DAWSON CREEK, B.C. — As a Canada-wide manhunt noose tightens around two B.C. men charged in the death of a man on a northern highway death and suspected in two others, a mood of fear has gripped the province's north.
Canada-wide warrants have been issued for Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, charged with second degree murder in connection with the death of the man, Leonard Dyck, who was found a few kilometres from the teens' burned-out pickup truck on Highway 37 near Dease Lake July 19.
The Port Alberni childhood friends are also suspects in the killings of American Chynna Deese and Australian Lucas Fowler. Their bodies were found along the Alaska Highway on July 15 near a van they had been travelling in. Charges have yet to be announced in that investigation.
They may be in Manitoba but until they're caught, people remain on edge.
McLeod and Schmegelsky — best friends since elementary school — had left Port Alberni for Whitehorse July 12 to find work, Schmegelsky's grandmother Carol Starkey has said.
If they had taken the ferry to Prince Rupert, the route to Whitehorse is up Highway 37 through Dease Lake.
However, police had reports of them being seen travelling south from a general store in Dease Lake at about 3:15 p.m. last Thursday.
In Dawson Creek, people believe the pair continued north from Dease Lake to cross the top of B.C through the Yukon and then came down the Alaska Highway where they might have met Deese and Fowler.
And that route would have put them on a path for Dawson Creek where the road turns east for a route across northern Alberta and into Saskatchewan where the pair have been reportedly seen.
If that's so, the pair could have driven past the top of retired Dawson Creek businesswoman Marg Forbes' driveway at Mile 6 of the Alaska Highway. Now, when someone arrives at her door, she grabs the phone to call police while checking to see who's there.
"I'm absolutely terrified," Forbes said. "I thought I lived in the safest place on earth.
"All the innocence of the Alaska Highway has been taken away."
Forbes believes the wanted men would shy away from populated centres and stick to northern roads.
Northern B.C.'s biggest urban centre is Prince George, 1,200 kilometres by road from Vancouver and 406 kilometres south of Dawson Creek. The road between them is isolated country, travelled by tourists, heavily laden logging trucks and heavy industry traffic, serving the resource-rich northeast.
And in the summer months, the road is densely populated with tourists off on their Alaska Highway adventure into the Yukon.
Now, however, the road is a little less populated. The roadside attraction pullouts are empty; people aren't pulling of to the side for a rest of look at the view.
Among them are Gerry Lemire and Connie Newton. Newton is from Leduc, Alberta, but lives part of the year in Arizona, from whence she hails.
They travel in a mobile home marked up with NASA symbols, a legacy of the vehicle's former owner, a NASA engineer. The vehicle attracted the curious, including a woman who told them of seeing a burned out vehicle near Dease Lake.
"We're not going to stop for strangers," Newton said outside the McLeod Lake General Store.
Further up the road in Chetwynd, local chamber of commerce manager Naomi Larsen echoes Forbes' fears. She's thinking twice about going out on the road until there's some more assurances the killers have been caught.
"It's unnerving when you're in a small town," she said. "It's a terrible fear. At the same time, you can't stay inside and lock your doors forever."
Dawson Creek is Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway, built by the U.S. Army in World War II to move troops north."
Michael and Lisa Dawson of Sydney, Australia, were embarking on their trip north Thursday morning.
"There's a lot of trepidation and fear involved," Michael said, noting they live about 30 kilometres from Fowler's father, a police officer now in Canada.
"It was upsetting because he was the police chief's son," Lisa said.
Across the parking lot, Jim and Rita Sherman from Garden City, Idaho, were readying their RV to head north.
They're a little less afraid, saying they stay in secured RV parks and that staff at those parks have updated them on the situation every step of the way since they entered Canada.
"This is a lot of country and our odds of running into these guys are slim to none," Rita said.
Tourism Dawson Creek general manager Ryan MacIvor said people should be cautious whenever they travel, noting some 300,000 people travel the highway each year.
"This is a very one-off, tragic event," said MacIvor, whose father-in-law once owned the van in which Fowler and Deese were traveling. It was sold at auction after his wife's father's death last year.
