Canada - Lucas Fowler, Chynna Deese, and Leonard Dyck, all murdered, Alaska Hwy, BC, Jul 2019 #13

[NJSleuth91]

I agree! Our mental health system needs some changes or this will keep happen unfortunately. Thank you for pointing this out I think a lot of people have a hard time looking passed what they’ve done and miss what’s been done to them (or not done) to make them do this so we can prevent others.

What they did was monstrous, and I get that a lot of people don't even want to think about them as anything other than monsters, because that's what they ended up as. But I don't think they were always pre-destined to be monsters. Maybe I'm just being overly optimistic, but after reading obsessively about this case, the two perpetrators, and general research into spree killers...I 100% believe this could have been prevented. And that just makes it even more heartbreaking.

My wife is an ex Children’s Services Social Worker and when I talk to her about these two she repeats a saying of hers: it takes a lot to ruin a kid.

That’s not to lay blame, or at least all of the blame, on parents/family. But it often feels like we as a society have a sort of “not my business-let the chips fall where they may” attitude for troubled kids.

I don't want to blame their families for this as I said earlier because I think there's always a rush to vilify parents and it's usually way more complicated than that. I don't think their families were that bad to be 100% responsible for turning them into killers. Plus these two were adults and made their own choices. But I think there's a lot of factors that have to coalesce before someone goes from being a troubled kid to doing something like this. Not even just factors from their families, which people always focus on to the exclusion of everything else, but schools, communities, peers, the overall culture and various subcultures. I think Bryer's dad really got at something our society needs to talk about (and has been talking about more recently) when he said that "His influences haven't been good, his influences have been Youtube and video games."

Ruining a kid a lot of times doesn't just come from actively harming them. A lot of it comes from just apathy. "They aren't getting into fights or doing drugs, so even though they seem kind of disturbed they're probably fine, let's just wait it out." "Some of my students creep me out so I try to avoid interacting with them unless I have to." "Sorry, our therapists don't accept your insurance, and no we won't give you a referral, just go look it up online." Sometimes small decisions like this can be the difference between someone turning out fine and something like this murder spree happening. And we see an obvious pattern of this kind of thing happening in Bryer's life for years leading up to this. He creeped people out, so they avoided him, and that just isolated him more and made him even more creepy (because social isolation almost always worsens mental health issues), and everyone just expected that someone else would deal with the problem eventually and he would turn out fine in the end. That is not how a strong community should respond to something like this. And this isn't an isolated incident -- we see this type of pattern happening over and over again in a lot of these spree killings.

Regarding Dre's post earlier thread:
"It’s becoming more clear to me that while white men are privileged in so many ways, the one thing they don’t receive is adequate mental health care or support from their loved ones or society etc to be engaged with their emotions and seek help for their issues with anger and hate. I don’t think there would have been more “answers” had they been found alive... I’m feeling the same way in these mass shootings as well- so much anger boiling over that could have been prevented.."

I very much agree about teaching and showing coping skills for anger, sadness, handling life's ups and downs, etc, for all people, especially children and teens, in their learning years. For both boys and girls. Maybe that's a great place to start.

I think that goes for all men, not just white men. In fact IIRC POC are much less likely to receive adequate mental health care. But I totally agree. A lot of times men, especially from dysfunctional backgrounds, get the implicit message that anger and hate are the only acceptable emotions for them to have. The overall culture, as it is today, only reinforces this. JMO.

 

[Link Haze]

IF they had been in the boat and it overturned in the rapids, any possessions they had with them would have ended up in the water too. Swimming in rivers can be dangerous at the best of times, let alone in a strong current. Getting to the water’s edge would have taken every bit of strength they could muster, especially if they had gone a few days without food. BS was wearing heavy boots which would have made his struggle even worse. Being immersed in water that is colder than your body causes significant heat loss, and being in wet clothes would cause the body temperature to drop even more.

Leaving the river in sodden wet clothes is one thing, but having nothing dry to change into would have sealed their fate. IMO they would have had no option but to seek shelter in bushes, remove their clothes and huddle together for warmth, but that would never have been enough to save them from the inhospitable conditions they found themselves in. If they were in the river I believe they succumbed to hypothermia.

This, to me, is a very good theory of the events leading up to their demise. It makes absolute sense.

 

[sandbar]

July 21 is actual date of tweet by AUS reporter Alexis citing Canada police are hunting for the teens after 3rd body located.

The "tip" and status change of teens by RCMP from 'missing' to 'suspect' is cited as July 23.

Why did AUS know the teens were suspects on 7/21 before RCMP announced to public on 7/23?

Could be time difference, maybe she was in AUS when she wrote that, because she also says that she'll be on the ground in BC, or something to that effect.

 

[SnooperDuper]

Medical examiner does the autopsy, all results are sent to lab and made available to RCMP. In this case, homicide investigation is BC jurisdiction, so they'll interpret the results in the context of other evidence.

