Murder charges have now been laid against a young Prince George man after police discovered the body of a 15-year-old girl on an abandoned logging road in central B.C.
RCMP stopped Cody Alan Legebokoff after his pickup truck was seen exiting an unused logging road about 22 kilometres north of Vanderhoof around 9:45 p.m. on Saturday.
After giving suspicious answers to the officers, he was detained while officers traced his tire tracks through freshly fallen snow. They discovered the body of a teenaged girl near the side of the road two hours later.
"The state of the young girl indicated that she had been murdered just hours before the man's arrest" Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said.
Legebokoff faces one charge of first-degree murder. He appeared before a Justice of the Peace by teleconference in Vanderhoof Monday morning. He has been remanded into custody without bail until his next court appearance on Dec. 1.
The victim has been identified as Loren Donn Leslie of Fraser Lake, a grade 10 student at Nechako Valley Secondary School.
Her grandmother, Kathleen Leslie, says her granddaughter was "a good little girl."
"Mom has problems but she was really trying to help her mom rather than turn her back like many would," she said. "Wherever she is I know she's not going to suffer anymore. That's the only comfort I can get from all of this."
Kathleen Leslie said her granddaughter was legally blind, with about 50-per-cent vision in one eye and none in the other.
Police are not releasing the cause of death. An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday in Kamloops.
Investigators are looking into connections between this murder and other killings in the area, as well as the so-called Highway of Tears disappearances.
At least 18 women have vanished on the stretch of Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert in the past 40 years.
