

Susan McNicoll lives in Vancouver, BC, where she divides her time between writing and running her own bookkeeping and taxes business. Originally from Ontario, she is now a diehard British Columbian. Susans lifelong love of words and history has been the main focus of her writing career, which began with five years as a reporter for the Ottawa Journal in the 1970s. She spent 11 years writing a book on post-war Canadian theatre history, which will be published soon. More recently, Susan finished a lengthy book commissioned by a family who wanted their ancestral and current history written in biographical form. Susan is currently working on a series of fairy tales based on the four seasons of healing.

I want to thank all the writers who came before me, leaving a trail of history to follow in news clippings, magazine articles and books. I am grateful to all of you.

Thanks so much to my friend Seema Shah, who patiently listened to my endless tales of murder and intrigue. She read each chapter and helped me iron out any kinks, making the process of writing this book so much easier.

I owe a debt of gratitude to a number of departments in the Vancouver Public LibrarySocial Sciences, Special Collections and especially the newspaper division. They all gave me much-needed assistance. Thanks also to the staffs of the Vancouver Public Archives and the National Public Archives in Ottawa.

To Sergeant Trent Rolph of the RCMP, who gave me invaluable insights into his seven years of work with British Columbias Unsolved Homicide Unit, thank you.

I also wish to thank my editor, Georgina Montgomery, for all her efforts to make this a better book than it would have been without her.

And, finally, many thanks to all the cats in my life who have supported both myself and my writingyou know who you are.

Greenwood, F. Murray and Beverley Boissery. Uncertain Justice: Canadian Women and Capital Punishment, 17541953 . Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2000.

OKeefe, Betty and Ian Macdonald. Canadian Holy War: A Story of Clans, Tongs, Murder, and Bigotry . Surrey: Heritage House, 2000.

Robin, Martin. The Saga of Red Ryan and Other Tales of Violence from Canadas Past . Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1982.

Starkins, Edward. Who Killed Janet Smith? Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1984.

Taylor, Martin R. The Investigation of the Murder of Molly Justice . Victoria: Ministry of Attorney General, 1996.

Copyright 2010 Susan McNicoll

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, audio recording or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher or a photocopying licence from Access Copyright, Toronto, Canada.

Published by Heritage House Publishing Co. Ltd. in 2010 in paperback with
ISBN 978-1-926613-30-7.

This electronic edition was released in 2011.

e-pub ISBN: 978-1-926936-14-7

e-PDF ISBN: 978-1-926936-36-9

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

Edited by Lesley Reynolds

Cover image by jeancliclac/iStockphoto

Heritage House acknowledges the financial support for its publishing program from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF), Canada Council for the Arts and the province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

www.heritagehouse.ca

To Seema Shah, the most awesome friend and average reader anyone could ask for.

Wong Foon Sing had been kidnapped and beaten for 14 days by some of the people paid to uphold the law, not break it. After putting a chain around his body and tying it to his feet, they slapped him, punched him and rammed his head into the wall. Blood flowed from his nose and ear. His captives washed the blood off and the next day started the assault again.

The constant buzz inside his head would not go away. They thought hed been lying and wanted the truth. He told them the same facts he had been stating all along about the murder of nursemaid Janet Smith. The truth made them angry. Now, it appeared, his suffering was going to come to a tragic end.

The men showed him a picture of his wife and told Wong he would never see her again. He was unchained and taken upstairs to an unfinished room with exposed wooden beams. There was a rough scaffold with a chair on it, and Wong saw a rope hanging over one of the beams. It had a noose at one end.

They put me on chair and fix rope on my head, Wong later testified. Man says, You tell everything or we kill you. You tell or you be dead. I say I no can tell anymore. I no know nothing more about poor nursie. Man say again they hang me.

One of his captors pulled the chair out from under him. Wong Foon Sing lost consciousness.

CHAPTER

Local radio personality Rene Castellani undoubtedly thought he was going to get away with it. After all, he had been slowly and methodically poisoning his wife, Esther, for months leading up to that summer of 1965 and no one suspected a thing. Not her family or her doctors, not his co-workersnot even the station receptionist he was planning to marry.

Although Rene had been unhappy in his marriage for a couple of years, the seeds for his scheme were not planted until he began working as a promotions man for Vancouver radio station CKNW in late 1963. His first publicity stunt was a precursor of things to come. He was hired by the station to play the so-called Maharaja of Alleebara and pretend he was in British Columbia to announce his plans to buy the province. With his exotic outfits and entourage of dancing girls and bodyguards, the phony maharaja was wined and dined by unsuspecting hosts at the Astor Hotel and seen picking up tabs for patrons in bars.

Everyone in Vancouver began talking about the maharaja. Huge signs on the sides of buses proclaimed his desire to buy British Columbiaa prospect that even prompted a few citizens to protest with pickets reading Keep BC British. It was all a scam, of course. It did, however, show Renes abilities to pull the wool over peoples eyesabilities that would ultimately extend way beyond his job and into his private life. CKNW had found a star in this con artist. He would end up bringing them more publicity than they had ever dreamed of, but not the kind they wanted.

Esther Castellani began to have stomach problems towards the end of November 1964. She tried to live with the condition and even continued working at a childrens clothing store. About the same time, she told a friend of hers that all was not well in her 19-year marriage. She had found a letter in her husbands wallet from someone named Lolly and suspected he was in a relationship with the woman. When she confronted Rene with her suspicions, he denied anything was going on.

Esthers stomach problems quickly began worsening, and she started having abdominal cramping as well. On January 5, 1965, she made the first of nine visits she would end up having with the Castellani family physician, Dr. John Secter.

She had abdominal pains and nausea, Dr. Secter would later testify. I examined her and found her to be otherwise normal physically. I told her to watch her diet and gave her medication. Dr. Secter stated he treated her for gastritis and a possible gall bladder condition. Rene Castellani phoned him three times in the middle of the night and once in the afternoon to make a house call.