Man convicted of rape in Coeur d’Alene now linked to the deaths of four women in Canada

COEUR d’ALENE – A man arrested here in 2008 has been linked to the deaths of four young Canadian women, police said Friday.

Alberta Royal Canadian Mounted Police Supt. Dave Hall said Gary Allen Srery may also be linked to unsolved murders and assaults in Western Canada, and authorities are asking the public for more information that could link him to other unsolved cases.

A jury convicted Srery in 2009 of raping a Coeur d’Alene woman. First District Judge Charles Hosack sentenced Srery to life in prison after eight years, with him eligible for parole. He died in 2011 in a state prison of natural causes.

A breakthrough in the killings in Canada came when authorities began comparing the killer’s DNA to profiles on ancestry websites, eventually leading them to a match with Srery, Hall said.

Hall provided details of the four Canadian cases linked to Srery.

He said that in 1976, Eva Dvorak and Patricia McQueen were both 14-year-olds living in Calgary, Alberta and attending high school. He said they were last seen walking together in downtown Calgary and their bodies were found the next day on the road under a highway underpass west of the city.

In the spring of 1976, 20-year-old Melissa Rehorek moved to Calgary from Ontario for new opportunities, Hall said. He said she was a housekeeper living at the YMCA in downtown Calgary at the time of her death and was last seen by a roommate before getting hitched. Hall said her body was found the next day in a ditch in a township west of Calgary.

In 1977, Barbara MacLean was a 19-year-old Calgary resident from Nova Scotia who moved west just six months earlier, Hall said. He said MacLean worked at a local bank and was last seen leaving a hotel bar. He said her body was found just outside Calgary six hours later.

Hall said authorities had not found a cause of death for the two 14-year-olds at the time, but said the deaths of Rehorek and MacLean were attributed to strangulation.

Semen was collected from all four crime scenes, but no technology existed at the time to find DNA matches, Hall said.

“If Srery were alive today, he would be 81 years old,” Hall said.

Alberta RCMP Insp. Breanne Brown said Srery had an extensive criminal record, including forcible rape, kidnapping and burglary when he fled California to Canada in 1974. He lived in Canada illegally until his arrest for sexual assault in New Westminster, British Columbia in 1998, she said.

Srery used nine different aliases during his lifetime and frequently changed his appearance, residence and vehicles, Brown said. She said he obtained illegal identification and social assistance through aliases and led a transient lifestyle. He worked off and on as a chef in Calgary, Alberta from 1974 to 1979 and then in the Vancouver, British Columbia area from 1979 until his arrest and conviction for assault in New Westminster in 1998, she said.

Srery was deported to the U.S., where he was convicted of sexually motivated crimes in Idaho and sentenced to life in prison, where he ultimately died in 2011, Brown said.

“We know that Srery’s criminality spanned decades across multiple jurisdictions and numerous aliases. The Alberta RCMP believes there are more victims and we are asking the public to help advance Srery’s timeline in Canada,” Brown said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.