GILLAM, Man. — Police are following up on a tip that two B.C. homicide suspects were seen southwest of Gillam, the northern Manitoba community that has been the focus of their search since last week.
RCMP posted an update on Twitter late Sunday afternoon saying they were sending resources to York Landing, about 90 kilometres from Gillam, to investigate a tip that the two suspects may be in or near the community.
The tweet said residents should expect a heavy police presence in the area, and officers will continue to update the public as information becomes available.
Leroy Constant, chief of the York Factory First Nation, posted on Facebook that Mounties were on their way to York Landing.
“Everyone please remain indoors with your doors locked. And all vehicles should be parked,″ Constant wrote, asking that people also share the message with community members who weren’t on social media.
WATCH: Here’s what we know about the suspects.
Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and 19-year-old Kam McLeod of Port Alberni, B.C., are charged with second-degree murder in the death of University of British Columbia professor Leonard Dyck.
They are also suspects in the fatal shootings of Australian Lucas Fowler and his American girlfriend Chynna Deese.
A burned-out Toyota RAV4 the teens were travelling in was found near Gillam last week.
Police said earlier Sunday that they had received more than 200 tips over the course of five days, but none that convinced investigators to believe the pair had left the bug-infested and bog-strewn landscape surrounding the tiny northern Manitoba community of Gillam.
They said it’s critical that all Canadians remain vigilant until the duo is apprehended.
Helped by tracking dogs and drones, police went door to door over the weekend, checking every residence and abandoned building in and around Gillam as townsfolk maintained their own stressful vigil for the fugitives.
The aerial search effort got a boost Saturday with the arrival of a Canadian Air Force CC-130H Hercules aircraft equipped with high tech thermal detection gear.
On Twitter, Mounties posted pictures of armed officers checking doors, shining flashlights into garages and cautiously preparing to enter a shed. One picture from the air about 200 kilometres north of Gillam showed a polar bear roaming a grassy shoreline.
Even though police didn’t think they’d left the area, they said the possibility remained that the suspects managed to somehow sneak out, or that they’d changed their appearance.
It’s all taking a toll on Gillam and several surrounding Indigenous communities, according to a member of the Bear Clan Patrol, an Indigenous-led neighbourhood watch group that was invited by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs to help ease residents’ fears.
“Up here, all the towns and communities, they look like ghost towns. Like, everyone’s inside. There’s a high level of stress, anxiety and fearfulness because they’re being kept in their houses,″ said Wade Taylor, a Bear Clan Patrol volunteer from Winnipeg, who noted the volunteers are not part of the search effort.
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“Quite a few people have even left the area altogether, kind of waiting for this to blow over.″
Taylor said almost everyone he talked to shared their thoughts about the search. No one thought the fugitives were in their own community _ they believed they were more likely to be in one of the communities nearby, Taylor said.
“Some of the people, you can tell by their voice that they’re almost at the point of breaking down crying,″ Taylor said. “You could say it’s traumatic.″