Cody Alan Legebokoff (born 21 January 1990) is a Canadian

serial killer A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...

convicted in 2014 by the

Supreme Court of British Columbia The Supreme Court of British Columbia is the superior trial court for the province of British Columbia, Canada. The Court hears civil and criminal law cases as well as appeals from the Provincial Court of British Columbia. There are 90 judici ...

of murdering three women and one teenage girl, between 2009 and 2010, in or near the city of Prince George,

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. He is one of Canada's youngest convicted serial killers, and his trial drew national attention. One of his victims, the 23-year-old Natasha Lynn Montgomery, has been included in the list of missing women and girls suspected as victims in the Highway of Tears murders.

Background

Cody Legebokoff is a Canadian citizen who was born on 21 January 1990 and raised in Fort St. James, a district municipality in rural

. He has been described by friends and family members as a popular young man who competed in

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

and showed no propensity for violence. Though Legebokoff had a minor criminal record, he was not "on the radar" of local police. After graduating Fort St. James Secondary School, Legebokoff lived briefly in

Lethbridge Lethbridge ( ) is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. With a population of 106,550 in the 2023 Alberta municipal censuses, 2023 municipal census, Lethbridge became the fourth Alberta city to surpass 100,000 people. The nearby Canadian ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, before moving to

Prince George, British Columbia Prince George is a city in British Columbia, Canada, situated at the confluence of the Fraser River, Fraser and Nechako River, Nechako rivers. The city itself has a population of 76,708; the metro census agglomeration has a population of 89,490 ...

. There, he shared an apartment with three close female friends and worked at a Ford dealership. In his spare time, Legebokoff frequented the Canadian social-networking site Nexopia, using the handle "1CountryBoy."

2010 arrest

On November 27, 2010, at approximately 9:45 p.m., rookie

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; , GRC) is the Law enforcement in Canada, national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 Provinces and terri ...

(RCMP) officer, Constable Aaron Kehler, observed Legebokoff pull his truck onto British Columbia Highway 27 from a remote logging road. According to a case report written by Kehler, Legebokoff's 2004 GMC pickup truck was speeding erratically and, on a hunch, the officer decided to pull over the vehicle for a routine traffic stop. He believed that it was odd and even suspicious that someone would be on that road, that late, in frigid November. Kehler suspected the driver of

poaching Poaching is the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set against the huntin ...

in the backwoods and signaled for him to pull over. Kehler was joined by a second RCMP officer. Both officers said that upon searching Legebokoff's pickup truck, they discovered a multi-tool and wrench covered in blood, as well as a monkey backpack and a wallet containing a children's hospital card bearing the name Loren Leslie. When questioned about the blood on him, Legebokoff purportedly said that he was poaching and had clubbed a deer to death because: "I'm a

redneck ''Redneck'' is a derogatory term mainly applied to white Americans perceived to be crass and unsophisticated, closely associated with rural whites of the southern United States.Harold Wentworth, and Stuart Berg Flexner, ''Dictionary of American ...

, that's what we do for fun." The truck did not contain a deer carcass. The officers arrested Legebokoff under the Canada Wildlife Act and called for a

conservation officer A conservation officer is a law enforcement officer who protects wildlife and the environment. A conservation officer may also be referred to as an environmental technician/technologist, game warden, park ranger, forest watcher, forest guard, ...

with animal tracking skills. The warden traced the tire tracks of Legebokoff's vehicle up the road and in the freshly fallen snow, found footprints leading to the remains of Loren Dawn Leslie. After Legebokoff's arrest in connection with Leslie's death, he was linked by DNA analysis to the deaths of Jill Stacey Stuchenko, Cynthia Frances Maas, and Natasha Lynn Montgomery.

Victims

* Jill Stacey Stuchenko, 35-year-old mother of six, last seen on October 9, 2009. She was found dead four days later in a gravel pit on the outskirts of Prince George. * Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 23-year-old mother of two, last seen August 31 or early September 1, 2010. Her body has never been found, but her DNA was later found in samples taken in Legebokoff's apartment. * Cynthia Frances Maas, 35, last seen September 10, 2010. Her body was found in a Prince George park the following month. Maas died of blunt-force trauma to the head and penetrating wounds. She had a hole in her shoulder blade, a broken jaw and cheekbone, and injuries to her neck consistent with someone's stomping on it.

The Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

has said Stuchenko, Montgomery and Maas had worked in the

sex trade The sex industry (also called the sex trade) consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related se ...

. Legebokoff was addicted to cocaine and used sex workers to get him the drug. * Loren Dawn Leslie, 15, murdered on November 27, 2010. Leslie was far younger than the other victims and allegedly met Legebokoff online at the website Nexopia. She was legally blind, having one completely blind eye and 50% vision in the other. Leslie is included in the list of murder victims found along the " Highway of Tears" in northern British Columbia.

Trial proceedings

Legebokoff's trial on four counts of

first-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse ...

was originally scheduled to begin in September 2013, but was delayed a month until October, and then again until June 2014. He pleaded not guilty to all four counts. The judge and twelve jurors heard testimony from 93 Crown witnesses and the defendant. Legebokoff testified during the trial that he was "involved" in three of the deaths but claimed that he did not commit the killings. He alleged that a drug dealer and two accomplices, whom he would only name as "X, Y and Z", were the actual murderers. Prosecutors did not accept this attempt to plead guilty to the lesser charge of

second-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excus ...

Aftermath

Legebokoff was convicted on four counts of first-degree murder on September 11, 2014. On September 16, Legebokoff was sentenced to

life in prison Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life imprisonment are co ...

with no possibility of parole for 25 years. Additionally, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett added him to the national

sex offender registry A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. Sex offender registration is usual ...

, given the sexual assaults committed as part of the murders and Legebokoff's apparent degradation of the victims' bodies. "He lacks any shred of empathy or remorse," Parrett said of the killer. "He should never be allowed to walk among us again." In February 2015, Legebokoff filed an

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

due to decisions against

change of venue A change of venue is the legal term for moving a trial (law), trial to a new location. In high-profile matters, a change of venue may occur to move a jury trial away from a location where a fair and impartial jury may not be possible due to wides ...

and defendant's legal representation. In September 2016, all three judges in the BC Court of Appeal case endorsed the original judge's decision. Legebokoff was originally imprisoned at the

Kent Institution Kent Institution () is a Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) facility located in Agassiz, British Columbia. Opened in 1979, Kent is the only maximum security federal penitentiary in the CSC's Pacific region, which includes the province of British ...

but was transferred in March 2019 to the

Warkworth Institution The Warkworth Institution is a medium-security prison facility located in the municipality of Trent Hills, Ontario, between the communities of Meyersburg and Warkworth. The prison is the largest federal correctional institution in Canada ...

In popular culture

The Legebokoff case is covered in the 2015 documentary ''

Highway of Tears The Highway of Tears is a corridor of Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert in British Columbia, Canada, which has been the location of crimes against many women, beginning in 1970 when the highway was completed. The phrase was ...

''. Floridian writer J.T. Hunter profiled Legebokoff in the book ''The Country Boy Killer: The True Story of Cody Legebokoff, Canada's Teenage Serial Killer'', published in 2015. The case was the subject of the episode “Virtual Hitchhiking” in season 7 (ep. 3) of the

Investigation Discovery Investigation Discovery (stylized and branded on-air as ID since 2008) is an American multinational pay television network dedicated to true crime documentaries, similar to corporate sibling HLN. It is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery's netw ...

series ''Web of Lies'', which first aired March 8th, 2021. Cody Legebokoff is one of the convicted murderers discussed on the CBS News show, "48 Hours" season 26, episode 7: Highway of Tears. Episode first aired Nov 17, 2012.
IMDB link "48 Hours" season 25, episode 7: Highway of tears

References

External links

2014 BCSC 1746. ''Regina v. Cody Alan Legebokoff''. Oral Reasons for Sentence
British Columbia Courts {{DEFAULTSORT:Legebokoff, Cody 1990 births 2009 murders in Canada 2010 murders in Canada 21st-century Canadian criminals Canadian male criminals Canadian murderers of children Canadian rapists Canadian serial killers Criminals from British Columbia Highway of Tears Living people Murder trials People from Prince George, British Columbia Violence against women in Canada