Jul 31, 2026 · 30 min · 10 segments
Twenty-year-old Wanda Watson was an aspiring actor and model who moved from Victoria, BC to live with her older sister in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant. On August 3, 1991 she was stabbed to death in her…
Eve LazarusHost
Melanie WalkerGuest
I've written about murders and missing people from all over British Columbia, but one that has always stuck with me is the 1991 murder of an aspiring actor and model from Victoria, B.C., 20-year-old Wanda Watson.
When I first started researching Wanda's murder, I was surprised by how little information there was out there about her.
Wanda was murdered in her home on August 3, 1991, and the first articles to appear about her came out three days later.
The Vancouver Sun ran just a few sentences in a brief that said, Vancouver police are investigating the slaying after firefighters responding to a call Saturday at 2549 Fraser found a woman inside the building with stab wounds to the chest.
The province story, which was buried on page 21, gave a few more details and ran with a photo of police officers wearing white coveralls shot through a window in the basement of the house.
The lead for the story was that Wanda was the city's 20th homicide victim that year.
The province story quotes a neighbour who said he saw flames in the basement of their house around 10.30pm Saturday.
Another unidentified neighbour said she heard that a man stabbed Wander and then set the house on fire to cover up the murder.
Another five days went by and the province ran with the headline, Burglars Suspected in Slaying.
The story ran with a grainy photo of Wanda that looks like it came from her high school yearbook.
Vancouver Police Detective Dave Atkin is quoted as saying, The killers might be a pair of burglars who set a fire to cover their crime.
Two white males wearing t-shirts and shorts were seen running from the house at 10pm, about the time the fire was reported.
One man was white, aged between 20 and 25, with a slim build, medium length fair hair, wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
The other suspect was described as a Hispanic male, 20 to 25, with dark hair, bushy moustache and wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
The story goes on to say that there was a similar incident about eight blocks away, three days before Wanda's murder.
I've written about murders and missing people from all over British Columbia, but one that has always stuck with me is the 1991 murder of an aspiring actor and model from Victoria, B.C., 20-year-old Wanda Watson.
When I first started researching Wanda's murder, I was surprised by how little information there was out there about her.
Wanda was murdered in her home on August 3, 1991, and the first articles to appear about her came out three days later.
The Vancouver Sun ran just a few sentences in a brief that said, Vancouver police are investigating the slaying after firefighters responding to a call Saturday at 2549 Fraser found a woman inside the building with stab wounds to the chest.
The province story, which was buried on page 21, gave a few more details and ran with a photo of police officers wearing white coveralls shot through a window in the basement of the house.
The lead for the story was that Wanda was the city's 20th homicide victim that year.
The province story quotes a neighbour who said he saw flames in the basement of their house around 10.30pm Saturday.
Another unidentified neighbour said she heard that a man stabbed Wander and then set the house on fire to cover up the murder.
Another five days went by and the province ran with the headline, Burglars Suspected in Slaying.
The story ran with a grainy photo of Wanda that looks like it came from her high school yearbook.
Vancouver Police Detective Dave Atkin is quoted as saying, The killers might be a pair of burglars who set a fire to cover their crime.
Two white males wearing t-shirts and shorts were seen running from the house at 10pm, about the time the fire was reported.
One man was white, aged between 20 and 25, with a slim build, medium length fair hair, wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
The other suspect was described as a Hispanic male, 20 to 25, with dark hair, bushy moustache and wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
The story goes on to say that there was a similar incident about eight blocks away, three days before Wanda's murder.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
