The Hogue Family Massacre

In 1965, a police officer, his wife, and their six children are found dead inside their suburban British Columbia home. Authorities quickly declare it a murder-suicide and name Leonard Hogue as the killer. But as secrets tied to corrupt cops, stolen money, and a possible cover-up begin to surface, one terrifying question remains:
Was Leonard Hogue a family annihilator… or a scapegoat for something much bigger?

FamilySearch Record – Leonard Hogue Family Records

ProQuest Archive – April 22, 1965 (Page 1)

ProQuest Archive – June 4, 1965 (Page 38)

ProQuest Archive – April 24, 1965 (Page 2)

ProQuest Archive – April 23, 1965 (Page 1)

ProQuest Archive – April 28, 1965 (Page 17)

ProQuest Archive – April 22, 1965 (Page 2)

ProQuest Archive – April 22, 1965 (Page 3)

ProQuest Archive – February 6, 1999 (Page 137)

ProQuest Archive – February 6, 1999 (Page 138)

ProQuest Archive – April 27, 1965 (Page 2)

ProQuest Archive – April 24, 1965 (Page 1)

Housecreep PDF Archive

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to Valley of Secrets. I'm Nikki Ruth. If you're new here, welcome. I'm really glad you found your way here. And I hope you'll stick around for more episodes. And to everyone who keeps coming back week after week, thank you. You're truly what keeps this podcast going. Today's case is an absolute doozy, you guys. It takes us back to the 1960s, a completely different era. And at first glance, it almost sounds like an old school cops and robbers story. Except in this case, the robbers were the cops. What started as a series of daring robberies would eventually spiral into one of Canada's most disturbing family massacres, a case filled with missing money, suspicious deaths, and questions that still haven't been fully answered decades later. This is the story of the Hulk family. Inside a quiet family home, Easter basket still sat untouched. A cake rested on the kitchen counter, and six children had gone to bed, believing the next morning would just be another day. Outside, the family dog scratched desperately at the back door, unable to get back inside. At first, nobody thought much of it. But when a Vancouver police officer failed to report for duty for two straight days, fellow officers drove to the home to check on him. The curtains were closed, the newspaper sat untouched on the front porch, and the dog was still waiting outside. Then one of the officers knelt down beside a basement window and looked inside. And what he saw would become one of the most disturbing crime scenes in Canadian history. And to this day, people still argue about one terrifying question. Or was he the final victim? Leonard Hogue was born on April 7, 1931, in St. Boniface, just outside Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Delia and Joseph, who went by Lewis Hogue. He was the youngest of five siblings. Ernest, Paul, Lawrence, Alan, and Sister Doreen came before him. Leonard grew up in a hard-working blue-collar family during the years surrounding World War II. They weren't considered poor, but like many Canadian families at the time, money was tight and life revolved around making do with what you had. Nothing came easy, and that kind of upbringing stayed with Hogue for the rest of his life. As a young man, he met Vera Irene Hose. Vera, who went by Irene, was born on July 13, 1931, in Manitoba to George and Isabella Hose. She had a brother, Cliff, and two sisters, Willine and Georgina. Leonard and Irene married on September 3, 1949, and quickly started building a family of their own. On March 22, 1951, they welcomed their first child, Larry Paulhogue, named after Leonard's brother. Then two years later, on October 29, 1953, Linda Noreen, who went by Noreen, came into the family. By 1953, Leonard wanted more than the life he felt Winnipeg could offer him. Post-war Canada was changing fast. Across the country, the economy was booming. New industries were growing, suburbs were expanding, and thousands of families were chasing the promise of a better future. People were buying homes, cars, appliances, things that had once felt completely out of reach during the Depression and war years. Leonard worked construction and machinist work in Winnipeg, but he struggled to get ahead. The city was still recovering from the devastating Red River flood of 1950, and the work was physically exhausting, especially during Manitoba's brutal winters. Even when money came in, it seemed to disappear just as quickly. Friends later described Leonard as someone who dreamed big, bigger than the life he was living. And more than anything, he was drawn to Vancouver. Like so many families in the 1950s, the West Coast represented opportunity. Vancouver promised milder weather, expanding neighborhoods, steady work, and the chance to finally own something better. Leonard would often talk about wanting a castle someday. Not literally, but the kind of comfortable family life he felt had always been just out of reach. So in 1954, Leonard and Irene packed up their young family and headed west, believing British Columbia might finally give them the future they'd been