The Alberta RCMP released details on four historic murders of women that occurred in the 1970s in Calgary, linked to a serial killer who died in an Idaho prison in 2011.

Gary Allen Srery was a U.S. citizen who was believed by investigators to have illegally entered Canada in the early 1970s. He was linked to the 1976 deaths of 14-year-old junior high school students Eva Dvorak and Patricia McQueen, and 20-year-old Melissa Rehorek, and the 1977 death of 19-year-old Barbara MacLean.

Dvorak and McQueen were found dead under the Happy Valley Underpass on Highway 1, west of Calgary but their deaths were ruled as sudden deaths by Calgary’s then-medical examiner after no cause of death could be determined. Rehorek was found dead along Township Road 252 west of Calgary, and MacLean was found dead near 6 Street and 80 Avenue NE.

The RCMP said that from the onset of the deaths of Rehorek and MacLean, similarities that existed between investigations—both had been killed by manual strangulation—made them believe that there was a common perpetrator.

Advances in DNA technology allowed for Srery to be identified in all four homicides.

“For over 40 years, investigators did not give up in their pursuit to identify those responsible for these murders,” said Superintendent David Hall, Officer in Charge of the Alberta RCMP’s Serious Crimes Branch.

“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.”

Investigators from the RCMP and Calgary Police Service built a thorough background of Srery’s activities while in Canada.

The RCMP said that he left California in 1974 and illegally entered Canada, after fleeing from a rape charge in that state. In 1976 and 1977, during the time of the murders, he used the aliases Willy Blackman and Rex Long.

Srery lived in both Alberta and B.C. as a transient until 2003, when he was deported to the U.S. and was convicted at age 67 and sentenced to life in prison in Idaho for a rape of a 45-year-old victim.

International effort to solve homicides

Assistance was provided by Interpol and the Idaho State Police Forensic Services to provide DNA evidence to match Srery to the Calgary homicides.

Inspector Kevin Forsen of the Calgary Police Service (CPS) Major Crimes Section said that the service had reviewed its outstanding homicide files, and did not believe there were any that Srery would have been involved in.

Srery’s time in Calgary, said Insp. Forsen, was inconspicuous to police.

The RCMP noted that during his time in Canada Srery was “adept at frequently changing his appearance, place of residence and vehicles.”

Insp. Forsen said that the historic cases detectives became aware of a potential link in 2021 and were permitted by the service to work with RCMP investigators.

“The two detectives in the historic homicide file are probably two of the most motivated and driven police officers that we have in the service, and they couldn’t accept the fact that they might have skills or knowledge that would help solve these files and not do something for it. So they’re very persuasive, but it was a very easy yes,” he said.

“Our investigators worked with their RCMP counterparts peers and identified that there was DNA samples from the crime scenes and then they worked together to get them to a lab to extract usable DNA STRS.”

The service also used work by analysts and genealogists to build family trees and identify where voluntary submission of DNA would help to identify evidence for solving the murders.

Insp. Forsen said that evidence provided was done so voluntarily and that there was a need to be cautious to protect the ensure the privacy of the community.

“We want to stay within the expectations of the community when we’re doing these investigations. I think once we had the reports and our genealogist started working on it—we had two detectives and two genealogists—within 11 weeks they had identified Mr. Srery, and they cleared the other 300 suspects that the RCMP had compiled over the last almost 50 years,” Forsen said.

“It was a great day.”

The RCMP has asked for the public’s help in further establishing Srery’s timeline in Canada and the possibility of identifying his role or lack thereof in other historic crimes.

Information can be provided directly to the Alberta RCMP Historical Crime Unit at K-IDEOLOGY@rcmp-grc.gc.ca or by phone by calling 780-509-3306.