It’s a story 50 years in the making and one with so many salacious details, you’d think it was a Hollywood movie.
But it’s not.
It’s the story of the murder or Dr. Robert Mac-Lauchlan and Margaret Ann Cunningham, and it’s now front and centre in a new book by New Westminster authors Rod Drown and Ken McIntosh.
No Dog Barked: Who killed the MacLauchlans? tells the story of MacLauchlan and Cunningham and the killing in 1966, which remains unsolved to this day. The book is the culmination of more than six years of work by Drown and McIntosh.
“This book shows people at their worst but also at their best,” McIntosh told the Record. “I found it quite fascinating that the more we dug in to it, the more humanistic it was.”
Drown agreed.
“When Ken and I first started the research, I think we had a rather cardboard perception of what these people were like. They were cutouts, and by the time we had finished our research and written the book, we had a greater idea of who these people were. Their complexities, what their private struggles perhaps were,” Drown added.
MacLauchlan, 72, was a former doctor who’d graduated with honours from McGill in 1919. Before moving to New Westminster, he lived in Calgary where he was arrested for performing illegal abortions. Cunningham, 48, was well liked and a member of the Herring family, who have a long history in the city, according to McIntosh. At the time of her death she was working at Woodlands School and had recently received a bachelor of education from the University of British Columbia, according to Drown and McIntosh’s research.
In December 1965, New Westminster police raided MacLauchlan and Cunningham’s Fifth Street bungalow and turned up $200,000 worth of heroin. The couple was arrested on drug trafficking charges and released on bail.
The MacLauchlans were found dead three months later on March 23, 1966. They were lying side by side on the floor of their bedroom. Both had been shot in the face and abdomen. No one heard the shots.
Despite six years of work, there are still some things Drown and McIntosh don’t know. They don’t how or why MacLauchlan started trafficking heroine. They don’t know how Cunningham was involved or what she knew about her husband’s dealings (or why the couple pretended to be uncle and niece when they first moved in together), and they don’t know who killed the couple – though they do have a list of likely suspects.
One thing they are sure about is who paid to have the MacLauchlans killed, but they won’t tell.
“If people want to know they have to buy the book,” Drown smiled.
To get a copy of No Dog Barked: Who killed the MacLauchlans? email [email protected]. For more, see archivesnewwest.blogspot.com.