chasing. And honestly, in the beginning, Leonard looked like the definition of determination. Shortly after arriving in Vancouver, Leonard went looking for work wearing his wedding suit, because it was the only decent suit he owned. He found a construction site that was hiring, but the foreman basically told him, if you go home and change, someone else will take the job. So Leonard took off the jacket, hung it on a nail, rolled up his sleeve, and started working construction in his dress clothes. And whether you believe he later became a monster or not, everybody seemed to agree on one thing. Leonard was not lazy. When the construction jobs dried up, he worked as a bread and milk delivery driver. But eventually, he decided those jobs weren't enough. He wanted something more stable for his growing family, as Irene was now pregnant with her third child, Raymond. So he joined the Vancouver Police Department. And this part is important later. Because Leonard didn't just graduate from police training in 1956. He graduated as a pistol shot champion. Meaning he was an extremely skilled shooter. And what nobody knew at the time was that police academy would also introduce him to the men who would completely alter the course of his life. One of those men was David Harrison. Harrison honestly sounds like someone walking with unresolved trauma and a death wish. When he was 13 years old, he found his father dead, hanging in the family garage. Then at 16, he crashed a car into a bridge in Montana while his mother was in the vehicle. She died days later. And after that, according to later accounts, Harrison spiraled hard. He eventually landed in Vancouver with a forged high school diploma and somehow got accepted into the police academy anyway, which is appalling. Another recruit was John McCluskey. And then there was Joe Percival, who would become one of the most important figures in this entire case. Percival had actually trained one class ahead of Leonard after working as a guard at Ocala prison in Burnaby. He had immigrated from Scotland and had his reputation for being quiet, intelligent, and incredibly calm under pressure. Years later, Harrison would describe Percival as the coldest man he'd ever met, which is unsettling considering the company Harrison kept. Now outwardly, Leonard's police career looked fine. His evaluations were reportedly satisfactory. He even received praise at one point for helping arrest a murder suspect on a bus while working patrol. But eventually, he was reassigned to work at the city jail. And according to later criticism of the Vancouver Police Department, there was a kind of unspoken pattern happening back then. If officers were suspected of wrongdoing, they often got moved into the jail system where supervisors could quietly keep an eye on them. And apparently, there were already concerns about Leonard. Meanwhile, his home life kept expanding. By the end of 1961, Leonard and Irene had added another three children to their brood. Clifford, named after Irene's brother, Darlene, and Richard. And even though being a police officer paid relatively well at the time, it still wasn't enough to support the dream Leonard had in his head and his six children. Friends later described the family's earlier home as tiny and cramped, kids sharing rooms, bills piling up. And somewhere in all of that, things allegedly started crossing the line. According to taped undercover conversations later uncovered by RCMP investigators, the beginning of the criminal activity was almost absurdly small. One night, while on patrol, Leonard and Percival discovered a Dairy Queen left unlocked. Inside, they found cash hidden in the freezer, part of a company practice meant to protect employees from carrying money after dark. Instead of reporting it, they took it. And apparently, once they realized multiple Dairy Queen locations stored cash that way, they started hitting up more of them. Police at the time became so frustrated trying to catch what would become known as the quote-unquote ice cream bandits that they eventually advised Dairy Queen to stop storing money in freezers altogether. And according to Harrison, Leonard himself designed the metal tool used to pry open the doors. But eventually, petty theft just wasn't enough anymore. Because once you get away with something once, the next risk becomes easier and then easier again. Around the same time, wealthy homes around Vancouver started getting burglarized, especially homes belonging to people who had notified police they were leaving town on vacation. Then in 1961, things escalated again. Fourteen firearms were stolen from Hunter's sporting goods on Kingsway. And according to Harrison, those guns later became the weapons used in multiple robberies tied to the group. Then came the conversation that changed everything. According to Harrison, one rainy night in 1962, Leonard and Percival came over to his apartment while he was cooking a cheap steak dinner. Harrison supposedly told them that he was tired of risking prison for tiny scores like Dairy Queen Cash. If they were going to risk everything, it needed to be worth