On July 15, 2019, the bodies of 23-year-old Australian Lucas Fowler and 24-year-old American Chynna Deese were discovered about 12 miles south of Liard Hot Springs, in northern British Columbia. The bodies were found at an isolated spot off Highway 97, also known as the Alaska (Alcan) Highway. To many observers, this was the worst kind of bad news. The location is so remote that witnesses were sparse — although a few good citizens reported seeing the couple and offering to help with their broken-down van. Assistance that the dead couple allegedly turned down. Or maybe not.
The pair had been travelling and working their way through B.C. on a three-week road trip to Alaska. Liard Hot Springs is a popular tourist attraction in the far north of the province, about 100 miles southeast of Watson Lake, Yukon.
Police said the couple were shot and killed sometime on either July 14 or July 15. They soon revealed that both were killed by gunshots. Within days, the RCMP produced a composite of a person of interest, although police were quick to point out he was not a suspect. They pleaded for the public to help assist in finding him.
On July 19, 2019, four days after the bodies of Fowler and Deese were discovered, a burning truck fitted with a sleeping camper was found 32 miles south of Dease Lake, which is about 320 miles west of Liard Hot Springs. The owners of the truck were nowhere to be found. Two dead quickly went to two dead and two missing.
The vehicle belonged to longtime friends Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky, from Port Alberni, on Vancouver Island. Family members said they were travelling north to Whitehorse to visit and to look for work. Bad news was mounting in northern B.C. Authorities couldn’t help but think the two incidents were connected. They had their reasons.
Shortly after police arrived at the truck fire, a passing motorist told officers they had just seen what they believed to be a body at a nearby highway pullout. Police went to the scene and confirmed the report. RCMP found the body of a man little more than a mile away from the burned out truck. No vehicle was found in the vicinity, as might be expected in a place this remote. More bad news.
Two dead and two missing were suddenly three dead and two missing, possibly dead. Understandably enough, thoughts quickly went to serial murder. Shades of killings in the bush, ala Robert Hansen — with a bizarre Canadian twist.
But if you thought things couldn’t get more bizarre…
On July 23rd, Canadian police connected the three cases. The RCMP revealed that the two Port Alberni teens were now considered the prime suspects in the three deaths. Authorities added that the two teens — shown below in security camera photos — were last spotted in Meadow Lake, northern Saskatchewan, driving a grey 2011 Toyota RAV4, possibly stolen from the Dease Lake victim. That put them approximately 1,500 miles from the last B.C. crime scene. Driving nonstop, they could have made that distance in little more than a day. But since Schmeglesky doesn’t drive, that seems unlikely.
The two are, by all reports, still moving eastward. Their stolen RAV4 was confirmed in Gillam, Manitoba, burned out on the edge of the vast north, with only wilderness surrounding. They are, in all likelihood, trapped. There’s only one road out of Gillam. Sorry, lads. You’re done.
Whatever else happens, excuse me for feeling a little deja vu all over again. This bad news takes me back to a far distant 1982, in southern B.C. And another burned out camper, another burned out case. It can’t end well.
Yes we
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