“Police Hold Three Suspects in Murder of City Japanese,” Vancouver Sun. January 17, 1942. Page 17.
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Youth Shot During Holdup Struggle
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Three men are held by police and were to face an identification line-up this afternoon in connection with the cowardly murder of Yoshiyuki Uno, 27, Japanese furniture manufacturer, during a holdup in his parents' confectionery store at Fourth Avenue and Alberta Street Friday night.
Uno was shot as he struggled with one of the bandits to protect other members of his family.
Five minutes before the shooting; three men, thought to be the slayers, held up Chapman's confectionery store, 2333 Columbia Street, and escaped with $30 after on of them fired a wild "shot into a shelf."'
The three suspects were brought in by police after they investigated an assault complaint at a West Pender Street rooming house. Two men and a 17-year-old girl who were in the same rooming house are held for investigation in connection with the assault.
ASKED FOR CIGARETTES
At the Japanese store, the leader of the three thugs grabbed $2 from the cash register before pumping three shots into Yoshiyuki Uno.
Uno, left lying in the middle of the floor, was taken to Vancouver General Hospital in an Exclusive Service ambulance, and died at 9:10 p.m.
The victim's parents, two sisters and brother saw him shot down as, his left hand bleeding from the first shot," he tried to wrest a revolver from the gunman.
Mrs. Oiyo Uno, Yoshiyuki's mother, was in the front of the store when the three men entered.
As she started to serve one of them with a package of cigarettes he produced a revolver and said, "This is a holdup."
THREE SHOTS
The woman shouted to her family in living quarters at the rear, and the gunman leaped forward:
He shot through curtains hanging in the doorway. The bullet hit Yoshiyuki Uno, who was sitting on a chesterfield, in the back of his left hand.
Uno jumped up, ran through to the store and grappled with the man.
The murderer fired two more shots and Uno slumped to the floor, a bullet in his left temple and another in his left arm above the elbow.
His slayer ran out of the store with his two companions, one of whom also handled a gun.
The dead man's brother, Yukio Uno, 24, saw them dart north on Alberta Street, then west in a lane running parallel with Fourth Avenue.
SHOE DROPPED
Police and ambulance were summoned by Mrs. Uno.
Detective-Inspector E. A. Pettit and Detectives L. M. Munn and Arthur White were early on the scene.
From Mrs. Uno they took a black oxford she had picked up on the sidewalk 100 feet north of the store. They believe it dropped from one of the holdup men's feet. Inspector J. F. C. B. Vance and Detective E. B. Smith of the police science bureau took photographs of the scene and, examined blood stains on the floor, a flour sack and a curtain.
CARTRIDGES IN CAR
Discovery of an auto on Kit-silano Beach, near the foot of Whyte Avenue, gave the police the first clue to the thugs' movements.
An unidentified citizen informed police of the car about midnight.
Detectives Kenneth McKay and Peter Lament found footprints leading from the car to the water 200 yards away.
They believe one of the men walked to the water to throw the gun away.
In the auto they found four empty .22 revolver cartridges and one full cartridge. Three $2 bills were lying under the back seat.
The car had been driven down a lane and over a sidewalk.
The detectives think the men took it to the beach to dump the revolver, then abandoned it when it became firmly lodged in the sand.
YOUNG BANDIT
The car, a convertible cabriolet, had been reported stolen at 10 p.m. from the 500 block, Howe Street, by the owner, A. L. Hullah, 1534 Harwood Street.
The man who shot Uno was described by the Uno family as about 31, and five feet 10 inches. He was wearing a green sweater.
His gun was said to be "blue or black with a long barrel." The age of one of the other bandits was estimated at between 20 and 21. No description of the third man was available.
Two suspects picked up by Constables Ralph Booth and Lawrence McCulloch in a Hastings Street cafe were released after witnesses of the holdup at Chapman's Confectionery Store, failed to identify them.
One of the three bandits who robbed the Chapman store brandished a revolver and another a jackknife, witnesses told Detectives Lamont and McKay.
The leader of the trio menaced G. R. Chapman, proprietor, with the knife.
The man took $30 from the cash drawer.
While he was dumping the money into his pockets the man with the gun fired a shot into a shelf, breaking a soft drink bottle.
Mrs. Winnifred Chapman, wife of the proprietor, and Mrs. C. Garnett, 2243 Columbia Street, were in the store during the holdup. They described the bandits as between 23 and 25. Two, they said, looked like brothers.
SISTER'S STORY
Haruko Uno, 22, sister of the gun victim, told The Vancouver Sun that her brother ran to the front of the store to defend his mother, after he was shot in one hand.
"My brother tried to get the revolver from the tallest of the three bandits, and was shot in . the temple as he struggled," she said.
The other two bandits, one of whom carried another gun, made for the door, Miss Uno recounted.
When Uno slumped to the floor, the murder bandit also ran for the front door.
Uno's father, Kosabuko Uno, rushed from the little sitting room and knelt over his son while his mother telephoned for an ambulance.
Miss Uno, a sister, Yaeko, 20, and a brother, Nukio, 34, were also In the rear room at the time.
The men fled to a car which was stopped with its engine running in a lane back of the store off Alberta Street, according to witnesses.
SAW BANDITS
Masyoshl Sugie, of 509 West. Fourth Avenue, ran to the store with his mother, Yoshi Sugie, and his father, Shoshaku Sugie, when Mrs. Uno called to them.
"There was nothing I could do when I got in," he said laconically. "Mr. Uno was holding Yoshiyuki's head as he lay on the floor."
M i y e k o Sugie, Masyosh’s brother, said that young Uno was a part owner of the Advance Furniture Manufacturing Company, 975 Vemon Drive.
Mr. and Mrs. John Ellis, who live at 1943 Alberta Street, across the corner from the Uno store, told police that they heard the shooting. They looked through the front door in time to see the bandits running to their car.
Yoshiyuki Uno was born in Vancouver, and was a graduate of Fairview High School of Commerce.
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