it. Then he shaped his hands like a gun and said, put them up. And just like that, the robbery crew, later nicknamed, quote-unquote, the Terrible Three, was born. Now they weren't stealing freezer money anymore. They were planning bank robberies. And because they were police officers, they knew exactly how police investigations worked. Harrison allegedly stole getaway cars. Leonard reportedly checked whether these stolen vehicles had appeared on police hot sheets through his access at the jail. They borrowed police radios to create distractions. They planned like cops because they were cops. And their first major robbery happened Christmas Eve 1962 at the Bank of Commerce in Burnaby. And it worked almost perfectly. Bank had just received holiday cash deposits from Simpson Sears across the street after one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Employees were literally counting money when mass robbers wearing trench coats stormed in. The robbery literally took less than two minutes, and the gang walked away with over$100,000, which back then was life-changing money. Suddenly, Leonard could finally afford the life he'd always wanted. He bought a two-story white house with green shutters in the affluent Harbor Chines Coquitlam neighborhood for$25,000. The family also owned two cars, a Volkswagen bug, and a 1958 Ford Station Wagon, along with a camping trailer to go with the lot that they had at Hatsuck Lake in Mission. They also had 10 acres of a property in Coquitlam and another house in New Westminster, their old house that they lived in prior. Friends noticed the upgrade obviously. A police officer's salary of around$500 per month didn't exactly explain it. But nobody pushed too hard, and for a while life continued, at least on the surface. But according to later accounts, the robberies didn't stop. In fact, they got bigger and riskier. One robbery went badly when Leonard was reportedly tackled by a bystander and dropped a bag containing$88,000. Another bank job brought in only a fraction of what they expected after the getaway driver panicked too early. Meanwhile, rumors were starting to spread inside Vancouver policing circles the cops themselves might be involved in these robberies. So the gang decided on one final massive score. One that would supposedly let them disappear from the criminal life forever. And honestly, this next part sounds like a movie. Through a contract connected to the Canadian Pacific Railway Yards, the group allegedly learned about shipments of old currency being transported to Ottawa for destruction. On February 11, 1965, the robbery crew carried out a daylight heist, disguised as railway employees and officials. They were a CPR policeman, a train engineer, a mail carrier, and a railway detective. In only a few minutes, they stole approximately$1.2 million, which today would be worth millions and millions more. It should have been the perfect crime. Except there was one catastrophic problem. The money had been mutilated before shipment. Every bill had holes drilled in it. The gang didn't know it until the newspapers hit the next morning. So instead of spending clean cash, they started repairing bills with tape and patches. And for a little while, somehow, it worked. Until April 17th, 1965, Joel Percival pays for a beer in Edmonton, Alberta using patched$20 bills. A bartender notices something weird about the money when the light reflects off the tape. Within half an hour, Percival is arrested. And suddenly everything starts collapsing. The next morning, Easter Sunday, Leonard is working at the city jail when he learns Percival has been caught. And according to later reports, investigators quickly realize the names connecting these men together are starting to surface. Percival, McCluskey and Leonard Hogue. The walls are closing in. That evening, the Hogue family hosts Easter dinner. There are phone calls during the night. Guests later remember nothing obviously alarming. But the next morning, April 19th, 1965, everything changes. And that's when the timeline starts getting deeply disturbing. The next morning, just after 6 a.m., Leonard is driving westbound on what was then called the Portman Freeway. He's alone in his Volkswagen bug. And suddenly, for reasons nobody can fully explain, the car jumps the curb, smashes into the railing of an overpass, flips on its side, and skids for almost 45 meters before another vehicle crashes into it. And here's the thing that immediately stood out to investigators. The officers who arrived at the scene, RCMP Constable Gary Day, noticed something strange right away. There weren't obvious skid marks where he expected them to be, and Leonard himself looked off, not drunk, not panicked, but quiet, almost emotionally flat. Day later said Hope looked gray, like all the color had drained out of him. At the hospital, doctors stitched a cut above his eye, six stitches in total, and medically he seemed fine. There were no concussion symptoms, no vomiting. He had a normal pulse and blood pressure. But the doctor who examined him later described Leonard as unusually calm, almost too calm for