As the nationwide police search for B.C. homicide suspects Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky continues, CBC News is taking a retrospective look at several notable fugitive hunts from Canada’s past.<\/p>\n
The Mad Trapper rose to infamy more than 80 years ago \u2014\u00a0evading capture\u00a0in the sub-Arctic terrain while the Canadian winter howled.<\/p>\n
His exploits, documented in the news, mesmerized a nation who couldn’t get enough of this\u00a0man on his own, evading capture by\u00a0foot as the temperature averaged -40 C, The Canadian Encyclopedia reports.<\/p>\n
Known as Albert Johnson, the outlaw seriously wounded a police officer\u00a0who questioned him about a trapping dispute.<\/p>\n
From there, Johnson was on the run\u00a0for 48 days, covering 240 kilometres and traversing across\u00a0two territories. A second officer was badly hurt\u00a0\u2014 and another killed\u00a0\u2014 before the fugitive died in his last encounter with police.<\/p>\n
Johnson was buried in Aklavik, N.W.T.<\/p>\n
Toronto’s notorious\u00a0bank-robber foursome\u00a0were renowned for their crimes, which included\u00a0twice\u00a0busting out of jail.<\/p>\n
After escaping prison once before in 1951, the Boyd Gang was inexplicably placed in neighbouring cells when they returned to the Don Jail in Toronto’s Riverdale neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
They sawed through the bars using a hacksaw blade and\u00a0a cell key they\u00a0fashioned\u00a0from a palm imprint of the original.<\/p>\n
Their escape led to one of the biggest hunts in Canadian history until their arrest\u00a010 days later. The search\u00a0became the subject of the first\u00a0news report on CBC TV.<\/p>\n
They were captured in a North York barn, just 24 kilometres from\u00a0jail. Despite\u00a0being armed, they did not resist arrest.<\/p>\n
Const. Ernest Southern, who captured cop-killer Steve Suchan, was surprised\u00a0the foursome didn’t put up a fight.<\/p>\n
“From all appearances, they’d be roughing it there for maybe two or three days,” the officer told CBC Radio.\u00a0“I think they were sort of getting fed up with the whole thing.”<\/p>\n
A four-week search for a murderer who escaped from jail ended because of a German Shepherd.<\/p>\n
The hunt for Donald Kelly, who overpowered a\u00a0guard at the North Bay, Ont., jail and stole his rifle, turned up nothing until the now-famous Ontario Provincial Police\u00a0dog, Cloud II, was hot on his\u00a0trail.<\/p>\n
The pooch tracked Kelly into a cabin deep in the woods\u00a0near Skead, Ont. Cloud II\u00a0was shot and killed, but its\u00a0handler fired back at Kelly, who was returned to jail wounded.<\/p>\n
Kelly was tried and convicted for two 1969 murders and sentenced to life in prison. He died behind bars.<\/p>\n
Cloud II was inducted into the Purina Animal Hall of Fame for heroism.<\/p>\n
Allan Legere\u00a0will forever be known\u00a0as the\u00a0Monster of the Miramichi\u00a0for the\u00a0terror he inflicted while at large for many months in\u00a0New Brunswick.<\/p>\n
Legere was serving a life sentence for murder in May, 1989, when he came down with an ear infection and was whisked to hospital.<\/p>\n
He ran to the parking lot, stole a car and was on the lam for nearly seven months, committing four\u00a0murders\u00a0before he was recaptured.<\/p>\n
His 1991 conviction for the murders was based largely on DNA evidence\u00a0\u2014 the first\u00a0in Canadian history.<\/p>\n
A made-for-TV movie\u00a0became\u00a0the backdrop\u00a0of a double murder and resulting search for a fugitive\u00a0in Flin Flon, Man.<\/p>\n
James Bridson, 18, watched a television show in 1993 depicting the real-life story of spree killer Charles Starkweather, who in 1958, at the age of 17, murdered several\u00a0family members\u00a0of his 14-year-old girlfriend.<\/p>\n
Starkweather\u00a0was angry that his girlfriend’s mother asked her\u00a0to break up with him.<\/p>\n
Bridson could apparently relate. The mother of his girlfriend ordered an end to their\u00a0relationship.<\/p>\n
He mimicked the show he watched, shooting and killing his 13-year-old’s\u00a0girlfriend’s mother and\u00a0brother, while\u00a0seriously wounding her sister.<\/p>\n
He dragged his girlfriend\u00a0along with him as he hid from police\u00a0for 72 hours that May.<\/p>\n
Police agencies across Manitoba and Saskatchewan were on high alert after a major security breach at the Regina jail in August 2008.<\/p>\n
Six people \u2013 including Daniel Wolfe, one of the founders of the Indian Posse street gang \u2013 managed to escape after inmates spent months scraping away mortar between bricks in the Regina Provincial Correctional Centre walls.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the escapees were on the loose for varying amounts of time. One was recaptured within\u00a0three hours of the break-out. The rest were at large for between\u00a0five and 30 days.<\/p>\n
Wolfe was picked up as a passenger in a car in Winnipeg after more than three weeks on the run. At the time, he was a suspect in a double homicide in Fort Q’Appelle, Sask.<\/p>\n
Wolfe was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life. He died after being stabbed in prison in 2010.<\/p>\n
There were snipers on roofs, canine units sniffing for clues and police officers on edge.<\/p>\n
A neighbourhood in Moncton, N.B., was a surreal sight in June 2014 while officers tracked down Justin Bourque, accused of killing three RCMP officers and wounding two others.<\/p>\n
The two-day search\u00a0involved more than 265 RCMP officers.<\/p>\n
They scoured the woods for the heavily-armed suspect, who was wearing camouflage, as residents waited under\u00a0lockdown, gripped by fear.<\/p>\n
Bourque was found in a dark backyard after midnight.<\/p>\n
Bourque was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 75 years. The judge who sentenced him called his crimes “one of the most horrific” in Canadian history.<\/p>\n