The Flour King's Daughter: The Murder of Gladys Wakabayashi

On June 24, 1992, 41-year-old Gladys Wakabayashi was found murdered in her Vancouver home by her estranged husband, Shinji, after their 12-year-old daughter, Elisa, had been left waiting at school with no one to pick her up. Gladys had been brutally attacked in the hallway between her bathroom and master bedroom, with deep wounds to her neck, arms, legs, and chest. It appeared her attacker had tried to decapitate her. Gladys was the daughter of Y.S. Mao, a Taiwanese billionaire known as the Flour King, and was beloved in her community as a kind and generous piano teacher. Investigators quickly uncovered a motive: Gladys had been involved in an emotional affair with a married man named Derek James, and his wife, Jean Ann James, had recently discovered it. Jean was not just any acquaintance. She was one of Gladys's closest friends.The case went cold for over a decade. Then, in 2007, the Integrated Unsolved Homicide Unit revived it using one of the most controversial investigative techniques in Canadian law enforcement: the Mr. Big sting operation. What followed was a year-long undercover operation involving over 90 staged criminal activities, a fake crime boss, and a confession that would ultimately send Jean to prison for life at the age of 72. Thank you to Haley Gray with Haley Gray Research for your help in the episode!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices