AUG 7, 2019
RCMP say they have found two bodies thought to be those of fugitives Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod, who are wanted in the deaths of three people in B.C. and the subjects of a massive manhunt that spanned much of Western Canada.
In a news conference Wednesday, Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy, the commanding officer for the Manitoba RCMP, said police had found the bodies eight kilometres from a burned vehicle in northern Manitoba linked to the pair.
“We are confident these are the two suspects,” Assistant Commissioner MacLatchy said in Winnipeg, referring to Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19, both of the Vancouver Island community of Port Alberni.
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However, she added autopsies were pending and she could not comment on their cause of death.
She said the bodies were found in “dense terrain" by RCMP members doing a foot search.
“There’s a certain amount of relief we were able to locate these people,” she said, adding she hoped the development would offer “an opportunity to exhale” for residents of the region that has seen a search by police backed by military aircraft.
The assistant commissioner noted that Friday’s discovery of items linked to the suspects that RCMP have yet to describe allowed police searchers to focus in on “high-probability areas” leading to the discovery Wednesday morning of two male bodies in the dense brush, within one kilometre from where the items were found.
She said this was about eight kilometres from where their burnt vehicle was found.
Two bodies thought to be B.C. fugitives found in Northern Manitoba: RCMP