The Babes in the Wood murders is a name which has been used in the
media to refer to a
child murder case in which the bodies of two brothers, Derek and David D'Alton, also known as David and Derek Bousquet, were found concealed in
woodland at
Stanley Park in
Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada. The Vancouver Police Department identified the brothers publicly on February 15, 2022.
Discovery
The remains of two male victims (murdered about 1947) were discovered in
Stanley Park,
Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada on Wednesday, January 14, 1953. Police determined that a
hatchet found at the crime scene, which was of a type commonly used by
shingle weavers and
lathers, had been used to kill the boys by striking them in the head. Their corpses had been arranged so that they were lying down in a straight line, with each boy's
soles facing the other's, and then concealed with a woman's rain cape. The investigation was hampered when the medical examiner concluded that one victim was female. A DNA test conducted in 1998 proved that both victims were male and that they were brothers; they were between the ages of six and ten when they died.
Identification
In 2018, detectives were planning on using consumer DNA databases such as
Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites.
In November 2018, ...
and
23andMe
23andMe Holding Co. is a publicly held personal genomics and biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, California. It is best known for providing a direct-to-consumer genetic testing service in which customers provide a saliva sample t ...
to research the identities of the victims.
This investigation came to a close in 2022, when the children were identified via
forensic genealogy as Derek (born February 27, 1940) and David D'Alton (born June 24, 1941),
the sons of Eileen Bousquet, who died in 1996.
The investigation into their homicide is ongoing.
See also
*
List of unsolved murders (1900–1979)
References
External links
*
*
History of Vancouver
People murdered in British Columbia
1953 in Canada
1947 murders in Canada
Axe murder
Murdered Canadian children
Unsolved murders in Canada
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