Two sightings of suspects in Canadian manhunt

Canadian police have deployed tracker dogs and crisis negotiators as they close in on the teens wanted in three murders.

Bryer Schmegelsky wears camouflage fatigues and wields what appears to be an ‘airsoft’ gun in this picture shared with another gamer.

Canadian police have deployed tracker dogs and crisis negotiators as they close in on the teens wanted in three murders.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have also confirmed two sightings of 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky near the remote northern outpost of Gillam, Manitoba.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Julie Courchaine said authorities have corroborated two sightings of 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky near the remote northern Canadian outpost of Gillam, Manitoba

She said the sightings were prior to Monday evening’s discovery of a burned-out vehicle the suspects were driving but the suspects were thought still to be in the Gillam area.

Cpl Courchaine said there have been no reports of stolen vehicles that could be attributed to the suspects and that is why authorities believe the men are still in the Gillam area.

Gillam is more than 2,000 miles from northern British Columbia, where another burned vehicle was found Friday and where the three people were found slain in two places.

Meanwhile, SWAT teams, tactical assault vehicles, drones, helicopters and sniffer dogs have descended on the area. The RCMP said they’ve received 80 tips from the public the past two days.

Earlier, a photograph emerged of Mr Schmegelsky in military fatigues, wielding what appears to be an “airsoft” gun that fires plastic pellets, which was reportedly shared with online gamers last year. It now has a sinister air as ­Canadian police conduct a ­nationwide manhunt for Schmegelsky, 18, and gaming buddy Kam McLeod, 19, suspected of shooting dead Australian Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend, Chynna Deese, in British Columbia.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police formally charged the pair in their absence yesterday with the second-degree murder of a University of British Columbia lecturer, Leonard Dyck, 64.

The teens played games together via online platforms Steam and Twitch, under the banner ­“Illusive Gameing (sic)”.

One photograph shared with a fellow gamer and obtained by Canada’s The Globe and Mail shows a swastika armband and a knife inscribed with the German words “blut und ehre”, translated as “blood and honour”.

Another has Schmegelsky in a gas mask.

The Steam user who provided them said he stopped playing online games with Schmegelsky because he kept praising Hitler’s Germany.

Former classmate Madison Hempsted said Schmegelsky would describe disturbing acts of violence, at times saying “he wanted to kill us and then ­himself”.

­“(He) would say things about how he would cut our heads off and then he would take a gun and put it in his mouth and shoot himself in front of us.

“Pretty detailed stuff,” Ms Hempsted said.

For more than two years, the pair were also fans of playing war-games in the woods. Now the hunters are the hunted.

Schmegelsky’s Nazi souvenirs.

Mr Dyck, a husband and father from Vancouver, was found dead in a rest stop last Friday, 2km from a burning pick-up truck the teens had been driving.

It was about 470km from where the pair are suspected to have shot dead Mr Fowler, 23, and Ms Deese, 24, days earlier near Liard Hot Springs, dumping their bodies in a ditch.

Police yesterday continued to warn that the teenagers were dangerous and should not be ­approached.

The father of one of the teens said he feared that his son was on a “suicide mission” and planned to go out in a “blaze of glory”.

Mr Fowler, the son of NSW police chief inspector Stephen Fowler, and Ms Deese were on a road trip when their van broke down on the Alaska Highway on Sunday, July 14.

Their bodies were discovered the next morning.

Schmegelsky with a gas mask.

Schmegelsky and McLeod are believed to have travelled thousands of kilometres since the double murder, with police con­firming a Toyota RAV4 they were driving was found burnt-out near remote Gillam, Manitoba.

“A normal child doesn’t travel across the country killing people,” Schmegelsky’s father, Alan, told Canadian media.

“A child in some very serious pain does.

“He wants his hurt to end. They’re going to go out in a blaze of glory. Trust me on this.”

Schmegelsky’s parents split 14 years ago, and his life became dominated by video games, his ­father said. “He’s on a suicide ­mission.

“He wants his pain to end. Basically, he’s going to be dead today or tomorrow. I know that. Rest in peace, Bryer. I love you. I’m so sorry all this had to happen.”

McLeod’s father, Keith Mc­Leod, issued a statement saying his son was “a kind considerate, caring young man”.

The family was being hounded “for information that we don’t have”, he said. “As we are trapped in our homes due to media people, we try to wrap our heads around what is happening and hope that Kam will come home to us safely so we can all get to the bottom of this story,” he said.

Police were descending on Gillam, where Mayor Dwayne Forman said the teens would face a hostile environment.

“The bugs are horrendous up here. The terrain is horrendous.

“If they are in the area, it’s going to be a tough trek for them,” he said.

The family of Mr Dyck, a seasonal lecturer in botany, said in a statement that his death “has ­created unthinkable grief and we are struggling to understand what has happened”.

Additional reporting: AAP