Murder suspects still on run in remote area

After killing three people and burning a camper in British Columbia, the two teenagers headed east, police say. Then the road ran out.

In one of Canada’s most isolated places linked by road, on the edge of the Hudson Bay lowlands in Manitoba, heavily armed officers with dogs, drones, helicopters and an armored vehicle are hunting for the two suspects in bush, swamp and forest.

It is an optimal place to hide — and a difficult place to survive.

The men, Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, are suspected of killing a Vancouver botanist and a young couple who were traveling the country. Now, police believe, the suspects are somewhere near the remote community of Gillam, Manitoba.

But even the presence of a small army of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, who have sealed off the one road in and out of town, has not been enough to ease the fears of people in Gillam, most of whom work at nearby hydroelectric dams.

“I have a wife and two young kids,” said Clint Sawchuk, a Manitoba Hydro employee who also runs a wilderness tour business. “I actually put a loaded 12 gauge next to my bed.”

As impenetrable as the location, though, is what could have turned two young men, recent high school graduates from Vancouver Island, into suspected killers.

Al Schmegelsky, Bryer’s father, has a theory: “He’s on a suicide mission,” he told the Canadian Press news agency.

The two left their home in Port Alberni, British Columbia, a lumber and paper mill town at the top of an inlet to the Pacific Ocean, on July 12, telling family and friends that they planned to look for well-paying work in Alberta.

When police thought the two were missing persons, Al Schmegelsky described them as “really good boys.” After they became suspects, Schmegelsky acknowledged that his son was emotionally damaged by his parents’ acrimonious separation when Bryer was 5.

“He wants his hurt to end,” Schmegelsky said. “They’re going to go out in a blaze.”

Military battle video games are one of his son’s major passions, Schmegelsky said.

An online gaming acquaintance of Bryer Schmegelsky provided The Globe and Mail with photographs of the young man holding a replica rifle and wearing military fatigues. Another photo showed a swastika armband. The person who supplied the photos, who was not identified by the newspaper, said Schmegelsky’s praise for Hitler had led him to sever ties.

Al Schmegelsky told the news service that his son wasn’t a neo-Nazi but someone who collected Nazi paraphernalia because he found it “cool.”

Friends have revealed little about the two young men, and no member of the McLeod family has spoken to journalists. In a statement, Keith McLeod, Kam’s father, said his son was “a kind, considerate, caring young man.”

The two men, friends since elementary school, had worked at Walmart for five weeks, their first jobs after high school graduation, before embarking on what they said was their job-hunting trip.

If there was any connection between the suspects and the people the police say they killed, investigators have yet to disclose it.

Lucas Fowler of Sydney, who had been working at a lodge in British Columbia, and Chynna Deese, of Charlotte, North Carolina, were on a road trip in the northern part of the province when their van broke down July 14. They were found dead of gunshots near the van, which had a broken window, the following day.

On July 19, the body of Leonard Dyck, a botanist from Vancouver, was discovered in a highway rest area about 300 miles from the remains of the first victims. Nearby was the burned-out hulk of the truck camper the two teenagers had started their trip in.

Investigators have not said why they believe the teenagers ended up in Manitoba, but by heading directly east on remote highways they would have had a better chance of eluding police. A stolen Toyota found near Gillam, also left burning, provided investigators with a clue of their whereabouts.

In Gillam, which has a population of 1,000, the on-edge residents hope the two teenagers will be captured soon. For many, it’s hard to imagine how they could stay alive and escape from town.

No vehicles are believed to have been stolen in or near the town. Winter roads that run east to Ontario are impassible after the spring thaw. The nearby Nelson River is filled with dangerous rapids as it makes its way to Hudson Bay, an inland sea.

A railway from Winnipeg to Churchill passes through Gillam, but walking along it would leave the fugitives exposed.