The remote and breathtaking landscapes of Northern British Columbia, a region known for its towering mountains, dense forests, and winding rivers, became the grim backdrop for one of Canada’s most harrowing and enigmatic criminal investigations. In the summer of 2019, a series of shootings and a subsequent disappearance sparked a nationwide manhunt that would cover thousands of miles, involve hundreds of officers, and finally culminate in a forested riverbank where two young men were found dead, ending a spree that left three innocent people dead and two families shattered by betrayal and grief.
The ordeal began with the promise of an adventure. Chyna Deese, a 24-year-old free-spirited American from North Carolina, and her 23-year-old Australian boyfriend, Lucas Fowler, were deeply, madly in love. The couple had met in 2017 while backpacking in Croatia, and their shared passion for travel, hiking, and the great outdoors formed an instant bond that quickly became an unbreakable connection.
Lucas, the son of a New South Wales police chief inspector, was a wanderer at heart, driven by a need to explore every corner of the globe. Chyna, who had worked on a grape farm in Europe, was his golden partner in adventure. Their families on both sides of the world were overjoyed at their romance, seeing in the pair an endless capacity for joy and contentment.
In the summer of 2019, their dream itinerary was coming to life—a planned road trip from the forests of British Columbia to the icefields of Alaska in Lucas’s 1986 blue Chevrolet van.
On July 13th, the couple was captured on CCTV at a gas station in Fort Nelson, BC. They were laughing, embracing in the quiet, comfortable way of a couple doing what they loved most, cleaning the van windows before driving off into the Indian summer evening. Chyna texted her mother, Sheila, a few hours later, advising she wouldn’t have WiFi for a while, assuring her not to worry.
But the journey hit a tragic snag the very next day. Their van broke down along the Alaska Highway (Highway 97), near Liard River Hot Springs. They were stranded, attempting a fix on their own, beautiful in their optimism.
A fellow traveler, Charles, found them in distress and stopped to offer help. Lucas was approachable and chatty, insisting they’d get it sorted, and Charles, who was camping a short way off, promised to check on them come morning.
At approximately 11:30 that night, a road maintenance worker driving past the same stretch of highway made a chilling observation. She saw the golden pair talking to a bearded, downcast man who appeared frustrated, and that brief interaction gave her a deep, visceral sense of unease. The man apparently seemed to have come from a gray car nearby.
She didn’t stop, later telling police, “If you just get a bad feeling and that’s what I had, you just don’t stop.” It was a heartbreaking decision that saved her life but would prove fatal for the young travelers.
On July 15, at 6:20 in the morning, a trucker travelling down Highway 97 made a gruesome discovery. They spotted the lifeless bodies of Chyna Deese and Lucas Fowler in a patch of land near their van, their lives extinguished by bullets. Police were called to the scene, checking for signs of life that sailed.
Both of them had been shot to death, and multiple shell casings were found nearby. Lucas’s phone was missing. The gap between life and death was incredibly brutal.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) clamped down on details as they began a massive investigation.
The case was a murder mystery that rocketed around the world, a dangerous potential killer still on the run. The RCMP issued a police sketch of the mysterious “man with a beard” seen speaking to the couple. An American woman and an Australian man killed in a random, possibly targeted, act of violence while on holiday.
However, a subsequent witness interview turned the case towards a more chilling point of focus. Another man driving in the area of the murder moments later told police he had pulled over to take a quick nap and was passed by a small van. A man got out holding a rifle and walked towards him in a “hunting stance,” prompting the driver to flee for his life and becoming an eye-witness to a botched attempted attack.
For five days, the investigation yielded little progress, while the sense of dread intensified. Then, on July 19, a smoking gun emerged in a remote forest some 300 miles away. A campervan was discovered, engulfed in flames.
The plates confirmed it belonged to 19-year-old Kam McLeod, who had left Vancouver Island with his best friend, 18-year-old Bryer Schmegelsky. The boys had spoken about heading to Yukon for work and enjoyed their spur-of-the-moment trips and were known for their gun-hunting. A short distance from the burning van, police uncovered the lifeless body of an unidentified white male in his 50s or 60s, his faded hand having shot.
He had no ID on him, and the death was connected to the murder of Lucas and Chyna dis could only be speculated about by the public. Were these cases linked?
A frantic call came in from Helen, the wife of Dr. Leonard Dyck, a respected 64-year-old botany lecturer at the University of British Columbia. He had gone camping near Deese Lake, a thing he did often, but they hadn’t heard from him since July 18th.
Worried, brittle, and sickened, she recognized the published sketch of the deceased man as her husband. Although DNA testing was in the early stages, it was a crushing hunch.
