Autopsy reveals how teen fugitives Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod died

More than 1000 searchers spent three weeks looking for the teenage killers of Australian tourist Lucas Fowler in all the wrong places. This is how police bungled the search.

The manhunt for the two suspected thrill killers was one of the biggest ever undertaken by Canadian Mounties, stretching 5000km over almost three weeks and through four provinces.

But the teenagers who police believe murdered Australian backpacker Lucas Fowler, 23, his American girlfriend Chynna Deese, 24, and Canadian botanist Leonard Dyck, 64, ended their lives just 8km from their last known location.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said today suspected murderers and teenage fugitives Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod died a “few days” after they were last seen in July ”in what appears to be suicides by gunfire”.

“While both individuals were deceased for a number of days before they were found, the exact time and date of their deaths are not known,” a statement from RCMP released Monday local time said.

Alleged teen killers Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky were found dead last week. Picture: AFP

Autopsies were completed on Schmegelsky and McLeod over the weekend after their bodies were found 8km from the burnt out car they abandoned, a stolen RAV4 belonging to Mr Dyck.

A police ground patrol discovered their bodies after a sleeping bag was spotted beside the Nelson River in northern Manitoba last week, near the town of Gillam, where the search had been based.

“Police can also confirm that two firearms were also located with the two deceased males and forensic analysis is underway in order to definitively confirm that these weapons are connected with the northern BC homicide investigations,” the RCMP said.

Just how more than 1000 searchers — including local cops, the national police known as the Mounties and even Air Force members — had spent so long, looking so far and wide in the wrong places, can be explained by two factors.

Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend Chynna Deese were found shot dead on the Alaska Highway in British Columbia. Picture: AAP

First, the vast wilderness in which they disappeared can hide a person vanishingly fast.

Thick brush with barely a centimetre separating the trunks of trees; bristly, thistled undergrowth and extremely limited communications — with no cell phone service for dozens of kilometres on a highway stretch — conspire to make northern Manitoba’s public roads 280 and 290 extraordinarily remote.

Second, the search for the pair captivated and spooked the nation.

Where Australia’s citizens reside mainly on the coast, the bulk of Canada’s people live near the US border.

The isolated community of York Landing is roughly the distance from Manitoba’s capital of Winnipeg to that of Sydney to Brisbane, with barely anyone living in between.

A purported sighting of the pair drew the laser focus of the manhunt on July 28 and children were held indoors and people locked up their houses for the first time that locals could recall.

Volunteers from a visiting community group said they saw the pair foraging in a bear-infested local tip but an extensive search unearthed no link to the fugitives.

Mantioba RCMP officers offload the first of two metal boxes with the remains of the triple murder suspects on their way to Winnipeg for an autopsy. Picture: Twitter

Now that we know they died so close to were they were last known to be, the York Landing sighting would appear an impossibility.

But at the time, with no hint as to where the wanted pair had gone, there was a premium on any sighting, and nothing short of panic that they were at large.

While the autopsy has provided a resolution to the mystery of how the pair died, police say they expect their investigation into how and why they committed the murders to take several weeks.

“Investigators are now assessing all items located in Manitoba, along with the previous findings related to the three northern BC homicide investigations, in order to gain more clarity into what happened,” the statement said.

“The assessment will review all the investigative findings to date, whether it is statements, evidentiary time lines, physical or digital evidence, and the BC RCMP have also have engaged our Behavioural Analysis Unit (BAU).

“The BC RCMP commits that once we have completed that review within the next few weeks, we will be providing the families with an update with respect to the totality of the investigations and then releasing the information publicly.”

‘KUDOS BOYS’: DAD PRAISES KILLER TEENS

The announcement follows the airing on Sunday a 60 Minutes interview with the father of Bryer Schmegelsky, where he praised his son for evading Canadian police for two weeks.

Alan Schmegelsky also revealed the last text message he received from his son.

Disturbing footage has also emerged of Bryer practising shooting a replica gun in a forest gifted to him by his father.

Mr Schmegelsky refused to accept his 18-year-old son was a murderer.

“I’m not going to say my son is a murderer until I get some facts, OK?,” Mr Schmegelsky told 60 Minutes.

“You want me to sit here and tell you that my son killed your co-citizen? I’m not doing it … I have just lost my son.”

Police found the bodies of Bryer and Kam last Wednesday about a kilometre away from the Nelson River near Gillam, Manitoba. The discovery followed a 15-day manhunt that even involved the military.

Bryer Schmegelsky's father Alan Schmegelsky said his “heart sank” when Bryer and his friend were named as suspects in the three killings. Picture: 60 Minutes

Several days earlier, local police stopped the teen fugitives for a routine alcohol check outside of Gillam. They ultimately let the pair go, claiming they were unaware of their wanted status.

Mr Schmegelsky praised them for avoiding arrest.

“I knew they were still alive. These boys are smart, these guys are intelligent. Kudos boys. Kudos,” he said.

