Manhunt suspects were inadvertently let go last week—nationwide search continues into day eight

During a routine alcohol check-in a dry indigenous community, fugitives Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod were stopped last week.

Only to be let go.

The boys were stopped at a Cree reserve near Split Lake by local constables. This was after the pair burned their first vehicle which was to be found near the murdered body of professor emeritus at UBC, Leonard Dyck.

It has since confirmed the constable saw “maps and camping gear within that vehicle that they were driving.”

“We weren’t aware of their status, of them being wanted,” band councillor Nathan Neckoway said. “Apparently after they came to our community, that’s when they sent out that wanted [status].”

The RCMP has come out against suggestions that Schmegelsky and McLeod were apprehended by RCMP.

By now, it has been two days since the last “credible tip” saw the RCMP—aided by multiple forms of law enforcement including a canine unit and the Royal Canadian Air Force—scouring the rough terrain surrounding York Landing, Manitoba on Sunday.

The tip came from volunteers of Bear Clan Patrol, an Indigenous watch group, who said they saw two men matching the descriptions of Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod scavenging for food in a local dump.

“That advice still holds, RCMP said, despite a “thorough and exhaustive” search of the York Landing area turning up empty,” reports Global News’s Rachael D’Amore.

Unfortunately, the RCMP has not been able to “substantiate the tip” and the two suspects remain at large.

The hectic search on Sunday saw many York Landing citizens asked to stay indoors and lock their doors. While the RCMP are currently scaling back their efforts in the area to broaden their search, they ask the citizens to remain watchful and to be careful.

Schmegelsky and McLeod are still considered armed and very dangerous, having currently been charged with the death of Leonard Dyck, as well as being the primary suspects in the double homicide that ended the lives of Australian Lucas Fowler and American Chynna Deese.