If this is correct, on Tuesday the RCMP learned of the sighting at the gas station which occurred the day before. Then shortly after that, Tuesday, same day, the car was reported burning. So it appears the RCMP were aware the suspects were in or around Gillam while they were still there. Which presumably could be the reason the RCMP continue to focus on Gillam and area.
BBM
“They both stopped in, and they came to my till and he just asked to gas up $20,” Keeper said. “And that Bryer guy, he asked me ‘Is alcohol allowed here in the community?’ because there’s a big sign at the truck stop there, ‘No bootleggers or drug dealers,’ he was asking about that. I said ‘No, it’s not allowed here because it’s a dry community.’ That’s it. They paid for their gas and they left.”
She said they didn’t seem suspicious and added
it wasn’t until Tuesday, when Schmegelsky and McLeod were named suspects in the deaths of two tourists and an unidentified man in northern B.C., that she realized she’d had a brush with accused killers.
“After I realized that it was them, I felt really scared,” Keeper said......
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A burned-out vehicle was later found near Gillam, on the territory of the Fox Lake Cree Nation, shortly after Mounties in Manitoba reported a possible sighting of the pair. At the press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Courchaine confirmed it was the RAV 4 McLeod and Schmegelsky had been travelling in.
Officers recovered the vehicle after receiving reports of a car on fire near the reserve...”
Manitoba RCMP finds burned vehicle of men wanted in connection with three northern B.C. deaths