The two fugitives chased across Canada for the July murders of a North Carolina woman, her Australian boyfriend and a third person left behind videos admitting to the killings before they shot themselves to death in a suicide pact, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Friday.
The taped confessions of Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, did not contain any information on a motive or expressions of remorse for the three murders, police officials said as they released a 13-page report summarizing their findings in the sensational case.
“If in fact there is a motive, it’s gone with the accused,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Keven Hackett told reporters, according to the Vancouver Sun.
The Vancouver Island teens were the target of a massive manhunt stretching across four provinces in western Canada.
In the videos they confessed to killing Chynna Deese, 24, of Charlotte, N.C., and Lucas Fowler, 23, of Australia on July 15 and botanist Leonard Dyck on July 19, without providing specifics, police said. The murders took place on a remote highway in British Columbia
In a 58-second video, Schmegelsky stated they were responsible for the three murders and they were going to march to Hudson Bay where they planned to hijack a boat and go to Europe or Africa, the report said.
In a 51-second video, Schmegelsky stated they had reached the river, which is “very big and fast moving,” and they may have to commit suicide to which McLeod agrees, according to the report.
“They again take credit for killing three people and express no remorse,” the report said.
In a third video they vowed to kill more people, the report said.
In a fourth video, which lasted 31 seconds, the duo said that it was their last will and testament. In August cops showed this video to Schmegelsky’s father, according to reports.
The BBC quoted Hackett as saying that the murders appeared to be “random and crimes of opportunity.”
The videos were recorded with a digital camera stolen from Dyck.
Ahead of the report’s release, Fowler’s family said on Facebook Friday that they “struggle daily with what happened and fail to understand why,” the Sun reported.
Friends of Fowler were asked by his family to remember him and Deese on his birthday Monday.
“Obviously it will not be an easy day for us, but it is a day to celebrate a great young man taken from us all far too early.”
