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Inside the RCMP's cross-country manhunt for 2 teenage killers – CBC.ca
A ghosted girlfriend, a family home with guns and ammunition, and french fries left scattered around a murder victim.
These are some of the puzzle pieces that RCMP investigators tried to fit together last summer in the wake of three killings in northern British Columbia, and the ensuing cross-country manhunt for Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19.
The details come from a dozen warrant applications, newly unsealed following a court challenge by CBC News and other media outlets. They help complete the picture of a sprawling and confused triple-homicide investigation, one where the RCMP eventually got their men — found dead by their own hands deep in the Manitoba bush — but failed to ever uncover the motivation for their brutal crimes.
From the first instance, the remoteness of the crime scenes caused problems for police.
After a highway maintenance worker reported the discovery of two bodies and a shot-up van near the Liard River Hot Springs on Highway 97, near the Yukon border, early on the morning of July 15, it took officers from the closest RCMP detachment in Fort Nelson, B.C., three hours to make their way to the site.
There, they found the bodies of a young man and young woman, face down in a ditch. Both had suffered multiple gunshot wounds and had been dead for hours — “cold to the touch,” according to a trucker who was one of the first upon the scene.
Police quickly established that the van belonged to Lucas Fowler, a 23-year-old Australian citizen who was in the country on a work visa. And they found a bank card belonging to Chynna Deese, a 24-year-old American, on the ground near the woman’s body.
But positive identification of the victims took a full two days. A search warrant for the van, obtained from a Burnaby, B.C. court on the afternoon of July 15, wasn’t executed until late the next morning. And then the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) demanded a warrant before it would hand over photos and passport information for the vacationing couple. (Fowler had entered the country on April 16, while Deese had arrived just days before their deaths, on July 6.)
The making of a manhunt
At the murder scene, investigators uncovered some disturbing details. There were gunshot entry wounds on both the front and the backs of the bodies. And a number of bullets were found lodged in the bloody dirt beneath — an indication that the assault had continued as the couple lay helpless on the ground.
The autopsies, conducted in Abbotsford, B.C., on July 19, catalogued seven separate injuries for Deese and five for Fowler, although the particulars have been blacked out in the released warrant applications.
At the time, the RCMP had no real leads. There was an hours-long gap between the last sightings of Fowler and Deese alive — from witnesses who had stopped on the evening of July 14 to offer assistance repairing their broken down van — and the discovery of their bodies early the next day. Investigators released a sketch of an unknown man who was seen talking to the couple around 10:30 that night, labelling him a “person of interest,” but later determined he was just another would-be helper.
(After police later zeroed in on McLeod and Schmegelsky, they found footage from security cameras along Highway 97, or the Alaska Highway, that showed the pair were already long gone — hundreds of kilometres north of the murder scene on their way to Whitehorse — when the first 911 call was received early July 15.)
It wasn’t until the morning of July 19, when police received a call about a burning pickup truck along Highway 37, 60 kilometres south of another northern B.C. community, Dease Lake, that the investigation started to mushroom into one of the largest manhunts in Canadian history.
The first officer found a still-smoldering Dodge parked beside a bridge with camping gear, including a stove, propane tanks and the yellow nozzle of a gasoline jerry can, scattered about the area. The partially charred licence plate revealed that the vehicle was registered to Kam McLeod.
The constable was preparing to leave when a motorist flagged him down to report that he had found a dead body in a roadside gravel pit, about 2.5 kilometres farther down the highway.
Fast-food mystery
The older, heavyset man with a white beard was lying on his back, bloodied and burned, his torn clothes revealing multiple wounds. The fact that he had been shot wasn’t readily apparent.
One thing that leapt out to the officer was the presence of what appeared to be scattered french fries and a red cardboard McDonald’s container on the ground between his legs. The odd discovery is referred to repeatedly across the warrants, usually prefaced by a single, blacked-out word, suggesting there was something noteworthy about the state of the food.