Medical examiner does the autopsy, all tissue and fluid samples are sent to lab, the lab makes results available to the RCMP.

 

[puppyraiser]

Has it been confirmed if the belongings, boat and bodies were located near the north or south shoreline? The one video that shows the landscape (near Uncle somebody's cabin) seems to be shot on the south side of the Nelson facing east.

@aphoto can you shed light on this? You seem to be quite knowledgeable of events and locations.

 

[SnooperDuper]

So what could have made the RCMP feel that they were dead? Blood? Tissue?

And how can you be so sure, it’s not like they said “we found two full bodies with all appendages back in the bush...”

RCMP started publicly suggesting that they were dead around 7/31/2019 because there had been no sightings of them and face it, there are rugged conditions out there.

 

[Link Haze]

What they did was monstrous, and I get that a lot of people don't even want to think about them as anything other than monsters, because that's what they ended up as. But I don't think they were always pre-destined to be monsters. Maybe I'm just being overly optimistic, but after reading obsessively about this case, the two perpetrators, and general research into spree killers...I 100% believe this could have been prevented. And that just makes it even more heartbreaking.



I don't want to blame their families for this as I said earlier because I think there's always a rush to vilify parents and it's usually way more complicated than that. I don't think their families were that bad to be 100% responsible for turning them into killers. Plus these two were adults and made their own choices. But I think there's a lot of factors that have to coalesce before someone goes from being a troubled kid to doing something like this. Not even just factors from their families, which people always focus on to the exclusion of everything else, but schools, communities, peers, the overall culture and various subcultures. I think Bryer's dad really got at something our society needs to talk about (and has been talking about more recently) when he said that "His influences haven't been good, his influences have been Youtube and video games."

Ruining a kid a lot of times doesn't just come from actively harming them. A lot of it comes from just apathy. "They aren't getting into fights or doing drugs, so even though they seem kind of disturbed they're probably fine, let's just wait it out." "Some of my students creep me out so I try to avoid interacting with them unless I have to." "Sorry, our therapists don't accept your insurance, and no we won't give you a referral, just go look it up online." Sometimes small decisions like this can be the difference between someone turning out fine and something like this murder spree happening. And we see an obvious pattern of this kind of thing happening in Bryer's life for years leading up to this. He creeped people out, so they avoided him, and that just isolated him more and made him even more creepy (because social isolation almost always worsens mental health issues), and everyone just expected that someone else would deal with the problem eventually and he would turn out fine in the end. That is not how a strong community should respond to something like this. And this isn't an isolated incident -- we see this type of pattern happening over and over again in a lot of these spree killings.



I think that goes for all men, not just white men. In fact IIRC POC are much less likely to receive adequate mental health care. But I totally agree. A lot of times men, especially from dysfunctional backgrounds, get the implicit message that anger and hate are the only acceptable emotions for them to have. The overall culture, as it is today, only reinforces this. JMO.

I think another huge factor in so many of these cases is Social Isolation. So many of them are holed up in a basement, not interacting with others, "loner-types". They have few friends other than themselves. They spend much of their time on-line or in a fantasy game world, brooding, depressed and angry. A catalyst for violence.

 

[pentimento]

that would require that someone else murdered a couple in an old van and an older gentleman camping and framed Kam & Bryer who just happened to end up driving down that same Alaskan highway and then chased them into the wilderness and killed them too? the mental leaps that need to be taken in these type of conspiratorial theories are GIANT IMO

Wow. I thought Websleuths would be about discussing possibilities and alternate theories, not just hammering out the mainstream view. If you're just going to go with the scenario the cops have given you without any evidence, what's the point of talking about it? Having another suspect involved is not a conspiracy. This case makes no sense. Maybe the cops have something wrong. It would be nice to hear ideas from people and not be shut down. I have learned from my life that truth can be a lot stranger than fiction.

 

[sandbar]

My wife is an ex Children’s Services Social Worker and when I talk to her about these two she repeats a saying of hers: it takes a lot to ruin a kid.

That’s not to lay blame, or at least all of the blame, on parents/family. But it often feels like we as a society have a sort of “not my business-let the chips fall where they may” attitude for troubled kids.

or someone else' kids, their problem...

 

[SnooperDuper]

This is going to sound super dumb, but how do you use someone’s debit card without knowing their PIN?

Tap!

There is a chip on the card and you just hold it to the debit machine until there is a beep and you've paid. It's called tap and pay. Typically the bank lets you pay for purchases up to $100 this way.

 

[mtnstream]

IF they had been in the boat and it overturned in the rapids, any possessions they had with them would have ended up in the water too. Swimming in rivers can be dangerous at the best of times, let alone in a strong current. Getting to the water’s edge would have taken every bit of strength they could muster, especially if they had gone a few days without food. BS was wearing heavy boots which would have made his struggle even worse. Being immersed in water that is colder than your body causes significant heat loss, and being in wet clothes would cause the body temperature to drop even more.

