Politic?

Eluding Capture in Manitoba

"Up here, all the towns and communities, they look like ghost towns. Like, everyone's inside. There's a high level of stress, anxiety and fearfulness because they're being kept in their houses."
"Quite a few people have even left the area altogether, kind of waiting for this to blow over."
"Some of the people, you can tell by their voice that they're almost at the point of breaking down crying. You could say it's traumatic."
Wade Taylor, Bear Clan Patrol Volunteer

Winnipeg-based aboriginal patrol volunteers received a request to fly to Gillam, to meet with and reassure residents of the town, in an attempt to instill confidence that their security and safety is being taken seriously. The Patrol volunteers who responded numbered eight, spending their time meeting and reassuring people at their doorsteps, on the streets, at public events the communities organized. People are not accustomed to being told their safety depends on their remaining indoors.

It is not only the town of Gillam where the two teen-age Port Albini, B.C. fugitives, Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and 19-year-old Kam McLeod, are being sought by the RCMP, for second-degree murder of University of British Columbia biology lecturer Leonard Dyck, and as suspects in the murder of a young couple, Australian tourist Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend, Chynna Deese, as they travelled in northern British Columbia, but surrounding First Nations communities as well.

Police officers complete door-to-door searches overnight Sunday in York Landing, Man. (Gilbert Rowan/CBC)

Police are using tracking dogs and drones, and going door to door to every residence in Gillam, Manitoba. Abandoned buildings, sheds, are all being investigated. The search has an aerial component with a helicopter joined by the arrival of a Canadian Air Forces Hercules aircraft equipped with high-tech thermal detection gear. Mounties are checking homes, abandoned buildings, garages, anywhere it is thought that fugitives from justice could find shelter.

The two fugitives have managed to evade capture over a week, following the grisly discover of the bodies of the young travellers beside their vehicle adjacent the Alaska Highway, and soon afterward, some distance away, the body of the biologist, his vehicle torched. Police have appealed to the public for tips and they received 200, all of which have been followed. Some tips were posted to social media, not to police: "If the tips are valid, it can create a substantial delay on the response by police and be detrimental to the overall investigation", pointed out the RCMP.

The forest nearby Gillam has been searched, and nothing found. It was thought that if the two sought haven there they would be facing onerous circumstances of boggy forest floors, omnivorous insects, bear predation, but there are hunting cabins as well they could have accessed, and plentiful water and berries in season. Manitoba Hydro supplied police with information about their regional facilities, one a 600-room Keewatinohk Converter Station Camp close by Gillam, used during the construction of the Bipole 3 transmission line, and now vacant.

In Split Lake, Man., RCMP officers and vehicles take the ferry to York Landing at 7 a.m. Monday to search for fugitives Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod.

Photography by Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail

And then came word that the fugitives could be in nearby York Landing. The RCMP dispatched its search teams to York Landing. A credible report by a member of the community patrol group that two unidentified men had been seen at the remote community's garbage dump, but had fled when they realized they were being watched, led the police to converge on the community for an intensive search there. Nothing was found in the community of about 500 people — 90 kilometres southwest of Gillam which is accessible only by air or a two-hour boat ride.

So the intensive search has revered to Gillam. Questions abound: If the two were in the Gillam area how could they without any means of transportation make it to York Landing? RCMP suspect that someone in the area may inadvertently have given the two assistance without realizing that a manhunt is underway for them, which seems eminently unlikely since all the surrounding communities are well aware of the ongoing hunt for two killers.

Heavily armed police officers are searching the community of York Landing, Man., for B.C. homicide suspects Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod. (Angela Johnston/CBC)

On the other hand, a week ago Monday, constables with Tataskweyak Cree Nation, also known as Split Lake, stopped the suspects in their vehicle at a gas bar, as they drove through the community, before the vehicle was found burned near Gillam. Because Split Lake is a dry community, the constables checked for alcohol, and had no reason at the time to suspect who the men were.

"They did see … maps and camping gear within that vehicle they were driving", it was reported. So they might have been well provisioned to secure themselves in the wilderness area surrounding the communities. Under ordinary circumstances, perhaps, not in a northern muskeg forest facing all manner of dangers inherent in a true northern wilderness area.