Tracking expert says teen fugitives ‘long gone’
TRACKING, SURVIVAL EXPERTS SAY TEENS AREN’T HIDING IN WOODS OF NORTHERN MANITOBA
It’s Day 14 of the RCMP’s manhunt for two teen fugitives from British Columbia and Canada’s most famous outdoorsmen say the murder suspects could be just about anywhere but northern Manitoba.
Les Stroud, the Canadian survivalist known as “Survivorman” and Terry Grant, a cowboy known as “Mantracker,” think the reason the search for Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, who would’ve turned 19 on Aug. 4,
has dragged on is because the suspects aren’t hiding in the woods in Manitoba.
“I haven’t heard anyone say we’ve seen them go into the woods with an axe and banana, no one ever said that,” Grant said. “I’m half thinking they met someone in a big town ... and they’re long gone to Texas or the Bahamas.”
The RCMP have admitted they don’t know where the triple murder suspects are, but their efforts have zeroed in on Gillam, Man., a bog-ridden, isolated town with roughly 1,265 people — the last place they were seen.
The most recent search was Sunday when a dive team scoured the Nelson River but came up empty. Police revealed on Tuesday they had found items linked to the suspects on the shore but would not say what they were.
McLeod and Schmegelsky, from Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, face a second-degree murder charge in the death of B.C. professor Leonard Dyck and may be linked to the deaths of Australian tourist Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend Chynna Deese, according to police.
They managed to move across four provinces in 10 days and were spotted in Gillam on July 22 — at that rate, Grant and Stroud say the RCMP should not rule out the chance that the suspects crossed the U.S. border.
“Technically speaking, they could be very far away,” Stroud said.
“Could they have flown? That’s unlikely but they could drive just about anywhere. There’s lots of places to get over the border from Canada to the United States without being detected . ... For all we know, they could be in a car on their way to Mexico or in Mexico at this point.”
The RCMP confirmed they haven’t neglected this theory.
“We have to be open to all possibilities,” says a statement from B.C. RCMP Cpl. Chris Manseau.
“As for me to speculate on them crossing an international border, I would suggest that it’s a possibility, however we have to continue searching near their last confirmed sighting.”
Grant also said McLeod and Schmegelsky could have gone south but believes the chances of them entering the U.S. are a “two out of 10.”
Stroud said the most likely scenario is that the suspects have found their way out of the bush and melted into a crowd.
“They’ve had time to utilize standard society to get away, so they could be well on their way,” Stroud said.
“Now we’re into the Hollywood movie kind of thing, because having probably watched too many things online, who knows what’s in their head. I can only tell you what I would do and I would likely disappear into society and do all those silly Hollywood tricks like change my appearance.”
Grant noted the rush of phone calls to police about alleged sightings of McLeod and Schmegelsky in Northern Ontario but thinks it’s too late for them to be in the province.
“Either they’ve been helped by someone, maybe they got to Winnipeg and stayed there, out of sight and now they’re heading east now that the heat is off,” he said.
“But if I was them, I would’ve been heading east about two days after the army moved into Gillam because that’s where the police and the whole army thinks they’re up there, so the last place they’re going to look for them is Northern Ontario ... how they’ve got anywhere is beyond me.”
There’s also speculation that someone has helped the fugitive teenagers, but Stroud said it’s unlikely.
“This is not a heist, these are seemingly random killings on the West Coast ... We’re not dealing with Ocean’s 11 here, this is a couple of kids too deep in a rabbit hole. It’s highly unlikely there’s a system of people working with them.”
He said the idea of the teenagers as survivalists has been overemphasized.
“It’s one thing to be experienced, it’s another to be a fugitive on the run ... They’re kids,” Stroud said.
“Maybe they’re pretending they’re in Hunger Games. This is absolutely not Tarzan, this is fugitives doing whatever they can to escape and evade, they’re not war vets trained in wilderness survival. This is not Rambo, they’re not hiding in mud banks, these are a couple of kids on the run.”
If the suspects died in the woods, Grant said their bones may not ever leave the dense Manitoban brush.
“If they’ve gone in there, four to 10 km deep and expired, they may never be found,” he said.
“All those guys had to do was go eight kilometres in or around the lake, expire over there. The animals would make most of them disappear and their bodies would just go back into the ground.”
But as long as the teens stay warm, drink water and eat food while avoiding injury, their chances of survival are high.
The RCMP’s most recent search came after a beaten-up hunter’s punt and other items were spotted washed up on the shoreline, approximately nine kilometres from where a burnt vehicle linked to the fugitives was located.
The RCMP summoned an underwater recovery team to the Nelson River, a 644-kilometre stretch of water between Lake Winnipeg and Hudson Bay.
“The only thing they could be looking for is backpacks, camping gear or bodies,” Grant said.