Dark Times
The exploits of three Vancouver Police constables, nicknamed the “Terrible 3,” brought about dark times within the Department. Warning: this story contains topics including crimes, murder, and suicide involving Vancouver Police officers.
This story has been long in the works, as it is a difficult one to write. These were dark times within the Department.
This account has been written based on historical police records, newspaper clippings and includes The Ice Cream Bandits, a 25-page story written by Robert Sedlack and published in the Vancouver Sun (February 6, 1999). Sedlak had access to Coroner’s Inquest records and other documents unavailable to this writer.
On September 17, 1956, Recruit Class #3, a three-month training academy began. Three of the recruit Probationer Constables taken on strength included:
PC 333 David Harrison
PC 539 Leonard (Len) Hogue,
PC 555 John McCluskey
It was in this class that the three, later known as “The Terrible 3,” became steadfast friends. Hogue graduated as pistol shot champion. On December 15, 1956, all three were assigned to patrol duties.
On December 12, 1957, at the Lock Yuen Cafe (145 E. Pender), a fight broke out between five off-duty officers and six members of the Powell River Luckies Hockey Club. Tables turned and dishes broken, damages totaled $5. Before police could gain entry, many of the parties fled. Len Hogue was one, and was subsequently penalized five days of suspension for failing to identify himself as a police officer and departing the cafe without paying for food.
Over the next years, Len partnered with his friend and academy mate Dave Harrison. Hogue received two “atta-boys,” for his role in the arrest on a large number of B&E offences, and for his initiative during a murder arrest. He was also chastised for leaving his beat without permission and suspended one day without pay. Harrison was also commended for breaking up a ring of juvenile car thieves, but chastised for being late for parade several times and for damaging a new police vehicle (suspended three days, and reduced in rank twice).
Another member who played a pivotal role in future criminal acts was McCluskey’s brother-in-law, Joseph Percival. Both McCluskey and Joe were Oakalla Prison Guards previous to joining the Department. PC 511 Percival came on the job four months before the others.
Percival and Hogue had also partnered together during Patrol shifts.
According to Sedlak’s Ice Cream Bandits, some of the following incidents were recounted by Harrison “years later in conversations taped secretly by undercover RCMP.”
In the early 1960s, while on patrol, Hogue and partner Percival noted a Dairy Queen restaurant had been left unlocked. Upon entering, they found an amount of money in the freezer and kept it. They discovered that it was a Dairy Queen policy to keep the day’s takings in the freezer for safekeeping. Thus began the “Ice Cream Bandits.”
“Around the same time, police were investigating a rash of robberies of expensive homes in the Vancouver area, many belonging to people who had notified police they were going on vacation. Although the names of the culprits were never made public, at least seven Vancouver Police officers were implicated but never charged, or even suspended.”
(Note: None of the records seen by this author supported this allegation).
Interestingly, on July 9, 1961, both Leonard Hogue and Joseph Percival were transferred to the Jail (Services Division, Gaol). There is nothing documented in files indicating the reason for the transfer at this time, but it was well-known that this assignment was typically one “to keep a closer eye” on members.
Sedlak relates that there were, in fact, 14 guns stolen in this theft, and they were subsequently used in all future robberies.
On December 24, 1961, while masked and armed, Percival and Hogue* entered the rear door of the closed CIBC Kingsway in Burnaby and within two minutes obtained $106,000 in cash.
*Later Harrison boasted that he was involved as the driver in the CIBC robbery with Percival and Hogue, to gain credence with a criminal element, which turned out to be an RCMP undercover operation.
Dave Harrison had resigned from the VPD on September 24, 1962, to join the Nelson Police Department. This followed a thorough investigation stemming from an incident the previous month. While off-duty, Harrison got drunk at the Mount Shasta Cafe (237 E. Hastings), and subsequently assaulted another patron. He was charged with three counts under the Discipline Act.
In October 1963, while still employed as a police officer, Percival applied for his real estate license, and on November 30, 1963, resigned, stating he was going into real estate.
The only member remaining on the Vancouver Police Force was Len Hogue.
On June 22, 1964, two armed men entered the Simpson-Sears on Kingsway, followed an armoured car guard, threw pepper into his face, and then slugged him on the back of the head. They grabbed his satchel, but were thwarted by the store manager, who grappled with (allegedly) Hogue, holding the bank bag. The bag, containing $88,000, was dropped along with a revolver and a pair of sunglasses. The two bandits fled into a waiting getaway car.
On January 15, 1965, at the Bank of Nova Scotia (Dunbar & 41st), two gunmen walked into the bank manager’s office and told him it was a holdup. Ordering staff and customers to the floor, one of the bandits (Hogue) fired a shot into the ceiling. Filling a sack with money, the robbers were halted when the getaway driver started blaring a horn outside. Good Samaritans, seeing what was going on, tried to stop the car, but were confronted by the driver (allegedly McCluskey) waving a gun. Some managed to call police with a license plate number. The trio got away in the dense fog. Total netted: $13,000.
