LIVE: Latest updates on Canada-wide manhunt for B.C. fugitives
Latest update:
RCMP say they’ve found several items on a shoreline in the northern part of the province that are directly linked to homicide suspects.
Dive team sent to investigate Nelson River in northern Manitoba, nothing found.
Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19, are wanted in connection with a triple murder.
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Latest update:
The RCMP in Manitoba say they’ve found several items on a shoreline in the northern part of the province that are directly linked to homicide suspects Kam Mcleod and Bryer Schmelgsky.
In a Facebook post, the police said on Aug. 3 authorities located the items about 9 km away from where a burnt-out vehicle used by the fugitives was found in July.
“That same day, a damaged boat was also found along the Nelson River,” the post reads.
Based on that information, the RCMP dispatched an underwater recovery team which searched 29 metres around the location of where the boat was found on Aug. 4.
“The search did not uncover any additional items linked to the suspects,” the post states.
Police say the RCMP remains in the Gillam area and no additional information will be provided at this time.
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Officials are still searching for two fugitives from B.C. who are suspects in the killings of Australian tourist Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend, Chynna Deese, and are charged with second-degree murder in the death of University of British Columbia lecturer Leonard Dyck.
Most recently, police had been searching for Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19, in the northern Manitoba Indigenous community of York Landing. On Monday, officers announced that they have pulled back their search in that area after coming up short.
“The heavy police presence in York Landing has been withdrawn and policing resources in the community will return to normal,” RCMP Manitoba tweeted.
Officials had received a “credible” tip that the two men were spotted at a garbage dump in the community.
The group that reported this sighting was the Bear Clan Patrol, a group of over 1,500 volunteers in Winnipeg who travelled to remote communities in Manitoba to help search for Schmegelsky and McLeod.
According to Global News, the two men were stopped at a routine alcohol check in the dry community of Tataskweyak Cree Nation in Mantioba, near Split Lake. The band constables did not find anything and were allowed to continue their drive.
“We weren’t aware of their status, of them being wanted,” Nataskweyak Cree Nation, Coun. Nathan Neckoway told Global News. “Apparently after they came to our community, that’s when they sent out that wanted [status].”
Officers have canvased over 500 homes in Fox Lake Cree Nation and the town of Gillam. On Wednesday morning, RCMP Insp. Kevin Lewis told reporters that the Canadian military is pulling out of the manhunt.
RCMP Manitoba tweeted that they have received over 260 tips in the past 7 days but none have “established that the suspects are outside of the Gillam area.”
CBC News also discovered that a former Sudbury, Ont., man now living in Alberta, Tommy Ste-Croix of Cold, helped the two men get their vehicle out of mud just a couple of days before the nation-wide manhunt began.
"I couldn't believe it. My jaw dropped," Ste-Croix told CBC News.
Alan Schmegelsky, the father of one of the men, has written a 132-page book tittled “Red Flagged” that reveals his personal mental health issues, harassment convictions involving his ex-wife and the impacts these events had on his son Bryer.
“My son and I have been treated like footballs. It’s time for some truth,” he told The Canadian Press.
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