Willene Wah Ying Chong, a 76-year-old woman, was killed in the early morning hours of September 11, 2008, when an arsonist deliberately set fire to the East Vancouver home where she had lived for more than three decades. Online records do not support an October 1, 2026 death date. Chong was asleep inside her residence at 2781 East 55th Avenue when the fire was started, and Vancouver police later classified her death as a homicide.
Chong had come to Canada from Hong Kong in 1949 and built
her life in Vancouver. She married in 1959, raised five children and had seven grandchildren. She and her family had also operated a successful grocery business. By 2008 she was retired and living in the longtime family home with her son Daniel and his wife, Nancy.
The fire erupted during the morning while Chong was in bed. Daniel awakened to find flames spreading through the house and desperately tried to reach his mother. He broke a basement window during the attempted rescue and suffered a serious injury, but the intensity of the fire prevented him from getting to her. Chong was unable to escape and died inside the residence. Her death became Vancouver's 15th homicide of 2008.
Investigators determined that the blaze was not accidental. Police concluded that the home had been intentionally set on fire and described the attack as a random act apparently committed by a stranger. The fatal fire also appeared to be connected to a string of deliberately set fires in the surrounding Killarney-area neighborhood during roughly the same period that morning. Reports indicated that four other fires had been started nearby at about the same time, shortly after 5 a.m.
Those other incidents reportedly included a portable toilet being set on fire near East 50th Avenue and Kerr Street, burning items in the 6700 block of Kerr Street, a hedge fire in the 6900 block of Lancaster Street, and a fire behind a house under construction in the 2800 block of East 54th Avenue. Chong's house was the location where the series turned fatal. Investigators sought information about a group of young people reportedly seen in the area around the time of the fires, but authorities did not publicly identify any of them as a charged suspect.
The Vancouver Police Department's Homicide Squad continued investigating the case and used what police described as both traditional and innovative investigative techniques. Chong's family repeatedly appealed to the public for information, describing the lasting effect the killing had on them, particularly on Daniel, who had been injured while trying to save his mother.
A $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible, and the Vancouver Police Board later renewed the reward. Police again publicly appealed for information in 2012, and the case was subsequently included on the Vancouver Police Department's cold-case website.
No arrest, criminal charge, trial or conviction has been publicly announced in connection with Chong's killing. The Vancouver Police Department continues to list the homicide as an ongoing cold case, with the deliberate fire described as a random act apparently connected to the other arsons committed in the neighborhood that morning. The identity of the person or people who started the fires remains unknown publicly, leaving the killing unresolved years after Chong died in her home.
