Australian officials are sending two detectives to Canada to help unravel the killing of a young couple found dead by a remote highway, the Guardian reports. Chynna Deese, 24, and her boyfriend, Lucas Fowler, 23, were found Monday in British Columbia and identified three days later, suggesting a violent death. Deese was an American from North Carolina and Fowler was an Australian whose father, Stephen, is a senior police official in the state of New South Wales—which is sending the two detectives. "He's a loss to so many people," Stephen tells the Sydney Morning Herald of his son. "And his girlfriend also—it's just devastating." Stephen and other family members are also traveling to Canada to meet with RCMP investigators. In other developments:
- A witness says she saw an unknown bearded man in an argument with Lucas and Chynna before they were killed, Australia's News Network reports. The witness had parked down the highway where the traveling pair had pulled over.
- The RCMP found a third body Friday along another highway just a few miles away, Yahoo News Australia reports. A pickup truck was spotted on fire not far from a rest stop where the body was later found. So far authorities aren't linking it to the double murder.
- Officials are throwing cold water on a serial-killer theory about Deese and Fowler's deaths. Over 40 people have been killed or vanished on a freeway dubbed the Highway of Tears, but it's more than 600 miles away in British Columbia. Many of those who went missing are from indigenous communities, per the Sun.
- The RCMP said Friday that a "cat filter" was mistakenly left on during a live-streamed news conference about the double murder, the Daily News reports. Sgt. Janelle Shoihet appeared on computer screens with facial whiskers and cat ears on her head. The conference was rerecorded and put on Facebook.
(See why Deese and Fowler
were in Canada in the first place.)
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