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

Alberta RCMP have solved four historic murders from the 1970s, linking them to a single man — a serial killer who police believe may have committed a violent sex crime before his death in an Idaho prison in 2011.

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.

RCMP said he was a charismatic killer who often treated his victims with kindness before turning to violence.

Police say DNA evidence confirms 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.

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.

He has a long criminal record dating back to 1966 for violent sex crimes against women.

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

Sreri — born in Oak Park, Ill., in 1942 — was identified using DNA and criminal databases that helped trace his family tree.

RCMP said his name was never released during the decades-long investigation and only DNA evidence and an ancestry investigation linked him to the murder.

Police say Gary Allen Sreri, who died in 2011, was responsible for the deaths of four young victims in Calgary in the 1970s. (Alberta RCMP)

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

“For more than 40 years, investigators have not given up on their pursuit of those responsible for these murders,” said Supt. David Hall, officer in charge of the Alberta RCMP's Serious Crimes Unit, said in a statement.

“Identifying the culprit will not bring back Eva, Patsy, Melissa or Barbara. However, we hope families can get some answers about what happened to their loved ones all those years ago.”

In a technical briefing with reporters, the RCMP detailed each of the four cases and their similarities.

Each of the victims disappeared from Calgary. Their bodies were found on the outskirts of the city, and no attempt was made to hide their remains.

Everyone was young and vulnerable. 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.

DNA binding

The killer was eventually identified by mapping his family tree.

Evidence from all four victims was sent to the RCMP's National Forensic Laboratory for testing, but DNA profiling technology was not available at the time.

In 2003, with improvements in DNA analysis, police were able to confirm that the same suspect was linked to the murders of Rehorek and McLean.

At that time, the suspect's DNA was compared to the National DNA Data Bank, but no match was found. At the time, the unnamed killer was designated as “Private A.”

The profile hasn't been a hit for over 20 years. Then in 2021, the RCMP and Calgary police partnered to use investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) to identify a suspect. The database relies on genetic patterns to identify potential relatives of unknown suspects.

RCMP investigators have re-examined artifacts they seized more than 45 years ago. They worked with the RCMP lab and Parabon NanoLabs to develop a single profile loaded into GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA.

Genealogists working in partnership with the RCMP began building a family tree based on the profile and identified Sreeri as a match.

In September 2023, Idaho State Police confirmed that Sreri's DNA matched the profile of an unidentified male in the Alberta murder.

The resulting investigation, which took RCMP investigators from Alberta, BC and several US states, confirmed that he was the killer.

Police learned that Sreri entered Canada illegally in the early 1970s and was later deported to the United States.

Heavy drift

The eldest of three children, he moved with his family from Illinois to California in the mid-1950s, where he graduated from high school.

He had several children with his wife of nine years, but later divorced. Former partners described him to police as charming.

Sreri was a violent drifter in and out of prison, rarely working, moving often, and relying on false names.

He often worked as a cook under the table.

In Canada, he often lived on welfare or worked as a manual laborer. Police are investigating speculation that he may have served as a ferryman in the B.C.

RCMP Insp. Brene Brown at Friday's press conference with pictures of Sreeri. (Trevor Wilson/CBC)

Former partners described him to police as charming. Victims who survived his crime described him as violent and intimidating.

His criminal history dates back to the 1960s in Los Angeles, when he was charged with petty theft. He was arrested in the same city in 1965 for aggravated sexual assault and convicted of aggravated assault, kidnapping and kidnapping.

He spent a total of seven years in prison, including his sentence at San Quentin.

RCMP say he crossed into Canada illegally in 1974 after posting bail on rape charges in California. He appeared in Calgary in 1976 and lived in the city for at least two years.

Sreri lived in Alberta and British Columbia from the mid-1970s until her deportation in 2003.

Investigators said they were concerned about the years he had little contact with the RCMP.

He had no significant contact with the police until 1998, when he was arrested, charged and convicted of attacking New Westminster.

RCMP are urging victims or anyone with information about missing pieces of the killer's timeline across Canada to come forward.