In the early hours of Saturday morning, April 14, 1973, Muk Chee Tam took five people from an East Hastings Street cabaret to the Vanport Hotel on Main Street on the edge of Vancouver's Chinatown. The Vanport, built in 1911 as the Main Hotel, was now a seedy rooming house hotel with a bar that was characterized as a working-class dive. The bar was one of the few places where gay women could openly drink and socialize, but it was also a dangerous place were dubious characters of all sorts hung out. "The Vanport! Murderers! Thugs!.... It was great. You sat with your back to the wall," reminisced photographer Rosamond Norbury. "There were shootings and stabbings." As the passengers left the cab one of them stole an ashtray. When Mr. Tam confronted the thief he was stabbed in the stomach. He fell to the ground crying "Help me! Please help me! Call the police!" He was rushed to hospital but died shortly after being admitted. Meanwhile his passengers disappeared into the Vanport. The police, hearing that Mr. Tam was seen scuffling with a woman before he was stabbed, arrested a woman who had arrived in Mr. Tam's taxi. She was a 29-year-old mother of seven with no fixed address. The police also rounded up the four male passengers and briefly held them as material witnesses. Mr. Tam, 26, was married with a 14-month-old daughter. His wife was expecting their second child within a few weeks. Born in Hong Kong, he had lived in Vancouver for eight years and initially worked as a waiter in a Chinatown restaurant. He had driven a taxi for two and a half years and only two months before his death he invested his savings in the purchase of a Yellow cab. Yellow Cab shut down for two hours during Mr. Tam's funeral. A mile-long procession of cabs followed the hearse to Burnaby's Forest Lawn cemetery. The female suspect was tried on a charge of capital murder in British Columbia's Supreme Court on April 20, less than a week after Mr. Tam's murder. The prosecution case faced an uphill battle. The only actual witnesses to the stabbing were Mr. Tam's five passengers who admitted to having drunk heavily during the evening and who gave conflicting testimony about what had happened. One of the men admitted to stealing the cab's ashtray but denied stabbing Mr. Tam. He claimed that the woman confessed to the killing and showed him the knife. The woman, while admitting to having the knife in her possession, claimed that she gave it to the man earlier in the evening and that he returned it after the murder. The case boiled down to he-said-she-said accusations with no corroborating evidence either way. In his charge to the jury Mr. Justice Kirke Smith said that he found the defence counsel's contention that there was no way that anybody could be sure of what happened "almost irresistible." The jury deliberated for about two hours and returned a verdict of not guilty. Mr. Justice Smith said "I couldn't agree more" with the verdict. "It's a tragic thing to think that a man can be killed on a city street and someone walk free," he said. "But it's better that a guilty man go free than an innocent one be found guilty." The verdict aroused considerable indignation, especially in Vancouver's Chinese community. Grace Chung, in a letter to the Vancouver Sun wrote: ""I protest! Is a human life of so little worth that a man (Muk Chee Tam) can be fatally knifed in front of five persons, and his killing is dismissed so casually with these words: 'Better that the guilty one go free than an innocent person be found guilty?' Is nothing more to be done to determine the guilty person, the murderer who took a human life so wantonly, the way some people would swat a fly?.... "I still cannot believe it. Is that all there is? Is that really all there is?"

The Vanport Hotel in 1968 (detail). Source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 1095-08593 The suspicion that the police had wrapped up the case too quickly, before thoroughly investigating it, was shared by provincial coroner Glen McDonald. He sent a barbed letter to the Vancouver Police Commission and mayor Art Phillips. In the letter McDonald wrote: "We need a special detachment of detectives who deal only with homicides and are not assigned to look for stolen bicycles." McDonald also sent the police commissioners a personal cheque for $500 dollars as his contribution to a reward for information leading to the conviction of Mr. Tam's murderer. McDonald's letter brought a sharp response from Vancouver's Chief Constable John Fisk, who retorted that Vancouver already had a "top rated homicide squad" consisting of six detectives specializing exclusively in homicides. Fisk said that the case had been dealt with in court and the accused had been found not guilty, but "If new evidence comes to our attention, then we'll act." The Police Commission returned Mr. McDonald's cheque, noting that he had the authority as coroner to offer a reward himself. The refusal of the Police Commission to post a reward provoked a response from Vancouver's Chinese Benevolent Association. In a letter that questioned "the circumstances of the acquittal," the Association urged the police commission to continue investigating Mr. Tam's murder. "Crimes of violence are on the increase against all strata of society, particularly against ethnic minorities. If taking this man's life is to be dismissed so lightly, surely it will encourage society's irresponsible elements to continue their crimes against law-abiding citizens." In the face of no action from the Police Commission the Association sent a second letter, this time to Chief Constable Fisk urging continued investigation of the case. "Members of the Chinese community are still unhappy that despite evidence pointing to the guilty party, no further action is being contemplated.... "There is no deterrant if justice can be circumvented so easily." The Association followed up the letters by posting its own reward of $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Mr. Tam's killer. In the meantime local radio personality Bernard Liu started a fund drive in support of Mr. Tam's family. Within two weeks the drive raised more than $5,000. Earlier, cab drivers had started a fund by each donating $10. This fund soon reached more than $3,000. The Vanport Hotel was demolished in 1986.