Police are moving onto another community in northern Manitoba as the search for two Port Alberni suspects hits its fourteenth day.
Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky have been on the run since July 23, when they were declared suspects in the deaths of a UBC professor and two tourists in northern B.C.
The two men have eluded Mounties and the military in a cross-country search that has led authorities to the backwaters of northern Manitoba.
The last confirmed sighting of the two murder suspects was on July 22 near Gillam, where a SUV police say the men stole was found torched.
Since then, police have searched the communities of Gillam and York Landing before returning to the former after a tip about a sighting near York Landing didn’t come through.
On Monday, Manitoba RCMP said they were setting up a roadblock in the community of Sundance, Man., about 60 kilometres to the northeast of Gillam, after a dive team spent all weekend searching the Nelson River.
The search was prompted by a helicopter spotting an abandoned boat on the shores of the river. Some have said the boat was abandoned there last year, but Manitoba RCMP did not comment on either what evidence the boat had or what prompted the roadblock into Sundance.
This is the damaged aluminum boat found by #rcmpmb officers on the shores of the Nelson River during a helicopter search on friday afternoon. pic.twitter.com/56Ez8alVTs
— RCMP Manitoba (@rcmpmb) August 4, 2019
McLeod and Schmegelsky are facing charges of second-degree murder in connection to the death of Leonard Dyck on July 19 and remain suspects in the double homicide of Lucas Fowler and Chynna Dease on July 15.
READ MORE: B.C. murder suspect’s father reveals details of troubled life in book
READ MORE: Ontario police investigate possible sightings of northern B.C. murder suspects
