"Our briefing has been that they were shot near the motor vehicle." Mr Fowler, who grew up in Hornsby on Sydney's north shore, had been working on a ranch in Canada and had just begun a long road trip with Ms Deese. He is the son of NSW Police Chief Inspector Stephen Fowler, who has since flown to Canada with other family members. The blue 1986 Chevrolet van bearing Alberta licence plates that was located at the scene where Lucas Fowler and Chynna Deese's bodies were discovered. Credit:Royal Canadian Mounted Police It took at least two days after the couple's bodies were found for NSW Police to be informed that the young man was the son of one of its senior officers. "To lose someone so young and vibrant, who was travelling the world and just enjoying life to the full, is devastating," the Fowler family said in a statement.

Canadian police said the killings occurred between last Sunday and Monday but that was no evidence to link the couple's deaths to a serial killer, which had been suggested by some media outlets. "It's not yet clear whether Lucas and Chynna were targeted or ... if this was a crime of opportunity," Sergeant Janelle Shoihet of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on Friday afternoon local time. "This is a unique circumstance and not one that I personally am aware of in recent years." NSW Police have sent two homicide detectives to Canada to assist with the investigation into Lucas Fowler's death. Credit:Facebook Witnesses reported driving past the pair on Sunday afternoon, and at least one stopped after seeing that their 1986 blue Chevrolet minivan with Alberta plates appeared to have broken down on the side of the Alaska Highway, about 1900 kilometres north of Vancouver. Sandra and Curtis Broughton, from Fort Nelson in British Columbia, said the couple were relaxed and sitting in armchairs when they pulled up on the side of the road to offer help on Sunday afternoon.

"Obviously their van had broken down, but they were still happy and smiling," Mr Broughton told AAP. After a quick chat with Mr Fowler, Mr Broughton, a mechanic, realised the young man had the problem under control. "He seemed like he had everything diagnosed properly. The vehicle was flooded out and they were going to try and get it going again," he said. The Broughtons resumed their journey home to Fort Nelson but contacted Canadian police when they later learnt via social media that the couple had been found dead. NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Jones speaks to reporters on Saturday about the young couple's deaths. Credit:Steven Siewert "I can’t believe that this young couple are dead now," Ms Broughton said in a Facebook post.

Another woman told local media that she drove past a young couple matching Mr Fowler and Ms Deese's description, and that they appeared to have broken down. Loading "We just saw their van on the side of the road and we saw a young couple, and the van hood was up like it had broken down and they were sitting in some lawn chairs in the ditch," Carrie Hawryluk said. Ms Deese's family told US media that they had been led to believe that the killings were "brutal". "Something happened on that road – some sort of conflict," her brother, British Deese, told the Charlotte Observer newspaper in North Carolina.

Ms Deese had recently left her home in Charlotte to visit Mr Fowler for the "branding of the cows" at the ranch he worked at before the pair set off "to travel through the top half of the globe", her family said. The pair met two years ago at a hostel in Croatia, and later travelled through other parts of Europe, Central America and Asia. They have posted images on social media of travels to Mexico, Panama, Jordan and Turkey in the past 18 months. Two officers from the NSW homicide squad, Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Walpole and Detective Sergeant Adam Childs, arrived in Canada late on Friday, local time, to assist in the investigation and support family members. "We will just be providing assistance to the police here and to the families here," Inspector Walpole said at Vancouver Airport. In November, Inspector Walpole was sent to Brazil to assist in the alleged murder of Cecilia Haddad, whose body was found by kayakers in Sydney's north.