Three killings in northern B.C. last month sent the RCMP on a manhunt across the country. Leonard Dyck, Lucas Fowler and Chynna Deese lost their lives. Now, Star Vancouver takes a look back at who the victims were, and how each ended up on the remote highways where, authorities believe, they crossed paths with two killers.

VANCOUVER—From the time Chynna Deese met Lucas Fowler, the question had been “when” not “if.”

Once the American and the Australian found each other and fell in love while backpacking in Croatia in 2018, the two were always talking, and planning their next meeting — whether that meant saving up to travel the far reaches of the world or celebrating Christmas with one of their families.

So it was all but inevitable that, once Fowler got a job working at a ranch in northern British Columbia, Deese would meet him there.

Last month, she did, and after a week of helping out with the cattle they set off on a road trip through the province’s north, where they were both shot and killed on the side of the highway. The RCMP found their bodies about 20 kilometres south of Liard Hot Springs, near the B.C.-Yukon boundary. The Mounties would later name Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, as suspects in the deaths, and also charge them in the killing of botanist Leonard Dyck. The murder suspects were eventually found dead in Manitoba.

In her large family, Chynna, at 24, was the youngest of four siblings, the traveller and the “life of the party.”

“I thought I was an adventurer until I met Chynna,” her eldest brother, Stetson, told a memorial service for her. “I travelled the country — Chynna travelled the globe.”

Chynna grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, with an older sister and two older brothers. Keen to learn, but in no rush to settle down, she earned a psychology degree, and immediately set off to go travelling, working as a bartender or on farms as she went, and making friends in each new location.

She did seasonal work all over Europe and South America, living in hostels or working at ranches and farms. Regularly, she would return to Charlotte and catch her family up on what she was doing.

“She taught us a lot, because, just as a free spirit, she was very happy. She kind of brought happiness to everyone,” Stetson told Star Vancouver. “She couldn’t help that — just people really liked her.”

There was no limit to whom Chynna would extend compassion, her sister Kennedy wrote in a Facebook post after Chynna’s death.

“She would have befriended her murderers, if given the opportunity,” Kennedy wrote in a post asserting that the Deese family is “not defeated,” by violence and past family trials. “She was building a beautiful life with a future full of love and hope and adventure.”

Most recently, that future looked like it would be built on her relationship with Fowler.

Last Christmas, Fowler had stayed with Chynna in Charlotte over Christmas, and he quickly came to feel like a member of their family.

The way the Deese siblings saw it, when Chynna went travelling with Fowler, she was spending time with her future husband: the person with whom she wanted to start a family.

“She said if her and Lucas were to have kids she would travel to Australia for the first six years so they would have Australian accents,” Stetson said. “We have no idea how serious she was, but I’m pretty sure she meant it.”

Before leaving, Chynna talked to Stetson about the planned road trip through B.C. — they agreed it was the perfect choice for July, when road trips through parts of the United States were sure to be sweltering hot. It seemed like an ideal plan, and safer than Chynna’s previous trips through some parts of central and South America.

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That she died and was found along the Alaska Highway in B.C. seemed to her family a cruel end to a love story. But they also know that if anyone could have found “something good” from the story, it would be their younger sister.

“One thing that we think of is, they were doing the thing they loved,” Stetson said. “They didn’t die alone. A lot of time people die alone. They died together as lovers.”

“If there was anything to die for, it would be to be travelling with your soulmate on adventures.”

Read more:

Final Days | Before Lucas Fowler died in northern B.C., he embraced a life there

Final Days | Leonard Dyck’s path to Dease Lake began with a lifetime of adventures

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