There was no ID on the body, but the man’s pockets were full of change. Investigators theorized that he had still been alive when he arrived at the gravel pit because of the mud on his shoes. They found 13 items near the body, including cigarette butts, a Molson beer can, a Red Bull can, and plastic flex ties — the kind that could be used to bind a person’s hands together.
The RCMP now had three bodies and two crime scenes, some 500 kilometres apart. But the burned-out pickup made them fear that Schmegelsky and McLeod might also have fallen victim to a killer.
Another traveller alerted police to the presence of a substantial amount of blood on the floor and walls of a rest-stop outhouse on the other side of the bridge.
And there were more discoveries along Highway 37: A trash can that had been set alight, and at another rest stop five kilometres south of the third body, a black and yellow folding knife and Kam McLeod’s employee ID from the Walmart in Port Alberni, B.C.
The warrant to search the torched vehicle makes specific mention of firearms, ammunition and “edged weapons,” noting that injuries on the newly discovered body implied a knife and a gun had been used. It also expresses a belief that “biological samples” could be taken from the flex ties.
A failed romance and a jilted girlfriend
An officer from a local detachment on Vancouver Island visited the family homes of McLeod and Schmegelsky on the afternoon of July 20. He was told that the two young men had left Port Alberni on July 12, with plans to travel to Whitehorse in search of work. They had last contacted their families on July 17 via text message.
McLeod’s parents described their son and his friend as “introverted loners and gamers.” Schmegelsky’s grandmother revealed that he had recently been upset about being rejected by a girl — McLeod’s younger sister.
Police asked if either had a gun with them and were told no, and that no firearms were missing from the family homes.
However, there were also indications that the pair were cutting links with their hometown.
McLeod’s girlfriend told the RCMP that he had left without saying goodbye. “Seriously sorry, but I’m not coming back,” he wrote in a text message sent on July 13. And when she reached him on his cellphone the next night — a few hours before the murders of Fowler and Deese — McLeod refused to say where he was and abruptly cut off the call.
The police tried to trace the pair via their debit and credit card transactions, but McLeod’s last purchase had come on July 12 at a sporting goods store in Nanaimo, B.C. (It would be days before the RCMP figured out that he had bought a gun, a 39-mm SKS, a non-restricted, semi-automatic rifle, along with a box of shells.)
Schmegelsky’s last purchase was $20 worth of gas at a station on the Alaska Highway early on the morning of July 18.
Attempts to locate the friends by tracking their cellphones were similarly unsuccessful. Schmegelsky’s phone had been out of service since July 15. And after the final text to Port Alberni on July 17, McLeod’s cell remained switched off. Police would later find his bent SIM card on the ground near the third body.
From ‘missing’ to ‘wanted’
The RCMP were still struggling to identify the third victim when a tipster in Saskatchewan reported that two young men matching McLeod and Schmegelsky’s descriptions had purchased gas at a Co-op in Meadow Lake on July 21. A local officer reviewed the surveillance tape early the next morning and confirmed that it was the missing B.C. teens — and that they were driving a new vehicle, a silver Toyota RAV4.
By late afternoon on July 22, police had determined that the pair were now the prime suspects in all three killings.
A Vancouver woman had called the RCMP after seeing a composite sketch of the victim that had been released to the media and posted online. She said it appeared to be her husband, Leonard Dyck, a 64-year-old botanist who lectured at the University of British Columbia. He had left home on July 16 to watch grizzly bears in the wilderness.
His wife last heard from him via text on July 18. She told police that he often slept in his car while on roadtrips — a silver Toyota RAV4.
The hunt for McLeod and Schmegelsky spanned over five provinces and territories and grew to involve hundreds of officers and volunteers, as well as the Royal Canadian Air Force. A total of 19 warrants were obtained.
The court submissions built upon each other, layering new details over the old.