someone who just nearly died in a violent rollover crash. And then things started to get even stranger. The tow truck driver, Al Kerr, later called Leonard, asking what he wanted done with a wrecked Volkswagen. And Leonard basically tells him, Do whatever you want with it. I don't care. Which, I mean, that's weird, right? Most people will be furious, upset, stressed about insurance. Now, on a personal note, I was in a car accident last week, and yes, there was shock, which could come across as flat, but there was also a lot of emotion and stress that came with it for me. So for those wanting to know, I am overall okay, other than the typical whiplash symptoms. But Leonard seemed detached from the entire thing, and then his explanation changes. At one point, he says he thinks another car hit him. Later, he tells police he lost control after breaking at high speed. And nothing quite lines up cleanly. So later that day, Constable Gary Day goes to Leonard's house to ask more questions about the accident. Leonard barely responds during the conversation. Mostly just yes, yes, yes. Short answers, soft voiced and distant. Like mentally, he's somewhere else entirely. At one point, Day says it almost seemed like Hogg would suddenly snap back into the conversation, as though he hadn't heard what was being said. The interview lasted maybe ten minutes, and when Day leaves, he walks away believing the crash may not have been an accident at all. He thinks it might have been a failed suicide attempt. Now remember, this is only one day after Percival's arrest. The robbery crew is likely panicking, and nobody knows yet what conversations are happening behind closed doors. But what investigators later piece together about Leonard's movements that day becomes incredibly important because after leaving the hospital and calling in sick to work, there's a huge gap in the timeline. Hours where nobody really knows exactly what Leonard Hogue was doing. And during that window, one thing we do know is that Leonard rents a blue 1965 Meteor Montcalm wagon from Matilda New Drive at 5 30 PM that evening. That car will later become one of the strangest details in the entire case. Because after the murders, investigators discover the vehicle abandoned near a Chevron station at Como Lake Road in Coquitlam, roughly half a mile from the Hogue family home. Inside the car, they reportedly find a crowbar under the front seat, clay residue in the rear compartment, and signs that something heavy may have been transported. But nobody can fully explain where Leonard drove during those missing hours, or why. The odometer showed approximately 113 miles driven in such a short amount of time. Then there's the gun. Because sometime around 6 PM that evening, Leonard visits a fellow CPR police officer, Don McLeod, which isn't his real name. I'm actually not sure why his name wasn't released publicly. But for this episode we'll call him Don McLeod. Leonard asked to borrow his 357 Magnum revolver to test it out at a shooting range. McLeod gave it to him along with 56 rounds of ammunition, which already sounds odd considering everything unfolding around him. McLeod had just been fired from the job for getting into an altercation with his sergeant. But later, investigators uncover claims that McLeod may have also had connections to the robbery crew itself, meaning the gun used in the murders may have come directly from someone tied to the same criminal network. And if that's true, then this starts looking less like a simple murder suicide and more like something darker happening behind the scenes. That night, next door, a man named Reginald Longland is staying with family nearby. Sometime after midnight, he wakes up to strange noises. At first, he thinks it's the heating ducts. Then he hears sounds that remind him of a car backfiring. But because of the storm outside, he doesn't think much of it. The next day, Tuesday, Leonard Hoge doesn't report to work. At first, supervisors think maybe he's still recovering from the crash. Inspector Alfred Oliver and Staff Sergeant Bert Mudge eventually drive out to the house to check on him, and the scene immediately feels wrong. Curtains were closed, the basement light was left on. Tuesday's newspaper was still sitting untouched outside. Outside the house, the family's black lab Cindy is locked in the backyard, just a puppy. Scratching at the door, so much so that the paint was coming off. A neighbor had tried feeding her, but she refused to eat. The officers knock repeatedly, no answer. They check every door, locked, and eventually they leave. Which becomes one of those heartbreaking moments you know haunted them forever. Because the following day, Wednesday, Leonard still hadn't shown up for work, and this time he had never called in sick. So Oliver and Mutch return to the house again, and when they arrive, Cindy is still sitting there on the front porch, still waiting and still locked out. At this point, Oliver starts worrying maybe Leonard is unconscious inside. So he kneels down and peers through a basement window, and what he sees changes everything. A young girl lying