Mr Schmegelsky, who said his “heart sank” when police said Bryer and Kam were suspects in the killings, also revealed the final text message his son sent. It was the last time he heard from him.

“I’m off to Alberta,” Mr Schmegelsky said his son messaged.

Canadian authorities said autopsies on the two bodies have been completed, but it will be up to Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in that province to reveal further information.

“Under the Fatality Inquiries Act, there’s a few procedures that need to be carried out in order for us to … say with absolute certainty that these are the two people,” RCMP spokesman Paul Manaigre said.

“So we’re just kind of waiting on those formalities to be done and then that information will be shared.”

Lucas Fowler's alleged killer Bryan Schmegelsky firing an airsoft rifle. Picture: Nine Network/60 Minutes

DISTURBING FOOTAGE OF GUN PLAY EMERGES

A home video obtained by 60 Minutes shows Schmegelsky shooting an airsoft rifle in military clothing in the woods where he and fellow accused Kam McLeod grew up in Port Alberni.

His father, Alan Schmegelsky, said he gifted the $600 imitation weapon to his son a year earlier shortly before his 17th birthday.

“My son asked me if I would get him an airsoft rifle,” Alan Schmegelsky told 60 Minutes.

“I bought him a toy gun so he could play with his friends.”

Mr Schmegelsky said Bryer spent too much time playing violent computer games so he gave him the airsoft rifle as a distraction.

“It was getting him out to the woods with his buddies, it was getting him outside,” Mr Schmegelsky told 60 Minutes.

Alan Schmegelsky says he would never give his son a gun that would kill people. Picture: Nine Network/60 Minutes

“I never gave him a real gun. I never gave him a gun that would kill someone.”

Airsoft guns are realistic replica firearms that shoot plastic pellets via compressed air or electric/spring-driven pistons. They are mainly used for recreation in sport similar to paintball but are banned in Australia.

Alan Schmegelsky and son Bryer as a child. Picture: Supplied

According to the program, the Canadian police and military use similar weapons for training. The airsoft rifle is one of the closest things on sale to a realistic machine gun.

MORE ON THE CANADA MURDERS:

Killer teen fugitives’ last meal

Deaths of teen fugitives a blessing and a curse

Burning questions behind teen fugitive manhunt

Clues cops missed as teen fugitives set out to kill

Alan Schmegelsky wrote a 132-page book titled Red Flagged, that he sent to journalists, in which he details his troubled life including mental health issues, harassment convictions and losing custody of his son in 2005 when his then-wife left him.

The grieving father issued an apology to the families of his son’s victims but said he couldn’t call his son a murderer “until I get some facts”.

“When someone in your family dies, I know that f---ing pain,” he said.

“I have just lost my son, I know exactly how you feel.”

Asked how he felt that his only child would be remembered as a killer, he said: “There’s no glory in that. I wanted my son to be someone amazing.”

CHYNNA’S SISTER: KILLER’S DAD IS ‘PLAYING THE VICTIM’

Chynna Deese’s sister, Kennedy Deese, told News Corp Australia that Alan Schmegelsky’s apology is hollow.

“The proper public response would have been a genuine apology,” she said.

“He is trying to relate to us, when he played a part in the cause of our pain. We had no doing in his.

“His sorrow is for himself and not sincerely for us,” she added.

“We are not cut from the same cloth, as he has played the victim throughout his life and won’t acknowledge his hand in his child’s upbringing and ultimate demise.

Kennedy Deese and sister Chynna Deese were close. Picture: Facebook

“Short of his son, that he barely knew, confessing to him personally he would have doubt (that he was responsible for the murders),” she said.

Ms Deese said that Chynna did not let life’s obstacles hold her back and was the first person in her immediate family to get her university degree.

“Having a dynamic upbringing and obstacles in life is not exclusive to anyone,” Ms Deese said.

Kennedy Deese, left, says her sister Chynna, right, “did not let life’s obstacles hold her back”. Picture: Facebook

“There is no white flag of surrender for my family. We are not defeated by divorce, mental health, violence, poverty and socio-economic constraints, domestic disputes, alcohol or drugs, social media and bullying, feelings of loneliness, or disparities. We have the courage to ask for and offer help. We are strong, and stand strong together right now in the face of all of these adversities that have come upon us.

Lucas Fowler hugs Chynna Deese in the last recorded moment before their deaths. Picture: AAP

“We never play the victim of a broken system. There is no excuse for staying broken and refusing to heal. Whether or not these fugitives were captured alive or recovered dead would have made no difference. No amount of confession will validate or solidify an understanding of the events that led to the unprovoked murder of my sister. It’s unfortunate the fugitives lives ended on their terms. There was a one in a million chance that such tragedy would befall upon my family, but Chynna was a once in a lifetime soul.”

Ms Deese said despite Mr Schmegelsky’s public comments “we still forgive you and have mercy”.