Murders of two girls and two young women in Canada in the 1970s linked to an American serial rapist

Canadian police said Friday they are linking the deaths of two 14-year-old girls and two young women nearly 50 years ago to a now-deceased U.S. fugitive who was in Canada from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s hid.

Alberta Royal Canadian Mounted Police Supt. Dave Hall said Friday that Gary Allen Srery may also be linked to other unsolved murders and sexual assaults in Western Canada and authorities are asking the public for more information that may link him to other unsolved cases in bring connection.

“We are now announcing that we have linked four previously unsolved murders from the 1970s to a now-deceased serial sex offender,” Hall said at a news conference in Edmonton, Alberta.

Police posted a video about the four women on social media and asked for information from the public.

Srery died in an Idaho state prison in 2011 while serving a life sentence for rape.

Hall said Srery was identified using DNA and criminal databases that helped trace his family tree.

Hall said in 1976 that Eva Dvorak and Patricia McQueen were both 14 years old and living in Calgary, Alberta, attending middle school. He said they were last seen together in downtown Calgary and the next day their bodies were found in the street under a highway underpass west of the city.

He said 20-year-old Melissa Rehorek moved from Ontario to Calgary in the spring of 1976 to find new opportunities. He said at the time of her death she was a housekeeper and living at the YMCA in downtown Calgary and was last seen by a roommate before she hitchhiked. Hall said her body was found the next day in a ditch in a community west of Calgary.

Hall said in 1977, Barbara MacLean was a 19-year-old Calgary resident from Nova Scotia who had moved west just six months earlier. Hall said MacLean worked at a local bank and was last seen leaving a hotel bar. He said her body was found six hours later just outside Calgary.

Hall said authorities at the time had not determined a cause of death for the two 14-year-olds, but said the deaths of Rehorek and MacLean were due to strangulation.

Hall said that although semen had been collected from all four crime scenes at that time, there was no technology at the time to develop profile DNA.

“If Srery were alive today, he would be 81 years old,” Hall said.

In a statement obtained by the Calgary Herald, McQueen’s family said in part: “This evil monster has caused so much pain and suffering to countless families. He took a piece away from each of us when he took our loved ones with him. We thank God for that.” He is no longer alive and can never harm anyone else again.

Alberta RCMP Insp. Breanne Brown said Srery had an extensive criminal record, including forcible rape, kidnapping and burglary, when he fled California for Canada in 1974. He lived in Canada illegally until his arrest on sexual assault charges in New Westminster, British Columbia, in 1998, she said.

Brown said Srery used nine different aliases throughout his life and frequently changed his appearance, location and vehicles. She said he obtained illegal identification and welfare through pseudonyms and lived a transient life while occasionally working as a cook in Calgary from 1974 to 1979 and then in the Vancouver, British area from 1979 until his arrest and conviction for sexual assault Columbia, New Westminster in 1998.

Brown said Srery was deported to the United States in 2003, where he was sentenced to life in prison in Idaho for sexually motivated crimes.

At his sentencing in 2009, one of Srery’s victims gave an emotional statement and asked him to look at her as she spoke in court, the Spokesman Review reported.

“You gave me a stroke because of the stress and damage you caused me in that bathroom. Do you understand me? “A stroke that irreversibly damaged my entire left side,” she told the newspaper in court. “You have harmed me…and I cannot be repaired. There must be a life sentence for you, just like I have to pay a life sentence for no wrongdoing.”

Srery died in prison in 2011.

“We know that Srery’s criminality spanned multiple jurisdictions and under numerous aliases over decades. The Alberta RCMP believes there are more victims and we are asking the public to help us continue to pursue Srery in Canada,” Brown said.

“It is particularly concerning that Srery appears to have had no significant contact with law enforcement in Canada from the time he entered the country illegally in the mid-1970s until he was arrested, charged and convicted of the New Westminster attack in 1998.”