A 24-year-old American woman and her Australian boyfriend were found dead while they were road-tripping through Canada.
Chynna Deese and Lucas Fowler, 23, were found Monday morning along Alaska Highway 97 near Liard Hot Springs, a popular tourist spot, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. A blue Chevrolet van, which authorities believed to be the couple's, was found nearby.
Police did not say how the couple was killed but that their deaths are being investigated as homicides.
Deese, of North Carolina, had met Fowler at a hostel in Croatia, her brother told the Charlotte Observer. They had been together since 2017. After finding some work in Canada on a cattle farm, they planned a three-week road trip through the country. They had just started their trip when they died.
“They were deeply in love,” he said. “They met traveling and that’s just what they did - travel. He was working in Canada and they were planning an extensive road trip there for three weeks. They were going to spend a week on the ranch and the second half of the trip going to national parks in Canada.”
Fowler's father is a policeman in New South Wales, Australia, and the family mourned Fowler in a statement on the department's website.
"To lose someone so young and vibrant, who was traveling the world and just enjoying life to the full, is devastating," the Fowler family said. "To know his beautiful girlfriend ... also lost her life in this violent event is too cruel."
The Fowler family said they are going to Canada "to be with our boy and to bring him home."
Police are asking anyone with information to come forward. Authorities are specifically interested in any dashcam footage available.
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