An Aug. 1 application for access to online gaming profiles reveals that McLeod sometimes used the handle “angelofdeath,” while Schmegelsky at times went by “Bryerbrown123 [KKK].”
A different filing for Mac and SSID information made the same day outlines a July 25 search of the McLeod family home in Port Alberni, describing a number of long guns locked securely in a gun safe, but two more rifles left out in the open on a bed and two additional guns stored underneath it.
As the RCMP indicated in their September report on the homicide investigations, two firearms were used to kill Fowler and Deese and one was used to kill Leonard Dyck. The gun that was used on both July 15 and July 19 was the SKS purchased in Nanaimo. The RCMP have recently disclosed that they have since determined that the second firearm used — a “ghost gun” made up of scavenged parts of at least five different Chinese-made guns — was also legally obtained by McLeod on July 12, along with 750 rounds of ammunition, from a small store in Port Alberni.
A lucky escape
The warrants also provide the identity of a man who might well have been targeted by McLeod and Schmegelsky on the night of July 17, near Haines Junction, Yukon, two hours west of Whitehorse.
Kenneth Albertsen, a resident of Palmer, Alaska, told police that he had just pulled over and crawled into his back seat for a nap when a slow-moving truck inched to a stop 50 metres in front of his vehicle.
“They sat there for a little while and then the passenger door on the truck opened and someone stepped out holding a long gun. And that got my attention, right away,” Albertsen said in an interview with CBC News.
As the man with the gun walked into the woods and started to weave his way back through the trees like he was stalking prey, Albertsen decided to make a hasty escape, noticing another young man behind the wheel of the truck as he sped past.
The 54-year-old later came to believe that the pair were after the boat he was towing behind his own truck.
“God saved me,” he said.
Albertsen’s recollection of the make and colour of the vehicle didn’t match McLeod’s pickup, but RCMP have said that the timing, location and physical description of the men makes them believe it was Schmegelsky and McLeod.
The manhunt reached its apex following the discovery of the torched remains of Dyck’s Toyota outside Gillam, Man., on July 22, almost 3,000 kilometres east of the initial murder scene.
As police and volunteers manned roadblocks and scoured the surrounding bush, and military search planes patrolled the skies above, police hatched a plan to deal with the pair after their arrest.
An Aug. 2 warrant application mentions a “cell mate undercover operation,” with hopes that McLeod and Schmegelsky will “develop a bond” with the jailhouse operatives and implicate themselves in the murders.
But the Aug. 7 discovery of two bodies in the wilderness, just eight kilometres from the burned out RAV4, made such a ruse unnecessary.
The six videos that the pair left behind on a digital camera they had stolen from Dyck have never been released. The RCMP has described them as suicide notes, and last wills and testaments. The men admitted responsibility for the three murders, police say, but provided no explanation and expressed no remorse.
The mystery of the french fries found surrounding Dyck’s body also endures. If McLeod and Schmegelsky brought them along, they must have come from Whitehorse, the closest McDonald’s along their route, but an eight-plus hour drive from that scene.
News
Capital gains tax change draws ire from some Canadian entrepreneurs worried it will worsen brain drain – CBC.ca
A chorus of Canadian entrepreneurs and investors is blasting the federal government’s budget for expanding a tax on the rich. They say it will lead to brain drain and further degrade Canada’s already poor productivity.
In the 2024 budget unveiled Tuesday, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government would increase the inclusion rate of the capital gains tax from 50 per cent to 67 per cent for businesses and trusts, generating an estimated $19 billion in new revenue.
Capital gains are the profits that individuals or businesses make from selling an asset — like a stock or a second home. Individuals are subject to the new changes on any profits over $250,000.
The government estimates that the changes would impact 40,000 individuals (or 0.13 per cent of Canadians in any given year) and 307,000 companies in Canada.
However, some members of the business community say that expanding the taxable amount will devastate productivity, investment and entrepreneurship in Canada, and might even compel some of the country’s talent and startups to take their business elsewhere.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unveiled the government’s 2024 federal budget, with spending targeted at young voters and a plan to raise capital gains taxes for some of the wealthiest Canadians.