On February 11, 1965, all four were determined to pull off their biggest heist yet, a robbery which would yield a payoff of over one million dollars. Posing as CPR Police and staff, they hit a shipment of old money being returned to Ottawa to be removed from circulation. The operation was slick, and the bandits were professional and quick. Unfortunately, they were unaware at the time that the bills had been punched, rendering them useless as tender.
Meanwhile, thinking that they had successfully gotten away with $1.2M, all parties split into their own directions. Harrison drove back to Nelson and a waiting card game, where he noticed the mutilated bills. He and Percival talked, and started patching the money, filling in the punched holes with pieces from other notes. All suspects started passing the “repaired” bills. It worked for a short while.
On April 17, 1965, Percival paid for a couple of beers in an Edmonton bar, with two of the patched $20 bills. The bartender was suspicious and called the police. Percival and a buddy were arrested within a half hour.
The next day, while booking prisoners into the jail, Hogue was called into the Inspector’s office. He was asked if he had contacted John McCluskey earlier. Hogue answered that he had and told McCluskey that his brother-in-law Percival had been arrested in Edmonton.
Easter Sunday dinner was held at the Hogue home, but was interrupted by several phone calls, which Leonard took.
The next morning, Monday, April 19, 1965, Hogue was enroute to work, when he drove his car into a highway barrier at 70 miles an hour. The car flipped; Hogue staggered away with a minor cut to his eye. He was treated at hospital and released, and he called in sick to work. The accident was thought to have been an attempt at suicide. Hogue had informed the tow truck driver that there was another vehicle that ran him off the road.
WARNING: GRAPHIC & DISTURBING CONTENT FOLLOWS
On April 21, 1965, the following timeline of events unfolded, as told in the Vancouver Sun:
About 1:30 a.m. on April 21, 1965, Vancouver Police Constable Leonard Hogue snapped. “He put six cartridges into his .357 Magnum revolver, walked into the bedroom and shot his wife Vera Irene through the head,” the Vancouver Sun reported. “RCMP believe she was still asleep at the time, and never knew what happened.
“But the sound of the shot resounded throughout the house, awakening (his) children to a night of terror. “The crazed father, his revolver smoking from the barrel, barged through the house hunting down his children one by one.” There were six Hogue children. Their father shot and killed them all before turning the gun on himself in a grisly murder-suicide at the family home in Coquitlam.
“His next victim, Larry, 13, was shot through the head while trying to get out of his top bunk in an upstairs bedroom,” said the Sun. “Raymond, 8, Clifford, 6, and their sisters Noreen, 12, and Darlene, 4, fled down the stairs. Little Richard, 3, the baby of the family, was sobbing in his bed. Hogue followed his terror-struck children to the main floor and found one of the boys crouched in the closet. He shot him through the head. The other boy was in the bathroom and apparently made one desperate lunge for safety. The first shot missed and crashed into the toilet bowl. The boy was shot through the head on the second.
“Hogue, still bent on his mission of death, reloaded the five spent cartridges in the revolver and went down into the basement to seek out his daughters. He found them in an unfinished room and shot each through the head with a single bullet. Little Richard was still sobbing in his cot upstairs. He was the last of the children to die with a bullet to the head.” The carnage ended when Hogue returned to the master bedroom and killed himself.
The bodies were discovered when Hogue didn’t turn up for work. A policeman was dispatched to the Hogue home about 1 p.m. When no one answered the door, he looked in through a window, and spotted two bodies. “Neighbours were shocked. (Hogue) was very calm and level-headed, quite a jovial fellow,” said Ed Carlson, an insurance investigator who knew Hogue well.
There was general thought at the time, and even later on, that Hogue was close to the breaking point, and may confess while also pointing the finger at others. It was also surmised that it may have been one of Hogue’s previous partners who was responsible for murdering the family. The deaths are officially listed as murder / suicide.
The .357 magnum used in the commission of the murders belonged to a CPR policeman and friend of Hogue and Percival. Allegedly, the day before the multiple homicides, Hogue had asked if he could borrow the weapon to try out at the range. His friend handed the weapon over. That man was later implicated in the CPR robbery, having told the other four about the impending shipment of money. If he had been involved in the robbery, and now knowing that Percival had been arrested with some of that money, does the lending of the gun “to try out at the range” make any sense? Apparently, there were no fingerprints on the magnum or its shells, after the Coquitlam killings.
Sedlak recounts in Ice Cream Bandits, that based on discussions he has had and / or heard, Leonard Hogue did not execute his own family.
Joe Percival was convicted of possession of the stolen money and sentenced to four years, concurrent with a 2.5-year term received earlier in Edmonton, for possession of $12,000 of the stolen money. He fled Canada after being released on bail (the day of the Hogue funerals), and news files indicate he was extradited from Scotland. He was released from jail in 1970. He died in 2010.
John McCluskey was suspended twice during his tenure (1960 and 1965) prior to his dismissal in June 1965. He was never charged with any of the robberies. He suffered a heart attack and died in 1987.
David Harrison was asked to resign from the Nelson Police in late 1964. He was later convicted on the CPR robbery and sentenced to 15 years concurrent with a 12-year sentence for the Bank of Commerce robbery. He was released from jail in June 1970 and died in 1995 of natural causes.