RCMP Stop a Pickup on a Northern B.C. Highway and Arrest Cody Legebokoff in the Death of 15-Year-Old Loren Leslie
Legebokoff, 20, had no criminal record. A 10-month investigation later linked him to the deaths of three women in Prince George.
Published
On a hunch, RCMP officers in northern British Columbia stopped a pickup speeding out of a logging road. On November 27, 2010, its driver, Cody Legebokoff, 20, was arrested in a 15-year-old girl's death.
The truck pulled onto the highway from an unused logging road about 22 kilometers north of Vanderhoof. Officers saw blood on Legebokoff and a girl's backpack in the truck, and he told them he had been poaching. A conservation officer helped search the road, where the body of Loren Donn Leslie, 15, of Fraser Lake, was found. Legebokoff was charged with first-degree murder. He had no criminal record, and until then had not been on the police "radar screen at all," RCMP Inspector Brendan Fitzpatrick later said.
In October 2011, after a 10-month investigation, Legebokoff was charged with three more counts of first-degree murder, for the deaths of Jill Stuchenko, 35, Cynthia Maas, 35, and Natasha Montgomery, 23, all of whom had been living in Prince George. Stuchenko's body had been found in a Prince George gravel pit in October 2009 and Maas's in L.C. Gunn Park on October 9, 2010; Montgomery's body has never been found. DNA from his apartment linked him to all three. In 2014, he was convicted of four counts of murder.
The RCMP Gazette said the investigation ended almost a year after the November 2010 stop, while Global News described it as a 10-month investigation.
Sources
- Legwork helps convict serial killer, RCMP Gazette (Royal Canadian Mounted Police)
- Man charged with murder of three more northern B.C. women, Global News
Related News
- October 17, 2011: RCMP Charge Cody Legebokoff, Already Accused in a Teen's Killing, With Murdering Three More Prince George Women
- September 11, 2014: Jury Convicts Cody Legebokoff of Four First-Degree Murders in Prince George