Benjamin Bergen, president of the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI), said the capital gains tax has overshadowed parts of the federal budget that the business community would otherwise be excited about.
“There were definitely some other stars in the budget that were interesting,” he said. “However, the … capital gains piece really is the sun, and it’s daylight. So this is really the only thing that innovators can see.”
The CCI has written and is circulating an open letter signed by more than 1,000 people in the Canadian business community to Trudeau’s government asking it to scrap the tax change.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke and president Harley Finkelstein also weighed in on the proposed hike on X, formerly known as Twitter.
We need to be doing everything we can to turn Canada into the best place for entrepreneurs to build 🇨🇦<br><br>What’s proposed in the federal budget will do the complete opposite. Innovators and entrepreneurs will suffer and their success will be penalized — this is not a wealth tax,…
—@harleyf
Former finance minister Bill Morneau said his successor’s budget disincentivizes businesses from investing in the country’s innovation sector: “It’s probably very troubling for many investors.”
Canada’s productivity — a measure that compares economic output to hours worked — has been relatively poor for decades. It underperforms against the OECD average and against several other G7 countries, including the U.S., Germany, U.K. and Japan, on the measure.
Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers sounded the alarm on Canada’s lagging productivity in a speech last month, saying the country’s need to increase the rate had reached emergency levels, following one of the weakest years for the economy in recent memory.
The government said it was proposing the tax change to make life more affordable for younger generations and fund efforts to boost housing supply — and that it would support productivity growth.
A challenge for investors, founders and workers
The change could have a chilling effect for several reasons, with companies already struggling to access funding in a high interest rate environment, said Bergen.
He questioned whether investors will want to fund Canadian companies if the government’s taxation policies make it difficult for those firms to grow — and whether founders might just pack up.
The expanded inclusion rate “is just one of the other potential concerns that firms are going to have as they’re looking to grow their companies.”
He said the rejigged tax is also an affront to high-skilled workers from low-innovation sectors who might have taken the risk of joining a startup for the opportunity, even taking a lower wage on the chance that a firm’s stock options grow in value.
But Lindsay Tedds, an associate economics professor at the University of Calgary, said the tax change is one of the most misunderstood parts of the federal budget — and that its impact on the country’s talent has been overstated.
“This is not a major innovation-biting tax change treatment,” Tedds said. “In fact, when you talk to real grassroots entrepreneurs that are setting up businesses, tax rates do not come into their decision.”
As for productivity, Tedds said Canadians might see improvements in the long run “to the degree that some of our productivity problems are driven by stresses like housing affordability, access to child care, things like that.”
‘One foot on the gas, one foot on the brake’
Some say the government is sending mixed messages to entrepreneurs by touting tailored tax breaks — like the Canada Entrepreneurs’ Incentive, which reduces the capital gains inclusion rate to 33 per cent on a lifetime maximum of $2 million — while introducing measures they say would dampen investment and innovation.
“They seem to have one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake on the very same file,” said Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
Some business groups are worried that new capital gains tax changes could hurt economic growth. But according to Small Business Minister Rechie Valdez, most Canadians won’t be impacted by that change — and it’s a move to create fairness.
A founder may be able to sell their successful company with a lower capital gains treatment than otherwise possible, he said.
“At the same time, though, big chunks of it may be subject to a higher rate of capital gains inclusion.”
Selling a company can fund an individual’s retirement, he said, which is why it’s one of the first things founders consider when they think about capital gains.
Mainstreet NS7:03Ottawa is proposing a hike to capital gains tax. What does that mean?
Tuesday’s federal budget includes nearly $53 billion in new spending over the next five years with a clear focus on affordability and housing. To help pay for some of that new spending, Ottawa is proposing a hike to the capital gains tax. Moshe Lander, an economics lecturer at Concordia University, joins host Jeff Douglas to explain.