motionless on a Chesterfield, a gunshot wound visible in her forehead. The RCP are called immediately. Officers force their way into the home, and inside, they walk into a nightmare. Inside the house, it's like time just stopped. And honestly, that might be one of the most haunting parts of this entire case. Because everywhere investigators look, there are signs of a family that had been living a completely normal life only hours earlier. There's a large Easter cake sitting untouched in the kitchen, six Easter baskets, one for each child, three bicycles leaning against the wall in the carport, bundles of newspapers tied neatly for a Boy Scout fundraiser. It didn't look like a scene of chaos. It looks like a family in the middle of life. And then police start finding bodies, eight of them, spread throughout all three floors of the home, every single victim shot in the head. Now the man who ends up processing much of the scene is RCMP Sergeant Edward Kurtz from the identification section in New Westminster. And this next detail honestly makes the whole thing even more devastating. Kurtz's own son, Ken, was best friends with the Hog's oldest child, Larry. They were classmates, Boy Scouts together. Ken had actually been invited over for a sleepover to try out the family's new pool table. Another child named Shanda Stem, Noreen's best friend, had also been invited over that morning. Both children showed up to the house before the bodies were discovered. No one answered the door. I genuinine how horrifying it must have been for everyone connected to this scene. Kurt started documenting the victims, one by one. Upstairs. 14-year-old Larry Hogue is found lying face down on the top bunk bed, still in his pajamas. He had been shot twice in the back of the head. And investigators later recover one bullet from Larry's head and another from the wall nearby. Three-year-old Richard is found dead in his small bed upstairs, shot in the back of the head. And based on the locations of the other children throughout the home, investigators begin believing something terrifying. That at least some of the kids had woken up after the first shots were fired, and they tried to run and hide. In the basement, little Darlene, who is only days away from turning five, is found in the corner of the room. The bullet that killed her reportedly traveled into a cupboard where toys were stored and ended up inside a toy stove. Twelve-year-old Noreen is found on the Chesterfield in the basement, and this becomes important later. Because based on the angle of the bullet trajectory through the wall and electrical wiring, investigators determine the shot appeared to come from a left-handed shooter. That tiny detail would eventually become one of the biggest controversies in this entire case. Eight-year-old Raymond is found on the bathroom floor. The bullet entered through the back of his head, exited through the front, struck the toilet seat hard enough to damage it and ricocheted. Nearby, six-year-old Clifford is discovered hiding inside a closet near the laundry room. This part is horrifying. Investigators believe he had actually hidden because he was trying to escape whoever was moving through the house. But the killer found him and shot him at point blank range. Evidence later suggested the gun was fired from less than a half an inch away. And investigators also discovered something else chilling. The revolver still contained six live rounds. Meaning at some point during the killings, the shooter actually stopped and reloaded, then continued, annihilating this family. When investigators move upstairs to the master bedroom, they find Irene Hoag lying face down on the bed. She had been shot once in the back of the head, but there were reportedly no signs of a struggle, no defensive wounds, nothing to suggest that she fought back. Investigators believed that she was sleeping when she was shot. And then only a few feet away on the floor, they find Leonard Hogue himself. He had been shot once in the head. The bullet had entered through his left temple and exited through his right side, and the revolver was found beside him. So almost immediately, investigators begin forming the narrative that would define this case for decades. Leonard Hoag murdered his wife and six children, then killed himself. Case closed. But here's where things start to get really uncomfortable. Because almost immediately people close to Leonard Hogue begin quietly saying, something doesn't feel right. And honestly, the deeper you go into this case, the stranger it gets. Leonard and Irene were placed in grey coffins, and all six kids were in white. About 175 people came to mourn the loss, including Leonard's older brother Lawrence, who was granted compassionate leave from the Federal Corrections Camp in Agassiz, where he was serving a four-year sentence for theft. The family doctor, Dr. Leonard Zimmich, was the one to identify all eight bodies. He told investigators that he had been their doctor for nine years and had delivered the younger babies. Irene had no pregnancy complications, although the last babe was born via C-section.