Leaving the river in sodden wet clothes is one thing, but having nothing dry to change into would have sealed their fate. IMO they would have had no option but to seek shelter in bushes, remove their clothes and huddle together for warmth, but that would never have been enough to save them from the inhospitable conditions they found themselves in. If they were in the river I believe they succumbed to hypothermia.

The flys were vicious at the time they burned the RAV, that alone would have made them miserable without proper protection. It was damp (rained a day or two after?) without being able to fully dry off, they were possibly already hypothermic within hours of being in the bush.

 

[Link Haze]

Wow. I thought Websleuths would be about discussing possibilities and alternate theories, not just hammering out the mainstream view. If you're just going to go with the scenario the cops have given you without any evidence, what's the point of talking about it? Having another suspect involved is not a conspiracy. This case makes no sense. Maybe the cops have something wrong. It would be nice to hear ideas from people and not be shut down. I have learned from my life that truth can be a lot stranger than fiction.

The RCMP with the assistance of the Australian police have done a fantastic job so far. Withholding evidence from the public is critical to the case. They should not be underestimated as such.

 

[Moriarty]

I think another huge factor in so many of these cases is Social Isolation. So many of them are holed up in a basement, not interacting with others, "loner-types". They have few friends other than themselves. They spend much of their time on-line or in a fantasy game world, brooding, depressed and angry. A catalyst for violence.

And this explains in part BS's attraction to Nazism and the Azov Battalion...it's not just to be edgy and seem like a hardass and not to be messed with, although that plays a part too, I'm sure. But I think it gives some kids a sense of structure and order and belonging, albeit a twisted version of a healthy society.

I worked for many years in counter-terrorism, investigating East African extremism in Canada (Somalia, Sudan, etc.). Over and over again, the kids in their teens and early twenties who I talked to had very similar stories: dysfunctional home life (with absent parents for multiple reasons, often related to being newly arrived immigrants with little to no means to support themselves) and social isolation from other kids around them. They often felt like they had two options to give them structure and support and really, meaning: criminal gangs or religious extremism and head off to Somalia to join Al-Shabaab or Syria to join ISIS.
JMO

 

[mtnstream]

I think another huge factor in so many of these cases is Social Isolation. So many of them are holed up in a basement, not interacting with others, "loner-types". They have few friends other than themselves. They spend much of their time on-line or in a fantasy game world, brooding, depressed and angry. A catalyst for violence.

This!! So true, and it is such a simple thing to help others with, no TV or videogames required.

 

[srper2]

This!! So true, and it is such a simple thing to help others with, no TV or videogames required.

We need to remember they lived with family members, were going to school and graduated, worked in Walmart and had a group of friends online and in real life, they weren't just "holed up in a basement" and isolated from the world

 

[aphoto]

Has it been confirmed if the belongings, boat and bodies were located near the north or south shoreline? The one video that shows the landscape (near Uncle somebody's cabin) seems to be shot on the south side of the Nelson facing east.

@aphoto can you shed light on this? You seem to be quite knowledgeable of events and locations.

It is my understanding that everything was found on the same side of the river as the car. Two sources confirm that. I’m not great with directions so can’t tell you North or South without looking at a map which I don’t have time for right this moment.

 

[ldlager]

This quote from the Star article. IF this is what police said then I think they jumped the gun about declaring McLeod and Schmegelsky suspects in the deaths of Fowler and Deese. IMO a theory is not enough to have named them as suspects or wanted for the murder of the pair. Again I wonder if the lack of charges for Fowler and Deese (before Mcleod/Schmegelsky were found deceased) was because a lack of support from crown in what was presented to them.

RCMP say the case is still open and they are working to confirm their theory as to what happened​

‘Murder is not a private matter’: RCMP owe public more answers about suspected B.C. killers, critics say | The Star

From the same article "...Canadian law enforcement has never been particularly accountable, said Sean Holman, an associate professor of journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary, and that means the public’s ability to know whether police are conducting themselves and their investigations properly suffers..." RBBM

 

[aphoto]

Could be time difference, maybe she was in AUS when she wrote that, because she also says that she'll be on the ground in BC, or something to that effect.

She is based in the states. Wouldn’t have tweeted that from Australia.

 

[Link Haze]

We need to remember they lived with family members, were going to school and graduated, worked in Walmart and had a group of friends online and in real life, they weren't just "holed up in a basement" and isolated from the world

I didn't mention Kam and Bryer in particular. I generalized my statement as a similarity to other cases. They have not been singled out.

 

[SnooperDuper]

The RCMP with the assistance of the Australian police have done a fantastic job so far. Withholding evidence from the public is critical to the case. They should not be underestimated as such.

There's been no assistance by the Australian police: they sent 2 officers to act as liaison to LF's family but the Aussies were not at all involved in the investigation.