Dead assailants recorded videos taking responsibility for three B.C. murders
Credit to Author: Glenda Luymes| Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2019 22:13:59 +0000
Using a digital camera taken from botanist Leonard Dyck, Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky recorded several videos taking responsibility for Dyck’s murder, as well as the murders of Chynna Deese and Lucas Fowler, before they died in an apparent suicide pact.
The men expressed no remorse.
That revelation, as well as several other details related to the northern B.C. homicide investigation that gripped the country this summer, was made public Friday by B.C. RCMP.
A 13-page report released by police traces the path of McLeod and Schmegelsky from July 12, when they left their home in Port Alberni, to July 15, when they shot and killed Deese and Fowler, a young couple on a summer road trip, to July 19, when they shot and killed University of B.C. botany lecturer Dyck.
The botanist’s camera was found near the bodies of the two men, who committed suicide using one of the same guns used in the murders, near Gillam, Man. It’s believed that McLeod shot Schmegelsky and then himself, completing a “suicide pact.”
On the advice of a forensic psychologist, the RCMP will not be releasing the videos in an effort not to sensationalize the men’s actions and “to mitigate the potential of other individuals being inspired by McLeod and Schmegelsky to commit similar acts of violence.”
The report contains other details that hadn’t previously been made public, but it doesn’t provide insight into the men’s motives, saying only that Deese, Fowler and Dyck were killed for “unknown reasons.”
“If in fact there is a motive, it’s gone with the accused,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Kevin Hackett told reporters at a news conference following the report’s release.
A search warrant executed at Schmegelsky and McLeod’s residence in Port Alberni found nothing of note regarding “any pre-planning of the offences,” said the report.
Police told reporters the young men appeared to act as a “partnership,” as opposed to one being the leader.
They also provided more information about the murders. Deese and Fowler died of multiple gunshot wounds, with some appearing to have come from behind. There was no evidence of sexual assault.
There appeared to be some “escalation” of violence between the two crime scenes.
Dyck was found with injuries to his head and body, including bruises and burn marks. At first, police believed his cause of death was blunt-force trauma, but when the coroner arrived and his body was moved, they found a bullet entry/exit wound. A spent casing was located on the ground.
He remained unidentified until his wife Helen contacted police after seeing a composite sketch of her husband.
A video from a store in Dease Lake showed Schmegelsky and McLeod buying items, including doughnut packages, a Coffee Crisp chocolate bar and two pairs of gloves. Remnants of the items were found near the place Dyck was found, as well as a damaged SIM card belonging to McLeod and his Walmart employee ID card.
On July 22, a witness who knew Schmegelsky and McLeod came forward to tell police he “believed the boys may have been involved in the murders.” It was the first time police learned they may be “capable of the murders which conflicted with original witness statements from family and associates.”
In the videos eventually found with their bodies, the young men said they planned to kill more people and expected to be dead themselves in a week.
Hackett said the men appeared “cold … remorseless, matter-of-fact” in the videos.
The news conference happened three days before what would have been Fowler’s 24th birthday.
The Fowler family posted a letter on their family Facebook page before the news conference Friday, saying they “struggle daily with what happened and fail to understand why.”
Signed by Lucas’s parents and siblings, the note said they wanted to remember him as a fun-loving kid who “grew into a thoughtful adult who cared for his family and friends.”
They asked Lucas’s friends to raise a glass to him and Chynna on his birthday, Sept. 30.
“Obviously it will not be an easy day for us, but it is a day to celebrate a great young man taken from us all far too early.”
Security-camera images recorded in Saskatchewan of Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, are displayed as RCMP Sgt. Janelle Shoihet speaks during a news conference in Surrey on July 23.
On Aug. 7, Schmegelsky and McLeod were found dead in dense brush near Gillam after a manhunt that lasted three weeks and stretched across four provinces. The search for the men began July 23 when police announced they were suspects in the three killings.
The young men from Port Alberni were initially considered missing persons when the truck they were driving was found burned a few kilometres from the place where Dyck’s body was found at a highway pullout July 19.
The bodies of Deese and Fowler had been found several days earlier, on July 15, at the side of the Alaska Highway near Liard Hot Springs.
Various sightings allowed police to track the suspects from B.C. to Saskatchewan and then to Manitoba, where Dyck’s vehicle, a Toyota RAV4, was found on fire near Gillam in late July.
Officers converged on the area to begin what would be a two-week search. Police used drones, dogs and even had help from the Canadian Armed Forces to scour the remote area.
The search was scaled back July 31, and a few days later, a damaged rowboat was found in the Nelson River.
On Aug. 6, police said some items linked to Schmegelsky and McLeod were found on the river’s shore. The bodies were discovered the next day, about a kilometre away.
Photo of University of B.C. botany lecturer Leonard Dyck taken in March 2017 in Clover Point Park in Victoria .
-With files by Postmedia News and The Canadian Press