The police said they remained baffled about a motive.
Mr. McLeod and Mr. Schmegelsky had been friends since elementary school. The latter reportedly collected Nazi paraphernalia and may have been sympathetic to Nazi ideology, but his father, Al Schmegelsky, denied that. He told the Canadian news media that his son had been on “a suicide mission.”
Al Schmegelsky said his son had a passion for military battle video games, and had suffered emotional problems after his parents divorced when he was 5. “He wants his hurt to end,” the father told the Canadian Press news agency last month. “They’re going to go out in a blaze of glory.”
The suspects, whom the police initially considered to be missing, left their home in Port Alberni, British Columbia, a lumber- and paper-mill town, on July 12, telling relatives and friends they planned to look for work in Alberta.
The couple who were killed — Mr. Fowler of Sydney, Australia, and Ms. Deese — had been on a road trip in northern British Columbia when their van broke down on July 14. They died of gunshots, and their bodies were discovered near the van.
A few days later, the police discovered the body of Mr. Dyck, a Vancouver botanist, on a highway about 300 miles away. The youths’ burnt-out camping truck was found in the vicinity.
With three people found dead, the Canadian police then warned that the missing youths were considered armed and dangerous.
They combed thousands of square miles of territory and searched for days in the dense wilderness of northern Manitoba, which is peppered by swamps and inhabited by wild animals. After discovering a boat, a police dive team trawled the Nelson River, northeast of Gillam, Manitoba, hoping for a clue on where the suspects may have fled.
Source : Nytimes
