May 18th 2024.
On Friday, Canadian authorities made a significant announcement regarding a case that has been unsolved for almost 50 years. They revealed that four young women's deaths have been linked to a now-deceased US fugitive, who had been living in Canada during the 1970s and 1990s.
Superintendant Dave Hall from the Alberta Royal Canadian Mounted Police shared the news at a press conference in Edmonton, Alberta. He stated that Gary Allen Srery, the deceased fugitive, may also be connected to other unsolved murders and sexual assaults in Western Canada. The authorities are now reaching out to the public for any information that could help link Srery to other unsolved cases.
According to Hall, the breakthrough in this case came when they began comparing DNA evidence of the killer with profiles on ancestry websites. This eventually led them to a match with Srery, who passed away in 2011 while serving a life sentence for sexual assault in a state prison in Idaho.
During the press conference, Hall provided details of the four Canadian cases that have been linked to Srery. In 1976, two 14-year-old girls, Eva Dvorak and Patricia McQueen, were last seen walking together in downtown Calgary, Alberta. The next day, their bodies were discovered under a highway underpass west of the city.
The third victim, 20-year-old Melissa Rehorek, had moved to Calgary from Ontario in search of new opportunities. She was working as a housekeeper and living at the YMCA when she went missing. Her body was later found in a ditch in a township west of Calgary.
The fourth victim, 19-year-old Barbara MacLean, had recently moved from Nova Scotia to Calgary. She was last seen leaving a hotel bar and her body was found six hours later just outside the city. Hall revealed that at the time, authorities were unable to determine the cause of death for the two 14-year-olds, but Rehorek and MacLean's deaths were attributed to strangulation.
Hall also mentioned that semen was collected from all four crime scenes, but technology at the time was not advanced enough to find DNA matches. He also noted that if Srery were still alive today, he would be 81 years old.
Alberta RCMP Inspector Breanne Brown shared more details about Srery's criminal history. She stated that he had an extensive record of forcible rape, kidnapping, and burglary when he fled to Canada from California in 1974. He lived in Canada illegally until his arrest for sexual assault in 1998.
Brown explained that Srery had used nine different aliases throughout his life and frequently changed his appearance, residence, and vehicles. He also obtained illegal identification and social assistance through these aliases and lived a transient lifestyle. He worked as a cook in Calgary from 1974 to 1979 and then in the Vancouver area from 1979 until his arrest in 1998.
Srery was eventually deported to the US in 2003 and was convicted of sexually motivated crimes in Idaho, where he received a life sentence. Brown concluded by stating that they believe there may be more victims and urged the public to come forward with any information that could help further their investigation into Srery's time in Canada.
[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]
