Police in Canada have used DNA evidence to link a deceased convicted U.S. sex offender to the killings of two women and two teens from almost 50 years ago, and they say he may have been involved in other unsolved homicides or sexual assaults in western Canada.
For decades, their deaths remained unsolved — but on Friday, Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Alberta said that they think U.S. citizen Gary Allen Srery, who died in prison in Idaho in 2011, had killed them.
If Srery were alive, he would be 81 and face murder charges, Superintendent David Hall said in a briefing Friday, saying police used “forensic evidence, witness statements and similar fact evidence” to reach their conclusion.
GET CAUGHT UP
Summarized stories to quickly stay informed
“For nearly 50 years, investigators did not give up in their pursuit to identify the man responsible for these murders,” Hall continued. “Identifying the offender does not bring back Eva, Patsy, Melissa or Barbara, but it is my true hope that their families are finally able to have some answers as to what happened to their loved ones all those years ago.”
Dvorak and McQueen were friends and junior high school students in Calgary. They were last seen walking together in the downtown area of the city on the evening of Feb. 14, 1976; their bodies were found under an overpass to the west of Calgary the following morning. The medical examiner at the time was unable to determine the cause of their deaths, which were classed as sudden deaths.
Rehorek, a housekeeper living at the YWCA in downtown Calgary, moved to the city from Ontario months before her death. She had planned to hitchhike out of the city on her days off and was last seen on the evening of Sept. 15, 1976. Her body was found in a ditch about 14 miles west of Calgary the following morning.
MacLean, from Nova Scotia, moved to Calgary six months before her death and worked at a bank. She was last seen walking home from a hotel bar, where she had spent time with friends, in the early hours of Feb. 26, 1977. A dog walker discovered her body a few hours later.
Rehorek and MacLean’s causes of death were ruled to be asphyxiation due to manual strangulation. Similarities between their cases led investigators to think that the same killer was responsible for both women’s deaths.
Semen was found at all three crime scenes, but the technology to develop a DNA profile did not exist at the time, an RCMP statement said.
In 2003, advances in DNA technology meant police were able to confirm the same person, who was still unknown, was linked to the killings of Rehorek and MacLean.
In 2021, the Alberta RCMP and Calgary Police Service worked together to use a tool known as Investigative Genetic Genealogy to begin building a family tree based on the DNA sample.
Meanwhile, the DNA found on Dvorak and McQueen was retested and found to match that found at the other two crime scenes.
After a cross-border investigation, and with assistance from Interpol and Idaho State Police Forensic Services, police were able to identify Srery as a match for the DNA found on all four victims. Srery died of natural causes in 2011 while serving a prison sentence for rape.
Srery was living in Canada illegally at the time of the deaths, having apparently fled the United States in 1974 while on bail for a rape charge in California, according to the statement from the Alberta RCMP. His “extensive criminal record” before arriving in Canada included offenses such as forcible rape, kidnapping and burglary.
He lived a transient lifestyle in Alberta and British Columbia for decades, “frequently changing his appearance, place of residence and vehicles,” the RCMP said, until he was convicted of sexual assault in British Columbia in 1998. In 2003, he was deported to the United States, where he was “convicted for sexually motivated crime” in Idaho and sentenced to prison, the RCMP added.
Inspector Brianne Brown said the Alberta RCMP was asking for the public’s help to fill in details of Srery’s life and movements inside Canada, adding that the gap of more than 20 years from when he entered the country to when he was arrested was “particularly concerning.”
The families of the four victims paid tribute to their loved ones in statements released by the Alberta RCMP and shared by Canadian news media.
“We would like to thank from the bottom of our hearts the team of individuals who worked so many days and countless hours on solving this cold case … without them we would still not know today what happened to our sister Patsy (Patricia) and her friend Eva,” the McQueen family said.
The family described Patsy as “your typical teenager, full of life, adventure and curiosity,” who loved sports, music and playing pranks.
Dvorak’s family said she “was loved and cherished by her family and all who knew her. Her bright smile and bubbly personality were contagious and lit up any room.”
Rehorek was “a fun loving, adventurous and hard-working person,” according to her family. “She was an honest positive person who trusted people.”
“The pain of losing Barbara so tragically has been a constant presence in our lives, but recent developments have finally brought us answers to questions that we’ve had to live with all these years,” the MacLean family said.
