Facebook posts prompt RCMP to search Clear Lake area for B.C. murder suspects

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This article was published 25/07/2019 (1983 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RCMP searched the Clear Lake area in Riding Mountain National Park Thursday for two teen suspects in a trio of northern British Columbia slayings.

Kam McLeod, 19, and his friend Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, have been charged with second-degree murder in the death of 64-year-old Leonard Dyck, a lecturer at the University of British Columbia. The two are also suspects in the double-homicide of Australian Lucas Fowler and American Chynna Deese.

Wasagaming RCMP confirmed Friday they searched the Clear Lake area after ”suspicious” Facebook posts were pointed out to them.

Sgt. Dave Porter said a local man resembling one of the suspects posted suspicious comments and pictures on Facebook, and a rumour about one or both of the suspects being in the Onanole area spread across the social media platform.

Officers are trying to reach the Facebook user to get him to remove the posts.

“After an extensive check for most of (Thursday) afternoon and into the night, we were able to determine that the gentleman that was making the comments was, in fact, not them,” Porter said, adding that part of the investigation ended Thursday night. “They are not in the Clear Lake area.”

Meanwhile, Manitoba RCMP said a man in a photo posted on social media that appeared to show McLeod holding a copy of Thursday’s Winnipeg Sun was not him. The photo showed the man — who strongly resembles McLeod — holding the front page of the newspaper, where his face was featured prominently above the headline “Wanted.”

“We can confirm that the current photo circulating online of a man posting with the front page of yesterday’s paper is not one of our suspects,” Manitoba RCMP tweeted this morning.

It’s not clear who the man in the photo was. It’s also not clear whether that photo is the same one Wasagaming were investigating.

— Staff, Brandon Sun