As the search for two young fugitives wanted in connection with three murders in British Columbia stretches into a second week, a famous tracker says he doesn’t know where they could be and what RCMP should do next to find them.
Terry Grant, an experienced guide and outfitter in the Rocky Mountains and the star of the television series ‘Mantracker,’ said he’s surprised Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19, have not been located after more than a week on the lam.
• WATCH: Timeline of 3 murders in northern B.C.
“With the resources and the technology that the RCMP has out there and the number of people on the ground, I’m very surprised that there hasn’t been some definite sighting or [they] are captured by now,” he told CTV News Channel on Wednesday.
The two young men from Port Alberni on Vancouver Island have been the subjects of an intense manhunt after they were named suspects in the shooting deaths of an Australian man and his American girlfriend in northern B.C. last week. They have also since been charged with second-degree murder in the death of a 64-year-old Vancouver man.
Grant said he believes Schmegelsky and McLeod have either gone into hiding in the dense wilderness outside of the small northern Manitoba town of Gillam where they were last seen, they have already left the area, or they’re dead.
“It’s puzzling that there isn’t some kind of evidence, at this point, that they’re still there [in Gillam],” he said.
The dense bush surrounding the community, which is located 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg, consists of swamps and coarse terrain, beset by wild temperature swings and relentless bugs.
Grant said that, if the two young men have managed to survive in those conditions for this long, they’re probably getting “pretty desperate” at this point. He admitted that even he would have a “tough” time lasting for two weeks in that environment with only limited supplies.
If they didn’t survive, Grant said the unforgiving woods could make it difficult for searchers to locate their bodies.
“If the dogs got close enough, got down wind, yes, special type of dogs could probably find them, but in really thick terrain like that, if there’s not much wind or they’re not within a half-mile of them, there’s probably no chance of them finding them,” he explained.
When asked what he would do if he were in the RCMP’s shoes, Grant said he was unsure.
“I don’t know. Cross your fingers. Hope they come out,” he said. “If they haven’t showed up somewhere else, like the whole world knows about these guys, so there’s nowhere they can go where they’re not going to be seen and recognized, so if they haven’t shown up somewhere at somebody’s place or a store, a grocery store or something, then they’ve got to still be there.”