Dennis Darby, president and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, says he was disappointed by the change — and that it sends the wrong message to Canadian industries like his own.
He wants to see the government commit to more tax credit proposals like the Canada Carbon Rebate for Small Businesses, which he said would incentivize business owners to stay and help make Canada competitive with the U.S.
“We’ve had a lot of difficulties attracting investment over the years. I don’t think this will make it any better.”
Tech titan says change will only impact richest of the rich
Toronto tech entrepreneur Ali Asaria will be one of those subject to the expanded capital gains inclusion rate — but he says it’s only fair.
“It’s going to really affect the richest of the rich people,” Asaria, CEO of open source platform Transformer Lab and founder of well.ca, told CBC News.
“The capital gains exemption is probably the largest tax break that I’ve ever received in my life,” he said. “So I know a lot about what that benefit can look like, but I’ve also always felt like it was probably one of the most unfair parts of the tax code today.”
While Asaria said Canada needs to continue encouraging talent to take risks and build companies in the country, taxation policies aren’t the most major problem.
“I think that the biggest central issue to the reason why people will leave Canada is bigger issues, like housing,” he said.
“How do we make it easier to live in Canada so that we can all invest in ourselves and invest in our companies? That’s a more important question than, ‘How do we help the top 0.13 per cent of Canadians make more money?'”
More money will land in the pockets of Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit (CCB) installment.
The federal government program helps low and middle-income families struggling with the soaring cost of raising a child.
Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or refugees who are the primary caregivers for children under 18 years old are eligible for the program, introduced in 2016.
The non-taxable monthly payments are based on a family’s net income and how many children they have. Families that have an adjusted net income under $34,863 will receive the maximum amount per child.
For a child under six years old, an applicant can annually receive up to $7,437 per child, and up to $6,275 per child for kids between the ages of six through 17.
That translates to up to $619.75 per month for the younger cohort and $522.91 per month for the older group.
The benefit is recalculated every July and most recently increased 6.3 per cent in order to adjust to the rate of inflation, and cost of living.
To apply, an applicant can submit through a child’s birth registration, complete an online form or mail in an application to a tax centre.
The next payment date will take place on May 17.
Keffiyehs remain banned in the Ontario Legislature after a unanimous consent motion that would have allowed the scarf to be worn failed to pass at Queen’s Park Thursday.
That vote, brought forth by NDP Leader Marit Stiles, failed despite Premier Doug Ford and the leaders of the province’s opposition parties all stating they want to see the ban overturned. Complete agreement from all MPPs is required for a motion like this to pass, and there were a smattering of “nos” after it was read into the record.
In an email on Wednesday, Speaker Ted Arnott said the legislature has previously restricted the wearing of clothing that is intended to make an “overt political statement” because it upholds a “standard practice of decorum.”
“The Speaker cannot be aware of the meaning of every symbol or pattern but when items are drawn to my attention, there is a responsibility to respond. After extensive research, I concluded that the wearing of keffiyehs at the present time in our Assembly is intended to be a political statement. So, as Speaker, I cannot authorize the wearing of keffiyehs based on our longstanding conventions,” Arnott said in an email.
Speaking at Queen’s Park Thursday, Arnott said he would reconsider the ban with unanimous consent from MPPs.
“If the house believes that the wearing of the keffiyeh in this house, at the present time, is not a political statement, I would certainly and unequivocally accept the express will of the house with no ifs, ands or buts,” he said.
Keffiyehs are a commonly worn scarf among Arabs, but hold special significance to Palestinian people. They have been a frequent sight among pro-Palestinian protesters calling for an end to the violence in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war continues.
Premier calls for reversal
Ford said Thursday he’s hopeful Arnott will reverse the ban, but he didn’t say if he would instruct his caucus to support the NDP’s motion.
In a statement issued Wednesday, Ford said the decision was made by the speaker and nobody else.
