REVEALED: How a vital piece of evidence spotted in a river led police to the bodies of 'serial killer' Canadian teens who 'murdered an Australian backpacker, his girfriend and a father-of-two'
- Nelson River Adventures owner Clint Sawchuk spotted a sleeping bag in willows
- He said he reported the sighting to RCMP who located the teens nearby later
- Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod were found dead after a two-week search
- Theywere discovered about 1km from the banks of the Nelson River near Gillam
A Canadian tour guide believes he may have helped police locate the bodies of the two teen fugitives accused of murder after spotting a sleeping bag in the willows.
Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod, both 19, were found dead on Thursday about 1km from the banks of the Nelson River, near the small town of Gillam, the centre of the manhunt for the past two weeks.
The two were the sole suspects in the murders of American Chynna Deese and her Australian boyfriend Lucas Fowler, as well as Vancouver professor Leonard Dyck.
They were found not far from where investigators found several items linked to the pair on Saturday. It is not known how long their bodies had been there.
Police said items found less than six miles from where the teens set fire to the grey Toyota RAV4 they were driving on July 2 helped narrow down their search.
Canadian Police say two male bodies believed to be Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19, were found by Nelson River near Gillam, Manitoba, on Wednesday morning local time
The two teens were accused of killing American backpacker Chynna Deese (right) and her Australian boyfriend Lucas Fowler (left)
Clint Sawchuk, who owns Nelson River Adventures, told CBC he spotted what he believed to be a sleeping bag in the willows near the river which he later reported to police.
RCMP would later investigate the area and ultimately locate a damaged boat and the two teens' bodies nearby, he claimed.
'I'm very happy it's over and they found them,' he told the news outlet.
Sawchuk told AAP earlier residents of the small town had been on edge while the teens were still on the run.
'I just hope they bring the little bastards to justice so everyone can relax,' he said on Monday.
Mr Sawchuk had been sleeping with a 12-gauge shotgun the past week.
The desperate three-week manhunt stretching 5,000km across Canada - longer than the distance between Sydney and Perth - ended on Wednesday local time in thick scrub in a remote area of northern Manitoba.
'We believe they are in fact the individuals we were searching for,' RCMP British Columbia assistant commissioner Kevin Hackett told reporters.
The town has been deserted for decades, and satellite images show only roads and empty lots
Officers came across a rowboat (pictured) on the banks of the Nelson River on Saturday. Divers scoured the river but came up empty, so police focused their attentions elsewhere
Autopsies will be held on Thursday.
Inspector Hackett declined to speculate what killed the teenagers.
While the pair are currently the only suspects in the murders, police say their investigation will not close until it is proven McLeod and Schmegelsky were responsible.
There is 'significant evidence' linking the scene of Mr Fowler and Ms Deese's death to the scene of Mr Dyck's death, he said, but no evidence linking the victims together or proof the murders were targeted.
On the same day that police found the items, they also discovered a damaged aluminium boat near the river near Gillam, Manitoba.
Police divers spent Sunday searching the frigid waters of the Nelson River for the fugitives' bodies.
However, the underwater recovery team did not find additional items, police said.
Survival experts predicted the teenagers would struggle to stay alive if they attempted to hide in the swampy, bug-infested wilderness around Gillam without shelter and equipment.
Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy said she is 'confident' the bodies belong to the suspects. An autopsy will be performed to confirm their identities and cause of death
Police narrowed their search to the town of Sundance, which closed in 1992, and once served as the hideout for a suspected murderer for three years
The search for McLeod and Schmegelsky spanned weeks and thousands of miles
They also faced the threat of polar bears, black bears, grizzlies and wolves in the area.
At the beginning of this week, police focused their search on Sundance in Manitoba, blocking all roads in or out.
Sundance was built in 1975 to house the workers of the Limestone Dam project and their families, and consisted of mostly portable buildings, trailers, with a few small stores and a primary school.
The community was closed in September 1992, and satellite imagery shows empty lots surrounded by roads.
Sundance is considered part of the town of Gillam, where the teens were last seen, and is roughly 1,800 miles from where the bodies of Deese and Fowler were found.
The heartbreaking saga began on July 15 in the western province of British Columbia when the bodies of Mr Fowler, 23, from Sydney, and Ms Deese, 24, from North Carolina were found in a ditch beside their broken down blue 1986 Chevrolet van.
The lovestruck couple was on a Canadian road trip.
Four days later Leonard Dyck, a 64-year-old botanist, was found dead on another BC highway, his Toyota RAV4 was missing and 2km away a Dodge pickup truck was set on fire.
Survival experts predicted the teenagers would struggle to stay alive if they attempted to hide in the swampy, bug-infested wilderness around Gillam without shelter and equipment
The Dodge was identified as McLeod's but he, along with best mate Schmegelsky, had vanished and the RCMP initially treated them as missing.
The teenagers drove the stolen RAV4 3,000km east along Canada's north to Gillam and on July 22 dumped it in bushland and set it on fire.
On July 24 the RCMP named the two teenagers as suspects in the three murders.
A huge deployment of police manpower descended on Gillam and more than 11,000 square kilometres of wilderness was searched by officers on the ground and drones, helicopters and Royal Canadian Air Force planes.
It appeared the duo had fled a further 2,000km east in the province of Ontario after members of the public, after widespread media and social media coverage, provided more than 30 false sightings and tips within an eight-hour period.
Searchers continued around the swampy, bug-infested Gillam wilderness despite no confirmed sightings of the pair since a July 22 petrol stop outside of Gillam.
'Our officers knew that we just needed to find that one piece of evidence that could move this search forward,' RCMP Manitoba assistant commissioner Jane MacLatchy said.
The breakthrough came on Friday with the discovery of 'items' on the shoreline of the Nelson River, about 8km from where the duo dumped the RAV4.
The RCMP would not say what the items were, other than they were 'directly linked to the suspects'.
The RCMP sent in dive teams on the weekend to scan the river and searchers went into the thick scrub around the area.
Police had not announced a single confirmed sighting of the duo up until Wednesday's press conference.
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