The Royal Canadian Air Force has joined the hunt for two fugitive teens suspected of triple murder, officials said on Saturday, backing up a vast search operation unfolding in Manitoba’s remote northeast.
The suspects, identified as Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, have been on the run for more than a week.
Authorities say they believe the two are behind the killings of 23-year-old Australian Lucas Fowler and his 24-year-old American girlfriend, Chynna Deese, as well as of Leonard Dyck, a 64-year-old Canadian.
Since Tuesday, the village of Gillam, near Hudson Bay, has been at the epicenter of an intense manhunt involving tracker dogs, a drone and armored vehicles.
The area features dense, sometimes nearly impenetrable forest.
Canadian Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale announced the air force involvement, which followed a request from Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Commissioner Brenda Lucki.
The C-130 Hercules on Saturday arrived in the Gillam area to assist with aerial search operations, and would have a federal police officer onboard to direct the search, the military said.
Police have said they could not rule out the possibility that the two suspects had altered their appearances and slipped out of the region, possibly with the unwitting help of an area resident.
However there were no new sightings “and no new information that would indicate that the suspects have fled the area,” the RCMP said on Saturday.
Earlier in the day officers began an operation canvassing all homes and buildings in the Gillam area and nearby Fox Lake Cree Nation of indigenous peoples, the RCMP said.
The fugitives are thought to have wound up in the village, about 1,000km north of Winnipeg, the Manitoba capital, after traveling 2,000 miles from British Columbia on Canada’s west coast.
The surrounding region is particularly inhospitable, with wild animals including bears, and swampy areas infested with ferocious mosquitoes. Locals say conditions are brutal, and that the suspects, if on foot and unprepared, would have difficulty surviving for long.
There have been two reported sightings of the wanted teens in Gillam, but none since Monday last week.
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