CRIME HUNTER: Waking the dead in hunt for serial killer’s victims

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Are there more?

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It’s a question homicide detectives ask themselves if a killer has a particular pathology.

Investigators looked very hard at the sex killers of Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour and Christine Jessop for more victims. They don’t believe there are more but they looked.

Serial killers Bruce McArthur and John Wayne Gacy are prime examples of this.

Cops will tell you, yeah, they believe Gay Village predator McArthur didn’t start killing at age 55. For certain, there are more victims out there but they just can’t prove it.

Gacy got the big adios in 1994. The investigation is still not considered closed.

Now, detectives in Western Canada are taking a long look at serial monster Gary Alan Srery whom RCMP investigators say murdered Patsy McQueen and Eva Dvorak, both 14, Melissa Rehorek, 20, and Barbara MacLean, age 19.

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This spasm of horror took place in the 1970s when young women were blind to the monsters lurking behind a smile.

Srery isn’t talking. He died of natural causes in 2011 while residing at Idaho State Prison. The Illinois native was in jail for rape.

But before the killer fled south of the border, he spent time in British Columbia.

Cops have built a timeline of the killer’s movements as he traipsed the highways and byways of Alberta, B.C. and the U.S. hunting innocent victims.

Are there more?

***

Srery slipped into Canada illegally in 1974 carrying with him the baggage of a record for rape. A drifter, he moved from place to place working as a short-order cook and always, always hunting.

Between 1979 and 2003, he lived in different areas of B.C., including Abbotsford, the Sunshine Coast, Chilliwack, Vancouver and Surrey.

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It’s no secret that many young women have disappeared in the Pacific province. In addition to the missing, there is a truckload of unsolved murders.

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Best friends Eva Dvorak and Patricia McQueen were last seen in downtown Calgary on Valentine’s Day 1976. The next day the teen girls’ bodies were discovered under a highway overpass on Hwy. 1 west of the city.

Melissa Rehorek, 20, an Ontario native, was last seen by her roommate at a Calgary YWCA on Sept. 15, 1976. Her lifeless body was found the next day in a rural area west of Calgary.

She told the roommate she planned to hitchhike.

Barbara MacLean, 19, from Nova Scotia, was the next to die. On Feb. 25, 1977, she was with pals at the Highlander Hotel bar. The bank clerk was last seen walking home alone from the watering hole early on Feb. 26, 1977.

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A dog walker discovered her body about six hours later.

Like Rehorek, she had been strangled to death.

Almost from the get-go, cops suspected the same killer was responsible for the murders of Rehorek and Barbara MacLean. Seminal fluid was found at all three crime scenes but DNA technology was still years away.

In 2003, DNA linked the two murders but there were no hits from the National DNA Databank. And the murders were again on ice.

Three years ago, detectives took another crack at solving the horrific slayings. Using genetic genealogy, cops were closing in on their man.

Finally, the 1976 double murders of Eva Dvorak and Patricia McQueen were linked to the other two victims.

All paths led to Gary Alan Srery.

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Identifying Srery as the killer was just part of a labyrinth of questions. As in McArthur, Gacy and countless other animals, cops suspect there are more victims waiting to be found and identified.

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“So far to date, we’ve received well over 50 specific tips related to Srery and his possible involvement not only in Alberta but British Columbia and a few stemming from the United States as well,” Travis McKenzie, head of the Alberta RCMP Historical Homicide Unit, told Global News two weeks ago.

McKenzie added that investigators are “quite optimistic” they will identify at least two cold cases.

He added: “We are taking a look at his whereabouts and locations, throughout Alberta in the mid to late 1970s, as well as British Columbia, the Lower Mainland and Sunshine Coast.

“What we’re doing with the tips is we’re taking them, we’re analyzing them with the information we know and that we don’t know. And in the cases where they’re outside of the province of Alberta, we’re speaking with the local detachments or different agencies that would have jurisdiction in those areas.”

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Srery is now rotting in hell.

But the serial killer remains a chilling spectre in the lives of those he has shattered.

If you recognize Gary Srery or knew him by one of his many aliases, the Alberta RCMP want to hear from you.

For tips, please contact the Alberta RCMP Historical Crime Unit via [email protected] or by phone at 780-509-3306.

If you believe Srery may be associated with or responsible for a crime in your jurisdiction, reach out to the policing agency within that community to report the information.

Have a great Canada Day!

[email protected]

@HunterTOSun

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