Teen fugitives dead: Motives for murders of Lucas Fowler and girlfriend may never be known

OPINION: You didn’t need to be a criminal psychologist to work out that the suspects were likely to kill others. But it doesn’t bring much comfort to the families of Lucas Fowler and Chynna Deese.

OPINION: It is a blessing and a curse that the Royal Canadian Mounties have found the bodies of fugitive suspected killers Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky.

The discovery of their remains in the dense Canadian bushland brings to an end Canada’s biggest ever manhunt and relieves the constant fear in the remote Manitoba communities where the teenagers were last seen — that one of them could be next.

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Police waited until July 23 to issue a public alert about Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky. Picture: Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP

But it is cold comfort for the families of Australian Lucas Fowler, his American girlfriend Chynna Deese and university lecturer Leonard Dyck. And it may be that any understanding of the reasons behind their sudden homicidal rampage may have died with them.

If they had been caught earlier – alive - the suspected killers may have given up details of why, when and how this horrific and brutal crime spree took place.

Chynna Deese and Lucas Fowler were the victims of a homicidal rampage that may never be solved.

Now the families of the victims may never know the motive behind the terrible killings or what happened to transform those seemingly normal young men who drove out of their working class homes on Vancouver Island, into cold-blooded killers.

It is a miracle of sorts that only three people are known to have been murdered. Three people, who from all accounts, would not have posed a threat to McLeod and Schmegelsky - rather would have offered strangers help if they needed it.

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The death toll could have been much higher given the fugitives travelled nearly 4000km from the site of the first murders putting an unknown number of people in harm’s way.

Many believe that police compounded the risk to the public not moving fast enough and by not revealing sooner the two teenagers first reported as missing were actually wanted for a triple homicide and were likely still armed.

You didn’t need to be a criminal psychologist to work out that the suspects were likely to kill others.

Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky were seemingly normal young men who allegedly turned into cold-blooded killers. Picture: AFP

One of those potential victims was surely the unwitting motorist who came across the suspects with their car bogged in a muddy field. Local Alberta man Tommy Ste-Croix stopped to help the two get their Toyota Rav 4 out of the mud.

It was Sunday July 21, seven days after the discovery of Mr Fowler and Ms Deese’s bodies and three days after the discovery of Mr Dyck’s body.

Mr Ste-Croix was absolutely shocked when he later discovered that the two teenagers he helped were suspected murderers on the run. He said the two could have easily killed him, taken his truck and his wallet.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Emergency Response Team near where the burnt-out Toyota Rav 4 driven by Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky was found. Picture: Angus Mordant

The lack of information could also have put the lives of two community police officers at risk the next day on July 22, when they chased and stopped the fugitives after they drove through an alcohol checkpoint in the dry community of Tataskweyak Cree nation.

A check of the car revealed camping equipment but no weapons and the suspects were allowed to leave continuing their escape days ahead of the authorities.

The police didn’t reveal the teenagers were suspected murderers until July 23, by then they had made it across three provinces covering thousands of kilometres.

But the police releasing information about the whereabouts of the suspected killers five days after their sightings also had the Canadian public on edge.

With out-of- date CCTV footage being released, the public was also constantly behind in the manhunt.

Friends of two men who were reported missing in suspicious circumstances in British Columbia were naturally questioning if their disappearance was linked to the triple murder in northern British Columbia and the manhunt.

Police discounted any connection in the case but it wasn’t much help for those still wondering how those two family men also from Vancouver could have vanished into thin air, leaving their vehicle behind near Kamloops.

The public was constantly trying to play catch up during the long-running manhunt. Picture: Angus Mordant

Perhaps the luckiest of all was the taxi driver in Gillam, northern Manitoba who received a strange phone call from a man asking him for a ride to the isolated indigenous community of Bird not far from where the fugitives set on fire the Toyota Rav 4 they had been driving.

By then the fugitives would have been desperate knowing the police must surely have been on to them and they had stopped making public appearances at service stations and hardware stores as they had done previously.

It was Monday afternoon July 22, and the man who called for a taxi was a stranger. Taxi driver Amar Sahota told them his car was small and couldn’t travel on the rough dirt roads leading to the community.

The stranger hung up.

The next day when he heard about the fugitives, he rang the police hotline and reported the encounter. By August 2, he had still not heard back from police.

Originally published as Teen fugitives dead: Motives for murders of Lucas Fowler and girlfriend may never be known