DNA evidence links 4 1970s Calgary murders to dead serial killer

A convicted sex offender with a decades-long criminal record in Canada and the United States is responsible for the deaths of four young women in Calgary in the 1970s, according to police.

Alberta RCMP say serial killer Gary Allen Sreri, who died in Idaho in 2011, has been identified through advances in DNA technology more than 45 years after his murder.

Police say Sreri killed 14-year-old Eva Dvorak and Patricia McQueen, 20-year-old Melissa Rehorek and 19-year-old Barbara McLean in 1976-77.

Their murders were not discovered until the 2022 council demanded a review of historical files. This led the police to a suspicious hypothesis in 2023, and the creation of a family tree using the DNA of distant family members – a police technique known as investigative genetic genealogy.

The US-born Sreri, who fled to Canada in the mid-1970s, lived in Alberta and British Columbia until the late 1990s. He was deported to the United States in 2003.

Police believe Sreri may be responsible for several other murders and rapes in Canada and the United States

Victims

Alberta RCMP detailed the similarities between the deaths of the four young women at a press conference Thursday at K Division headquarters in Edmonton.

Dvorak, McQueen, Rehorek and McLean were described as young, vulnerable victims who were last seen walking around Calgary in the evening or at night. They all died of suffocation and were left outside the city limits without any attempt to hide their bones. Their bodies were found fully clothed with traces of fetuses, which could not be identified at the time of the crimes because the appropriate technology for DNA profiling was not available.

Dvorak and McQueen were last seen around midnight on February 15, 1976, walking near 9th Avenue and 12th Street SE. Their bodies were found 11 hours later under the Happy Valley underpass in the west of the city. Their deaths were initially classified as “sudden” and suspicious, but not homicide.

Rehorek, who had recently moved to Calgary from Windsor, was last seen on September 15, 1976 by his roommates at the YWCA, where he lived. A young woman who worked as a hotel maid planned to hitchhike. out of town for a two-day vacation. His body was found at 10:50 that morning in a ditch along a gravel road west of Calgary – now known as Township Road 252. Police say there was evidence of a fight and he was hit in the head.

McLean worked at a bank in Calgary after moving from Nova Scotia in September 1976. Five months later, on February 25, 1977, he was last seen alone at the Highlander Bar on 16th Avenue, where he had been with friends. Her body was found shortly after 8 a.m. at 6th Street and 80th Avenue – just outside city limits. Police believe there was a struggle before his death, as the tips of his left fingers were injured and he had marks, bruises and scratches.

According to the police, the parents of the four deceased are dead, but the siblings and other living relatives have been updated.

DNA technology

Alberta RCMP say police have never stopped investigating the four deaths over the years. Four task forces were established in the 1990s, and technological advances were used in the 2000s. According to the police, a total of 853 suspects or persons of interest, 1,490 vehicles were identified and checked.

In 2003, DNA tests confirmed that McLean and Rehorek were killed by the same person. This DNA was tested again in 2006 and 2012 – by comparison with other suspects and by Interpol. Did not match.

In 2022, exhibits from the deaths of Dvorak and McQueen were sent back to the lab. The following year, police matched that DNA to the McLean and Rehorek murders — the first time the four women had been linked.

This led the police to do a DNA profile. They discovered that Sreri was the news that sparked the cross-border investigation.

Police described Sreeri's life of crime from his youth.

He was convicted of rape and kidnapping in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and then fled to Canada. He lived in Calgary and Standard, Alta., from 1976 to 1978, before returning briefly to California. Police say he was able to get an illegal license and welfare in Alberta.

He then moved to BC from 1979 to 1998 where he simultaneously worked for BC Ferries. He moved around a lot from Vancouver (1979-80) to Half Moon Bay (1981-83), Gibsons (1983-88), Abbotsford (1988-90), Cultus Lake (1990-96) and Chilliwack (1996-). 98).

He was convicted of sexual assault in New Westminster in 1996.