“I do not support his decision as it needlessly divides the people of our province. I call on the speaker to reverse his decision immediately,” Ford said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford reiterated Thursday that he does not support Speaker Ted Arnott banning keffiyehs in the Ontario Legislature because they are “intended to be a political statement,” as Arnott said in an email Wednesday.
PC Party MPP Robin Martin, who represents Eglinton–Lawrence, voted against the unanimous consent motion Thursday and told reporters she believes the speaker’s initial ruling was the correct one.
“We have to follow the rules of the legislature, otherwise we politicize the entire debate inside the legislature, and that’s not what it’s about. What it’s about is we come there and use our words to persuade, not items of clothing.”
When asked if she had defied a directive from the premier, Martin said, “It has nothing to do with the premier, it’s a decision of the speaker of the legislative assembly.”
Stiles told reporters Thursday she’s happy Ford is on her side on this issue, but added she is disappointed the motion didn’t pass.
“The premier needs to talk to his people and make sure they do the right thing,” she said.
Stiles first urged Arnott to reconsider the ban in an April 12 letter. She said concerns over the directive first surfaced after being flagged by members of her staff, however they have gained prominence after Sarah Jama, Independent MPP for Hamilton Centre, posted about the issue on X, formerly Twitter.
Jama was removed from the NDP caucus for her social media comments on the Israel-Hamas war shortly after Oct. 7.
Jama has said she believes she was kicked out of the party because she called for a ceasefire in Gaza “too early” and because she called Israel an “apartheid state.”
Arnott told reporters Thursday that he began examining a ban on the Keffiyeh after one MPP made a complaint about another MPP, who he believes was Jama, who was wearing one.
Liberals also call for reversal
Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie also called for a reversal of the ban on Wednesday night.
“Here in Ontario, we are home to a diverse group of people from so many backgrounds. This is a time when leaders should be looking for ways to bring people together, not to further divide us. I urge Speaker Arnott to immediately reconsider this move to ban the keffiyeh,” Crombie said.
Keffiyehs are a common garment across the Arab world, but they hold a special meaning in the Palestinian resistance movement.
Stiles said MPPs have worn kilts, kirpans, vyshyvankas and chubas in the legislature, saying such items of clothing not only have national and cultural associations, but have also been considered at times as “political symbols in need of suppression.”
She said Indigenous and non-Indigenous members have also dressed in traditional regalia and these items cannot be separated from their historical and political significance.
“The wearing of these important cultural and national clothing items in our Assembly is something we should be proud of. It is part of the story of who we are as a province,” she said.
“Palestinians are part of that story, and the keffiyeh is a traditional clothing item that is significant not only to them but to many members of Arab and Muslim communities. That includes members of my staff who have been asked to remove their keffiyehs in order to come to work. This is unacceptable.”
Stiles added that House of Commons and other provincial legislatures allow the wearing of keffiyehs in their chambers and the ban makes Ontario an “outlier.”
Suppression of cultural symbols part of genocide: MPP
Jama said on X that the ban is “unsurprising” but “nonetheless concerning” in a country that has a legacy of colonialism. “Part of committing genocide is the forceful suppression of cultural identity and cultural symbols,” she said in part.
“Seeing those in power in this country at all levels of government, from federal all the way down to school boards, aid Israel’s colonial regime with these tactics in the oppression of Palestinian people proves that reconciliation is nothing but a word when spoken by state powers,” she said.
Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, said on X that it is “deeply ironic” on that keffiyehs were banned in the Ontario legislature on the 42nd anniversary of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“This is wrong and dangerous as we have already seen violence and exclusion impact Canadians, including Muslims of Palestinian descent, who choose to wear this traditional Palestinian clothing,” Elghawaby said.
Arnott said the keffiyeh was not considered a “form of protest” in the legislature prior to statements and debates that happened in the House last fall.
“These items are not absolutes and are not judged in a vacuum,” he said.
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