A 24-year-old man was convicted of killing three women and a teenage girl in northern British Columbia, making him one of Canada’s youngest serial killers.
Cody Legebokoff was convicted on Thursday on four counts of first-degree murder after a trial that heard gruesome details about the circumstances of the victims’ deaths and testimony from Legebokoff himself.
He was convicted of killing Jill Stuchenko; 35; Cynthia Maas, 35; Natasha Montgomery, 23, and Loren Leslie, 15.
Legebokoff was just 19 years old when he killed his first victim in Prince George.
Legebokoff’s victims fit a familiar profile of vulnerability in the form of poverty and addiction; three were drug users who had turned to sex work in Prince George, according to testimony.
Leslie, who had a rare eye condition that impaired her vision, struggled with mental illness.
However, beyond that, the trial did not reveal what motivated Legebokoff, who had an apparently typical upbringing in Fort St James, British Columbia, but had become a frequent user of crack cocaine by the time of the murders.
He admitted he was present when each victim died, but denied killing any of them.
Legebokoff killed his first victim in the fall of 2009. Stuchenko was last seen on Oct. 9 of that year and her badly beaten body was found a month later half buried in a gravel pit in the outskirts of Prince George. Legebokoff’s DNA was found on Stuchenko’s body, and her DNA was found in Legebokoff’s apartment.
He killed again a year later. Montgomery was last seen leaving a friend’s house on Aug. 31 or Sept. 1, 2010. Her body was never found, but her DNA was discovered in numerous spots during a search of Legebokoff’s apartment.
Maas vanished on Sept. 10, 2010. Her body was found a month later in a wooded park and her DNA was also found where Legebokoff was living.
Leslie was murdered on Nov. 27, 2010, and the circumstances of her death triggered Legebokoff’s arrest. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer spotted Legebokoff’s truck speeding out of a remote logging road near Vanderhoof, British Columbia.
At first, Legebokoff claimed he was poaching deer, prompting the police to call in a conservation officer. When the officer ventured up the logging road where Legebokoff was first spotted, he found Leslie’s bloody body in a snowy gravel pit.
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