Then the key took a dramatic, nasty turn. CCTV from Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, flashed on the screen on July 21. A spontaneous view captured the two missing teenagers, Kam McLeod and Bryer Schgrisky, ripping tape over the license plates and part of the bodywork of a gray 2011 Toyota RAV4—the very vehicle belonging to Leonard Dyck.
The police scoured the now-destroyed camper van and found a cache of ammunition that was ballistically matched to the rounds used in the double homicides. The bombshell was unleashed. In a press conference that sent a shockwave throughout Canada, the RCMP announced that Kam and Briar were no longer missing persons.
They were now prime and dangerous suspects in the murder of Leonard Dyck, Chyna Deese, and Lucas Fowler, considered armed and extremely dangerous.
The search for the teen runaways morphed into the nation’s largest manhunt. The hideous nature of the supposed crime transformed the investigation into a systematic grid search. On July 23rd, Billy Beardy and his wife, Tamara, were out near Fox Lake Cree Nation, north of a place called Gillum.
Billy’s sharp instincts, familiar with the unforgiving terrain, led him to a vehicle parked deep in the woods, smoking with fresh burning. It was the gray Toyota RAV4, decimated by fire. Leaving them with the potential evidence.
There were keys, pots, half-eaten pork chops, and scorched ground, seemingly indicating the pair had tried to burn the car and melt the evidence, peddlers leaving, attempting to squash their tracks. Now, as the RCMP moved in, it became impossible to return.
A frantic “lockdown” descended on the hilly town of Gillum. With a population of under 1,500, it had one sole road in and out on the side of the Nelson River. The Canadian authorities descended with hundreds of riot-clad officers, dive teams, helicopters, drones, and a network of heavy eyes.
Skirmishes. Houses were left locked. The usually peaceful community was on tenterhooks, suppliers of air.
Barbed EP’s eyes rewatched for a brutal pair, knowing they were somewhere close. The pair’s fathers, Kelalloger, about their boys being not killers, their family desperately reached out and pleaded for them to come home. This buffer of a confrontation seemed to snap when they sent a later text to colleagues, “Do not return,” as a type of final farewell.
The manhunt was consuming. In a final loaded statement from authorities on July 24, Fox Lake teen’s grandfather mentioned the pair had been seen near one of the Cree Nation settlements. But resources were shifting; an “exit strategy” for the search was mentioned by the RCMP.
Then, on the final day, with the help of Fort Beaver, Billy Laybaird was brought on in the search coordinated by the RCMP. His deep tie to the country was crucial in navigating the brutal terrain along the Nelson River.
The horizon darkened on August 2, when police found kayaks and belongings—Cam’s backpack (containing a box of ammunition) and a bag belonging to Leonard Dyke—along a river edge. They were shedding heavy items to carry a lighter load and pushed farther into the unforgiving wilderness. It was a taxing and critical moment.
They were hunters, they were there, but they were being slowly absorbed by the land. Day and night passed.
Nineteen days after the initial slaying, on August 7, 2019, around 10 a. m. , the search came to a conclusive end.
With Billy’s sharp instincts pulling him into a remote ravine, vehicles spotting a raven feeding in a densely brushed area, they found the bodies of the two teenage runaways. It was a death pact. Ballistics confirmed they had used the same SKS semi-automatic rifles.
The 𝒻𝒶𝓀𝑒 travel pain of distance had found a final stop. Errors were cool. On further search, they found the body of Leonard Dyck’s camera, showing pictures of the two boys armed and a selfie of Cam.
On the camera memory, the police discovered recorded “confessions,” explaining the teens took responsibility for the three murders. They were found in the videos—cold and remorseless—of a fantasy that the events had gone too far—a flight plan.
Assistant RCMP Commissioner Kevin Hackett pressed the RC off the magnitude of the crime: “It is one of the most dynamic and unpredictable cases in my memory.” Inquiries remain open. Questions as to why two teenagers from prominent, loving families—who were often perceived as kind and gentle—would spiral into cold-blooded killers remain unanswered.
Brier’s parents revealed their son had a troubling obsession with guns and the Third Reich, asking if his childhood trauma and introverted nature led his significant mental illness. At least one parent’s guilt impact on their child’s identity are the quests of a lifetime.
Chyna Deese’s mother held onto pieces of memory: watching the CCTV video of their gas station Embrace, seeing “let’s do this, g”. The families of the three murdered victims continue to grieve a loss that is less about closure than about the display of love they gave to their children and loved ones.
The manhunt ended in the lonely, dark forest of Manitoba. But the contradictions of those who disappear and the nature of pure evil remain. The case of the Northern British Columbia Murders will be a dark chapter in the landscape of the great outdoors, carrying on the legacy of those we lost, and a quiet, profound point of catchan insidious that we all share a primal vulnerability against unspeakable violence.
The trail of questions will forever linger, as will a city’s memory tracked by a raven in a ravine.
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