The young man accused of stalking and murdering a B.C. teen on Halloween spent the months afterward befriending young women in a small Ontario community, CTV News has learned.

Cherryville native Matthew Foerster, 26, was arrested at a motel in Collingwood, Ont. last month and flown back to B.C. to face a first-degree murder charge in the death of 18-year-old Taylor Van Diest. Residents of Collingwood, a small town on Georgian Bay, told CTV News they saw Foerster around town throughout the winter.

Elizabeth Erent, a 22-year-old local bartender, said she got to know Foerster when he started coming in for drinks. She said he didn't give his full name, calling himself "Matt," and didn't say where he was from.

"One day he asked me to go hiking and I wanted to.... Just glad I didn't because it was just the two of us," Erent said.

She said she was "shocked" when she learned of his arrest.

"My heart sank," she said. "It was just a very horrifying situation, honestly, because this was my ‘friend.'"

She said Foerster introduced himself as "Zack" to other people in town. The name he used on his resume when he visited the Georgian Staffing Services employment agency was "Lee Shawcross."

The real Lee Shawcross lives in the Lower Mainland and told CTV News that police have told him not to talk about the case. However, he did say that Foerster's father is a family acquaintance.

Collingwood convenience store owner Farid Arabzadah said Foerster regularly visited his shop to buy cigarettes beginning in December.

"He was always coming in December, January, February," Arabzadah said. "I've seen him with a couple of girls."

Foerster is currently being held in a Kamloops jail and is not seeking bail. His father, 58-year-old Stephen Roy Foerster, is also in custody awaiting trial on charges of obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact in connection to Van Diest's slaying.

The teen was found unconscious and fatally wounded in the bushes near the railroad tracks running through the small Okanagan community of Armstrong on Oct. 31. She died a short time later.

The younger Foerster is also facing charges in two unrelated attacks on women, including a 2004 assault and home invasion and the sex assault of a Kelowna escort the following year. None of the allegations against him or his father has been proven in court.

Watch CTV News at Five and Six for more on this exclusive story.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Lisa Rossington