Manhunt for teenage suspects wanted in 3 killings

Canadian police are searching for two teenagers suspected of killing an American woman and an Australian man this week in an isolated part of British Columbia — sending waves of fear through a part of Canada where crime is relatively rare.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, were wanted in connection with the shooting deaths of Chynna Deese of Charlotte, N.C., and her boyfriend, Lucas Fowler of Sydney. Their bodies were discovered, police said, more than 300 miles from a burnedout camper that the suspects had been traveling in.

On Wednesday evening, the police said they had charged the teens with seconddegree murder in the death of Leonard Dyck of Vancouver. Dyck’s body, which was not identified until Wednesday, was found in a highway rest stop near the burnedout camper.

On Tuesday, after finding the camper, police initially said the men were missing persons but then said they were suspects in the deaths.

As the manhunt continued and expanded Wednesday, police warned on Twitter that the two appeared to be in Manitoba, three provinces east of the area where the killings took place.

During a brief news conference Wednesday afternoon, police said a burning vehicle discovered near Gillam, Manitoba, a small town near the shore of Hudson Bay, was linked to the two men. Officers from the national police force from several regions were descending on the community, which is connected to the rest of the country by two roads and a railway.

According to surveillance video, the pair visited a shop in Dease Lake, British Columbia. The shop owner, Claudia Bunce, said in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that the killings had created fear in the area.

“Once you get into that fear and you go to that place, that dark place of mistrust, it’s going to take a while to trust again and not be so fearful,” Bunce said.

Throughout the week, police have offered few details about their investigation into the killings and have not offered any theories of a motive.

The men left Port Alberni, a paper and lumber mill town on Vancouver Island, to look for work in neighboring Alberta on July 12, said Schmegelsky’s father, Al, in an interview with CHEK television in Victoria, British Columbia.