Canada murders: good Samaritan rescued accused teen killers from car trouble
Despite calling in search teams and tactical units, authorities still haven’t managed to find any trace of the teen suspects accused of killing Aussie tourists Lucas Fowler and his girlfriend. This how police have botched their search efforts.
Canadian cops’ delay in posting a wanted noticed appears to have complicated the search for the teens accused of killing Aussie backpacker Lucas Fowler.
It meant that an unwitting member of the public helped Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, last week after the pair bogged their Rav 4 in a muddy field in Cold Lake, Alberta.
And it’s not the only way authorities have botched the search for the young fugitives.
MORE: Top cop dad’s personal search
MORE: Hunt for teen killers: The unanswered questions
MORE: Chynna’s mum: ‘We should be planning a wedding’
Good Samaritan Tommy Ste-Croix said the teens had been stuck about 1.5 hours when he approached to help them on the morning of Sunday July 21 — two days after the bodies of Australian tourist Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend were found by authorities.
“Mum and Dad’s going to be pissed,” Mr Ste-Croix said he told them.
“They looked at me and said, ‘No, Mum and Dad told me to go for a long joy ride”.
“We chuckled … and Bryer, right after that said ‘I think we missed McDonald’s. And we laughed again and I am like, ‘Holy s. t you are way off McDonald’s.”
Mr Ste-Croix said he then explained how he would use his truck to tow them free and got them back on the road. They were next sited in Split Lake, some 1300km away, the following day.
“You could tell they were nervous,” he told CBC.
They shook hands and gave real names.
Two days later police issued their alert and Mr Ste-Croix realised with a shock how fortunate he had been.
“They were teens, shy teens,” Mr Ste-Croix said.
“They were polite with me. You know if they really, really wanted me, I could be dead.
“My personal opinion is that they seemed like good raised kids.
“They had the opportunity to grab the truck. I was alone with them. I was behind the SUV tying it up and they pretty much had a brand new truck to take off with. My wallet was in there. But they didn’t.
This has added to a series of missteps taken by authorities during the manhunt, which includes:
— Ruling out any connection between murders of Lucas Fowler and Chynna Deese and that of Leonard Dyck;
— Not warning the public Mr Fowler and Ms Deese had been shot to death by unknown killer;
— Publishing an alert for teenagers as missing persons not as suspects;
— Letting them pass through after community security officers in Manitoba stopped them for a routine alcohol check;
— Releasing CCTV footage of the suspects in a hardware store five days after they were sighted and are known to be in a new area;
— Tweeting about polar bears and tourism while supposedly hunting for the suspects in Gillam;
— Failing to find any trace of them despite armed police, the air force and army being called in to search tiny but remote communities.
The bodies of Mr Fowler and his girlfriend, Chynna Deese were found on July 15, and a third victim, Leonard Dyck, was found 500km away on July 19.
Police did not issue an alert warning the public about the main suspects McLeod and Schmegelsky until July 23. The next day, they revealed the pair had left the burned out Rav4 near Gillam, 170km from Split Lake, kickstarting a major search of the area.
That probe was focused on York Landing, a remote fishing village only accessible by air or ferry from Split Lake, after a volunteer searcher reported an encounter with the pair on Sunday, local time.
Despite dozens of officers, sniffer dogs and drones combing the small town, there was no trace found of the pair and police said they were “unable to substantiate the tip”.
Last night, police started broadening their search again, moving an emergency response team back to Gillam, where it has been based for several days.
Mother of three Ida Beardy, 38, from York Landing, said there was disappointment the pair had not been found.
“Everyone is not happy that the boys have not been caught. The community is scared because of the danger and I don’t want to let my kids out of the house,” she said.
“For us here it’s bad but it’s worse for the families of the victims. We have police here protecting us but the only thing the police can do for the families is to find the killers.”
FUGITIVES SHOULD FEAR BUGS, NOT BEARS
Dave Arama is one of Canada’s leading survival experts.
He knows the dangers lurking in the swampy sub-Antarctic boreal forest around Gillam, Manitoba, where teenage accused murderers Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky are suspected of hiding out in the past week.
If the duo did enter the wilderness and did not find some type of shelter Mr Arama predicts they are dead or close to it.
It is not the black bears, polar bears or wolves Mr Arama places high on his top 10 list of dangers the teenagers would face.
It’s the insects.
There’s relentless bloodsucking deer flies, mosquitoes, sand flies and other bugs.
“They eat you alive,” Mr Arama, owner of the Ontario-based WSC Survival School, told AAP on Tuesday.
“They won’t stop biting until your eyes close and you can’t see no more. “Or, if you get enough bites you can go anaphylaxis and then end up in a serious life-threatening reaction.” Water might be plentiful in northern Canada during summer but instead of keeping the teenagers alive it also could be highly-hazardous. “If they drink any water it is likely filled with parasites, giardia and they’d get sick as hell from that,” he said.
Ty Blake, a volunteer firefighter who was called to extinguished the burning Ray 4, agrees with Mr Arama for McLeod and Schmegelsky to survive more than a few days in the wilderness they would have had to have found a hunting cabin or another type of building.
In winter the temperatures drop to below minus 20C with the windchill pushing it down to the minus 50s, but even the current summer months the temperatures have dropped below 10C and there have been rainstorms.
McCleod and Schmegelsky are thin, standing 193cm tall and weighing just 77kg, making it less likely they could survive a week outside without food and appropriate clothing.
Mr Arama said they would need to be wearing waterproofed wool and micro fleece gear.
The camouflage attire Schmegelsky is seen wearing in video surveillance footage was inadequate and the T-shirt McLeod was in a certain death sentence. Mr Arama said he has had groups in the wilderness for nine or 10 days who on average lost 9kg to 23kg “just to try to stay warm”.
“I’ll be honest. With 40 years of experience, if you threw me out there with no knife, no tin can, no flint to start a fire, no tarp, no nothing, I’d rather die,” Mr Arama said.
“This is no Crocodile Dundee movie.
“This is real.”
‘Living nightmare’: Family pain of Aussies killed in the Philippines
The family of an Australian couple found dead in a hotel room broke down as they revealed the cruelty behind the senseless murder the Philippines.
Scary way criminals are using GPS trackers
Almost half of all GPS trackers are going to buyers with nefarious backgrounds and many are allegedly used in high-profile cases including the alleged murder of bikie boss Alen Moradian.