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Dr.

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Zimich also told police that he had recently told Irene that he suspected she may have had uterine cancer, which he says she took in stride. As for Leonard, Dr. Zimmich reported that there were no signs of mental illness or brain injury, and that he was a good father. Toxicology results came back from Leonard, altering that there were no signs of alcohol or barbiturates in his system. And this is where the case stops feeling like a tragic murder suicide and starts feeling like something way darker. Because Vancouver police became convinced that Len Hogue had moved the stolen CPR money the night before the murders. The problem was nobody knew where. Now remember, Len had rented that station wagon the evening before his family was killed, and investigators later discovered the vehicle had been driven exactly 113 miles. At first, police thought maybe he'd hidden the money at a property he owned near Hatic Lake in the Fraser Valley. It would have made sense. It's a remote, quiet, easy place to bury something. But initially, investigators ruled it out because they didn't think the mileage lined up. Except later, when researchers retraced Leonard's known movements that night, from the rental agency to Don McLeod's house, to the Hogue home, to the Biltmore hotel where Hogue and McLeod reportedly met again later, then out to Hatsock Lake, and finally to the Chevron station where the rental car was abandoned. The mileage matched almost perfectly. Which honestly, that's one of those details that makes you stop and go, wait a second. Because if Leonard really did move the money that night, then what happened afterwards becomes even more complicated. Police search for that stolen CPR money for weeks. Public appeals went out and nothing turned up. Then two months later, as this part sounds unreal, Joe Percival, who fled to Scotland after being released on bail, contacts police and tells him where the money is hidden. It's in a garage in Victoria. But here's the thing that garage had only been rented after the murders. So if Len Hoke had possession of the money on the night his family died, someone else had to move it afterward. And not just anyone. Someone Percival trusted enough to know where it ended up. Which raises a massive question. If other members of the robbery crew were involved with the money after the murders, were they also involved before the murders? Because suddenly the theory changes completely. Maybe this wasn't about panic. Maybe this was about silence, silencing Leonard Hogue. And there's speculation that Leonard may have wanted out that after Percival's arrest, maybe he was ready to cooperate with police and maybe even turn over the money. And if that happened, he became a liability, not just to criminals, but allegedly to other police officers involved in the armed robberies. And honestly, when you look at that timeline through that lens, some details become really difficult to ignore. Especially this next one, the handedness. Because according to investigators at the scene, trajectory evidence suggested several of the shots had been fired by a left-handed person. But everyone who knew Len Hogue said the same thing. Len was right-handed. And this wasn't just people casually remembering wrong decades later. Family members had actual home movies, footage showing him throwing snowballs with his right hand, doing things that naturally, as a right-handed person, would do. Now, obviously, being right-handed doesn't mean you can't fire a weapon with your left hand. Although, why would you do that? But when you combine that with everything else, the missing fingerprints on the gun, the lack of blood splatter evidence reportedly found on Lettern's hands, the possibility his skull fractures were inconsistent with the other victims, the mysterious movements that night, the missing money, the abandoned station wagon, the crowbar found inside, the possible connections between members of the robbery crew. It starts to feel like there are way more questions than answers. Years later, a nurse named Fran Hobson, who worked at the Vancouver City Jail with Leonard, talked about the atmosphere after the murders. She said it wasn't just grief, it was silence, like people were afraid to say certain things out loud. And one person in particular seemingly deemed shaken was Staff Sergeant Bert Mutch, the same Bert Much who helped discover the bodies. According to Hobson, she eventually told him he couldn't have done it. He couldn't have killed those children. And Much reportedly answered quietly, it wasn't him, it was the wrong hand. Then he walked away. And he never talked about it again. And honestly, that line sticks with people because officially the case was closed as a murder suicide. The coroner's jury had deemed so. But unofficially, for decades people have wondered if Len Hoag was actually the last victim in the house instead of the killer. In the days after the murders, newspapers were flooded with comments from neighbors, friends, and relatives describing the Hogue family as loving, kind, and deeply devoted to one another. And I know that some people might say that you truly never know what happens behind closed doors. And that's fair. But according to the people closest to them, the happiness inside the Hulk home seemed genuine. Irene wrote letters to friends and family talking about how content she was with their life