Canada murders: father of suspect fears police shootout as third victim identified
The father of one of the Canadian teenagers suspected of murdering Australian tourist Lucas Fowler and his partner, US citizen Chynna Deese, has voiced fears the manhunt will come to a violent end as police identified a third potential victim.
A distraught Alan Schmegelsky told Canadian Press his son, 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky, was dealing with some “very serious pain” and he expected the search to end in “a blaze of glory” gun battle with police. “He wants his hurt to end,” Alan Schmegelsky said.
Police have now laid the first charges in the case against Bryer Schmegelsky and fellow suspect Kam McLeod, 19, who are the subjects of a nationwide manhunt. The pair have each been charged with one count of second-degree murder in the death of Leonard “Len” Dyck, 64, of Vancouver. Warrants are out for their arrest.
They are suspects in the murders of Fowler and Deese, although no charges have been laid in those deaths. On 15 July the young couple were found shot by the side of the same remote highway where Dyck was discovered four days later.
The cases, which are hundreds of kilometres apart on the same road, were originally not considered to be linked. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced a possible connection on Monday.
Until Wednesday, Dyck had gone unidentified as the man whose body was found on 19 July, two kilometres from the burned-out remains of the truck McLeod and Schmegelsky were travelling in.
“He was a loving husband and father,” Dyck’s family said in a statement provided by the RCMP. “His death has created unthinkable grief and we are struggling to understand what happened.” McLeod’s father, Keith McLeod, also released a statement about the compassionate nature of his son. “This is what I do know – Kam is a kind, considerate, caring young man,” McLeod wrote.
McLeod and Schmegelsky are childhood friends from the small town of Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, and had reportedly worked together at the local Walmart to save up money for their trip off-island.
According to Schmegelsky’s grandmother Carol Starkey, the pair had left Port Alberni on 12 July in order to find work in the Yukon, reported a Vancouver Island newspaper.
Schmegelsky and McLeod are still at large. Police discovered the burnedout remains of a vehicle the suspects were traveling in nearly 3,000km (1,864 miles) from the scene of the murder. The vehicle was found near the town of Gillam, Manitoba, and was only confirmed to belong to the pair on Wednesday.
The pair are considered dangerous; the RCMP has warned anyone who spots them to call 911 and not approach.
As the week has gone on, details have emerged about Schmegelsky that raise questions about the boys, who were originally considered missing persons rather than suspects. On Wednesday, the Globe and Mail published photographs showing Schmegelsky wearing a gas mask and army fatigues, as well as a photograph of a Nazi knife and armband allegedly owned by Schmegelsky. The photographs were provided by an online acquaintance, the newspaper reported.
It remains unclear if and when McLeod and Schmegelsky came into contact with Fowler and Deese, and police have yet to make any link between the couple’s death and the discovery of a Dyck’s body 500km to the south, near the town of Dease Lake.
The violent crimes have unnerved remote communities in the northern Canadian prairies – many of which have little police presence.
Gillam, which is considered populous for the area, had just 1,265 residents at the time of the 2016 national census, spread out over the town’s large 2,000 sq km area.
Limited roadways in and out of the community and few gas stations would make it difficult for the two fugitives to avoid detection.
“We’re as far north as you can go by road,” Gillam Mayor Dwayne Forman told a British Columbia radio station. “Everybody in town knows everybody.”
A new face would be easy to spot, he said: “Even the RCMP, I can tell they’re not our normal contingency members driving around the town.”