Police officers searching for two teenage murder suspects in York Landing, a remote Indigenous community in northern Manitoba, are returning back to the neighbouring town of Gillam after their manhunt turned up nothing, according to Chief Leroy Constant.
Officers with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada’s national police force, were responding to a “credible” tip that two men fitting the descriptions of Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19 were spotted Sunday afternoon around 5 p.m. local time in the small Cree community, about 90 kilometres southwest of Gillam, Manitoba, which was the focus of a massive manhunt for the last week.
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“After a thorough and exhaustive search, the RCMP has not been able to substantiate the tip in York Landing,” officials with Manitoba RCMP tweeted Monday evening. “RCMP resources will continue to be in the York Landing and Gillam areas. We thank the community for their patience and understanding and ask them to continue to be vigilant.”
RCMP’s Emergency Response Team with assistance from canine units, helicopters, a Royal Canadian Air Force Hercules aircraft, drones, and RCMP Boat Patrol have conducted an extensive ground search in York Landing and surrounding areas and have not located the suspects, Constant said in a Facebook post.
A Royal Canadian Air Force Hercules aircraft has been deployed to assist the police in their search for murder suspects Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19. (CBC)
The Emergency Response Team will head back to Gillam and develop a plan moving forward, the chief said. Officers with the Major Crime Unit have also left the community, he added.
The 10 remaining officers were expected to leave the community by ferry on Tuesday morning, Constant said.
However, members of the Indigenous neighbourhood protection group, Bear Clan, will remain in York Landing, he said.
Images of murder suspects Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky recorded in northern Saskatchewan a few days after three people were found dead in B.C. (RCMP)
Schmegelsky and McLeod have been charged with second degree murder of Leonard Dyck, 64, and are suspected of gunning down two tourists, Australian Lucas Fowler, 23, and his American girlfriend Chynna Deese, 24, in Northern British Columbia.
The couple’s bodies were discovered on July 15 about 20 kilometres south of Liard Hot Springs, a popular tourist destination in the far north of the province.
Dyck’s body was found July 19 at a highway pullout about two kilometres from a burned-out camper truck, discovered the same day, near the community of Dease Lake, B.C. The burnt vehicle was later identified as belonging to McLeod and Schmegelsky.
Police say the pair then stole another vehicle and drove nearly 3,000 kilometres east before ditching their getaway car in the bush near Gillam.
RCMP have said the last confirmed sighting of Schmegelsky and McLeod was in the town of Split Lake, about 86 kilometres west of Gillam, but a 174-kilometre ride by car.
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