together. In personal writings and diary entries, she reportedly spoke about how hard Leonard worked to provide for the family and how well things seemed to be going for them at that time. According to Irene's parents, Leonard absolutely adored her. They said the two seemed deeply devoted to one another and genuinely happy together. Leonard in particular was remembered as incredibly attentive and old fashioned in a way people found charming. He would help Irene with her coat, hold doors open for her, and even though he didn't smoke himself, he always carried a lighter so he could light her cigarettes for her, which at the time was considered a romantic gesture. There was also a small ritual in their marriage that family members never forgot. Leonard and Irene refused to say goodbye to each other. Whether it was on the phone or before leaving the house, they avoided the word completely. Instead, every morning before work, Leonard would kiss Irene and say, I love you, darling, before heading out the door. To the people around them, Leonard seemed like the ideal husband and father. His friends described him as a quiet man who didn't drink, smoke, or curse. He appeared to be happy and never lost his temper. And honestly, what stands out in almost every account is how much his children adored him. Leonard was deeply involved in their lives and spent as much time with them as he could. He drove the boys to Boy Scouts every week and even joined camping trips as a chaperone. When the scouts held newspaper drives, he helped bundle stacks of paper and tie them up for delivery. He also stayed involved in his daughter's activities. He reportedly umpired Noreen's softball games, and every Sunday, Leonard took his family to church. One neighbor later recalled seeing him constantly outside with his kids, playing baseball during the summer months, and taking the family into the nearby mountains during winter for tobogganing trips. Family members described her as warm, attentive, and creative. She loved making holidays feel special for the kids, whether that meant homemade Halloween costumes, carefully chosen Christmas outfits, or baking cakes for birthdays and celebrations. According to her mother, no milestone was ever overlooked in that house. Birthdays were celebrated properly, and Irene made sure that each child felt important. Even while raising six children, she stayed active at the older kids' school and participated in the PTA. From every angle, the Hulks looked like a busy but loving family who had built the life they once dreamed about when they first arrived in BC. Nothing about the family, at least on the surface, matched the war that they would become later known for. And maybe the hardest part of all this is that we may never know for sure if Leonard murdered his entire family. Because the people connected to the robbery crews are gone now, or silent. David Harrison eventually went to prison for the robberies and later died in 1995. Joe Percival was convicted for possession of stolen money after fleeing to Scotland, and reports say he later returned to Canada. John McCluskey was never charged in connection with the robberies. And Don McLeod, the man who loaned Leonard the murder weapon, disappeared quietly from the picture after losing his job. Meanwhile, eight graves remained behind in Coquitlam. A mother, six children, and one man history decided was either a monster or a scapegoat. And honestly, depending on which theory you believe, this case either becomes one of the most horrific family annihilations in Canadian history, or one of the biggest cover-up questions Vancouver has ever seen. For me, honestly, there are so many doubts and holes in this story to be sure if Len was actually the killer. I know that there's people on both sides, there's so many people that say, yes, absolutely, Len did it, and then there's others that really are unsure. I'm really interested to hear all of your thoughts about this case and whether you feel that Leonard was guilty or if you think that he was also a victim. Before I end today's episode, I want to take a moment to remember the people at the center of this story. Because somewhere along the way, cases like this can start to feel like theories, timelines, and evidence boards, and we forget that they were real people. Vera Irene Hoag was a mother described as loving, creative, and deeply devoted to her children. Larry was 14 years old, Noreen was 12, Raymond was eight, and Clifford was six. Darlene was only four years old, and little Richard was just three. Six children who should have grown up, who should have had birthdays, graduations, marriages, families of their own. Instead, their lives ended inside a home that was supposed to be the safest place in the world for them. And then there's Leonard Hogue. Depending on what you believe, he was either a man capable of an unimaginable violence, or the final victim in a story much larger and darker than the public has ever told. More than 60 years later, the truth still feels buried somewhere between official conclusions and unanswered questions. And maybe that's why this case continues to haunt so many people. Because no matter how much time passes, it still doesn't feel fully resolved. So today, this episode is dedicated to the Hoag family. Not for how they died, but for who they were before tragedy ever found them. Thanks for listening to Valley of Secrets. I'll be back in two weeks with another story. Until then, stay safe, stay aware, stay curious.