Alberta RCMP are linking four murders in Calgary in the 1970s to an American serial killer

RCMP said at a press conference Friday that Gary Allen Sreary was responsible for the deaths of four young victims in Calgary in the 1970s.

Sreri was the predator behind the wheel, targeting young women and girls before throwing his victims to the side of the road.

Police say he killed 14-year-old Eva Dvorak and Patricia McQueen. He also killed 20-year-old Melissa Rehorek and 19-year-old Barbara McLean.

Sreri died in 2011 while serving a life sentence for rape in an Idaho prison. As there was no family to receive his body, he was buried behind the institution where he died.

Police said Friday that he has an extensive criminal record. RCMP believe there may be victims, dead or alive, who have yet to be identified.

Sreri was a transient who lived between Canada and the United States, often changing her appearance and relying on pseudonyms to hide her identity.

During his time in Canada, he lived in Alberta and British Columbia, and police believe he may have committed other crimes in the communities he called home.

Sreri — born in Oak Park, Ill., in 1942 and convicted of violent sex crimes in the United States — was identified using DNA and criminal databases that helped trace his family tree.

Police believe there may be dead and alive victims whose names have yet to be released.

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In a technical briefing with reporters, the RCMP detailed each case and the similarities between the cases.

RCMP say every one of Sreri's victims has gone missing from Calgary. Their bodies were found on the outskirts of the city, and no attempt was made to hide their remains.

All were young and vulnerable, RCMP said. All taken during a night walk. Their bodies were found fully clothed. Each of them was sexually assaulted and died of suffocation. The person who killed them left traces of DNA evidence.

Eva and Patricia

Of the four cases now solved, Eva and Patricia, known as Patsy, were the first to be killed.

On February 12, 1976, students at Jan Bazalgette High School in Calgary left class to visit a friend's house. A missing person report has been filed.

The girls were last seen around midnight on Feb. 15 near 9th Avenue and 12th Street SE in Calgary, walking toward downtown.

Their bodies were found the next morning under the Happy Valley underpass west of Calgary.

The girls were fully dressed and lay together on the road. There were no obvious signs of death.

Witnesses were questioned. Investigators examined tire tracks found at the scene and conducted extensive toxicology tests, ruling out drugs as a factor in their deaths.

The manner of death was ruled as asphyxiation, but the circumstances of the girls' deaths remained a mystery for decades.

Then, in 2022, the RCMP received a tip about the case that would act as a catalyst to reexamine DNA evidence and ultimately lead to the identification of Sreri as the killer.

Melissa Rehorek

In the fall of 1976, Srery killed Melissa Rehorek in the west end of Calgary.

Rehorek, 20, who moved to Calgary from Windsor, lived at the downtown YMCA and worked as a housekeeper at a nearby hotel.

He loved the outdoors and told friends he planned to hitchhike out of town and west on the highway for a weekend in the mountains.

A Calgary Transit driver told investigators he may have been dropped off on Sept. 15 in the Bowness area off Highway 1.

His body was found the next morning in a ditch along a remote gravel road 22 kilometers west of Calgary.

There was evidence of struggle. An autopsy revealed that he died of suffocation. He was also hit in the head.

Investigators found that she was holding long black hair that was not her own.

The hair was analyzed but no suspect was identified.

RCMP said multiple people of interest in her murder, including known criminals in the area, have been investigated but no arrests have been made.

DNA evidence from Rehorek's body was analyzed in the 1990s when the technology first became available, police said. But it would take several years before a national database was created.

Barbara McLean

Barbara McLean, 19, moved to Calgary from Nova Scotia and worked at a bank.

The night before his death, he and his friends were at a cabaret at the Highlander bar.

McLean was last seen on February 26, 1977, walking alone from a hotel. Her body was found by a dog walker in the area of ​​6th Street and 80th Avenue NE, Calgary, about six hours later.

The injuries to her body indicated she struggled against her killer, RCMP said. Blood was found on his left hand, many marks and bruised foreign hairs were found on his body. He was strangled.

Hundreds of taxi drivers were interviewed because investigators believed he took a taxi home.

By 1977 alone, more than 600 men had given hair samples to the police for comparison. Many people of interest were named, but eventually dropped out and the case went cold.