The RCMP has announced that a drifter from the US was responsible for the murder of four Calgary women in the 1970s.Police said on Friday that Gary Allen Srery was in the Calgary area for one year between February 1976 and February 1977.He died in prison in Idaho in 2011 where he was serving a life sentence for sexual assault. He would have been 81 years old today.. The four victims were identified as Eva Dvorak, 14, Patricia McQueen, 14, Melissa Rehorek, 20, and Barbara MacLean, 19. Police warn that there could be even more victims. They are appealing for any members of the public who had contact with Srery, to contact them.Supt. Dave Hall said the case was finally cracked using investigative genealogy.He said Srery was in Canada illegally but never attracted the attention of authorities in this country.Over the years, Hall said police received 800 tips and took 500 statements. Although they identified 853 suspects, Srery was not one of them.A total of 1,490 vehicles were investigated with more than 70 officers on the case over the decades. .The slaying spree started on Valentines Day, 1976, when Dvorak and McQueen vanished. Their bodies were found fully-clothed just before 11 a.m. at the old Happy Valley underpass west of Calgary.Both 14-years-old, were junior high school students residing in Calgary. The teenagers were friends who spent time together in and outside of school, said the RCMP. On the evening of Feb. 14, 1976, Eva and Patsy were last seen walking together in downtown Calgary..There was no obvious cause of death, although after seminal fluid was recovered by investigators the case was treated as "suspicious." Later investigations found their deaths to be asphyxiation.Rehorek, in the spring of 1976 moved from Windsor to Calgary and was living at the downtown YWCA. She was working as a housekeeper.She was last seen the night of Sept. 15, 1976 when a bus driver dropped her off in west Calgary. She was known to hitchhike. Her body was found the next day in a ditch on Township Road 252, approximately 22 kilometres west of Calgary.Her body showed signs of a struggle and the cause of death was ruled to be asphyxiation due to manual strangulation. Investigator were able to recover seminal fluid from her body, also. .McLean, a recent transplant from Nova Scotia working at a bank, was at the Highlander Hotel in north-central Calgary pub on Feb. 25, 1977. She was last seen walking away in the parking lot. Her fully-clothed body was found on the northern outskirts of Calgary the next day.The RCMP say her death was caused by asphyxiation due to manual strangulation. Seminal fluid was recovered."From the onset, similarities between Melissa Rehorek and Barbara MacLean’s deaths led investigators to believe the same suspect was responsible for both homicides," said an RCMP release."Over the past 40 years, the Alberta RCMP exhausted investigational means in an attempt to identify the person(s) responsible for these tragic deaths. These files were never closed and were continually being reassessed under the microscope of new information, advancement in technology, and evolution of police techniques."When the case was reopened in 2003, DNA matched the semen as being from the same person. It was submitted the the national DNA data bank in 2006 and again in 2007 with no matches.In 2022, evidence from the last two murders was resubmitted for testing and the next year an unknown male DNA was identified. It matched the semen from the first two slayings."Genealogists from Convergence IGG were able to start building a family tree based on the SNP profile while CPS consulted with them and completed target testing to help drive the genealogy portion forward. When target testing was complete, Convergence IGG was able to provide a suspect hypothesis," said the RCMPPolice then engaged the services of Parabon NanoLabs and they were able to come up with Srery's name.Analytical queries confirmed the suspect’s connection to Canada and that he had a criminal record of committing violent acts on women.In Sept. 2023, police were finally able to link Srery's DNA to the four unsolved murders.Through the background investigation into Srery, members of the Alberta RCMP HHU were able to establish the following:Gary Allen Srery was a US citizen who was residing illegally in Canada at the time of the murders;Prior to coming to Calgary, Srery had an extensive criminal record in the United States for sex related offences including forcible rape, kidnapping, burglary and sexual perversion;Srery appeared to flee the US sometime during 1974 after posting bail for a rape charge in California;Srery lived under aliases in Calgary in 1976 and 1977 that included, but were not limited to, Willy Blackman and Rex Long;Srery lived a transient lifestyle and worked occasionally under the table as a cook;Srery was adept at frequently changing his appearance, place of residence and vehicles; andSrery lived in Alberta and British Columbia from the mid to late 1970s up until 2003 when he was deported. Police are asking the public to assist in further establishing Srery’s timeline in Canada. If you recognize Srery or knew him by one of his many aliases the Alberta RCMP want to hear from you. For tips, please contact the Alberta RCMP Historical Crime Unit via K-IDEOLOGY@rcmp-grc.gc.ca or by phone at 780-509-3306.If you believe Srery may be associated to or responsible for a crime in your jurisdiction, police ask that you reach out to the policing agency within that jurisdiction to report..“For over forty years, investigators did not give up in their pursuit to identify those responsible for these murders,” said Hall.“Identifying the perpetrator does not bring Eva, Patsy, Melissa or Barbara back. It is our hope however, that the families are finally able to have some answers as to what happened to their loved ones all of those years ago.”Insp. Kevin Forsen, of the CPS Major Crimes Section, said: “Regardless of how much time has passed, we remain relentless in pursuing justice for all Calgarians."“In this case, our investigators dedicated countless hours lending their Investigative Genetic Genealogy expertise to the RCMP and are grateful to have played a part in finding answers for the family.”
