[Music] as a hiding place this highway is ideal a body might not be found ever or maybe never for years Lauren was kind of a free spirit and we didn't worry about her when probably we should have worried about her more from the very beginning um Cody starts saying things about sex to Lauren very very graphic things about sex it's so frightening to to hear the story it appears that you know Cody was a proverbial ticking time ball just waiting to go off it wasn't poaching it was um it was murder you can't learn that you have to be born that way you can't learn that evil if one is already killed then how many other victims may still be out there [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] British Columbia is really a fascinating place and it's incredibly isolated we're in the middle of a sea of trees British Columbia uh is about 1.7 times the size of France you know have these little communities that for years didn't have running water or you know update electricities I go back a long way and um there were just small little Villages even till I was 14 we traveled to town once a week by horse and buggy or horse and [Music] sleigh never heard of anyone go missing like this never cutting through these rural communities is a Highway that for the last few decades has become increasingly notorious Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince rert it is 725 kilm Long Highway 16 in British Columbia has a much more well-known name it's often refer to as the highway of tear it relates back to the incredible amount of uh murdered and missing women and girls uh that that have simply just disappeared on that Highway when these cases happen uh it takes a very uh it hits close to home usually their hitchhike and doing so out of desperation they really have no other form of transportation can you imagine a 720 km stretch there's maybe a town every hour as a hiding place this highway is ideal a body might not be found ever or maybe never for years [Music] Fort St James a small village just off the highway of Tears is home to Cody lebov he's born in 1990 and grows up close to this Infamous stretch of road by all appearances Cody came from a great family um didn't want for much growing up had everything all the Comforts of Home essentially uh his full life ahead of him I didn't know him personally I didn't know his father or mother personally but his grandparents I knew extremely well can't say anything bad about them at all why aov was in some respects a normal kid he was a big kid kind of a um early Bloomer in some ways but one of the things that kind of stood out about him is he loved to play hockey but he stood out in terms of his level of violence um on the hockey rank other parents would take their children off the ice when he was participating in hockey because of his aggressive nature we all can come out and be very very aggressive at certain times the difference is are we able to control our anger and not have it come out that serious violent acts occur to other [Music] people here you have someone who's a a deer hunter and he is hunting the deer but Ms them first and then goes with his hands to finish the deal of killing them this is somebody who would literally beat a deer to death the fact that he's a hunter doesn't surprise me um but the fact that he took pleasure in uh seeing those animals suffer uh that is um that's staggering actually it is a marker it is a risk factor for violence against humans and yet in some respects it was compartmentalized because he was very well-liked and got along and had plenty of friends I think the hardest part of all is anyone that knew him never suspected for a minute that any of this would have ever gone on after graduating high school leab bakov moves 100 miles from rural Fort St James to the city of of Prince George my name is Todd dhy I'm the Member of Parliament uh for Caribou print George we have uh uh a tremendous amount of First Nation communities in and around our area um and uh gradually over time as our forestry industry has been uh decimated we've seen a lot of economic hardship you've got families that are uh are finding it harder to make ends meet you have substance abuse issues you have domestic uh abuse issues Cody gets a job as a mechanic starts a relationship and appears to quickly adapt to city life if you want to find trouble it's not difficult to find in Prince George it could be a bit of a party town um there are certainly escort services in in the city it's not difficult to find drugs in this town so imagine moving to this Urban environment this environment with all of these different stimulus all these different ideas all these different things coming at you from you coming from a small rural envir environment that's a lot we can now see the potential as he's in this urban area for him to escalate Cody leab boom seemed to like the party a lot he was fairly popular with the girls he really got into the cocaine I think leer POF he he almost lived a double life I think you have somebody who is working at a for dealership who's got a relationship who people see as very personable as likable as funny and then you have this other side it's like the the dark depths of the soul that you start seeing here you have an individual who is now working but the cocaine addiction is there girlfriend in the middle the idea to juggle all of those this is more stress on an individual this anger this this this aggression is already there you have elements starting to line up now that can lead someone to be involved in very violent activities my name is Doug Lesley and I am Lauren Don Lesley's father from what I can understand she she did meet him online and he went and picked her up it's so so frightening to to hear this [Music] story it appears that you know Cody was a ticking Time Bomb just waiting to go [Music] [Music] off Cody leer bakov now aged 20 has a girlfriend and is working as a mechanic he's also hiding a cocaine addiction and has started chatting with a 15-year-old girl online Lauren Leslie Lauren was special from day one as she grew she spent a lot of time at my house visiting she was a unique girl very unique girl she was always awesome very thoughtful she had a a vision problem she was legally blind but uh you'd really never know it by watching her because she never let on and never really slowed her down at all when she was four she went to school with the little boy and like this little boy but when this boy was nine he drowned in the lake when when it came to the day of the funeral she wanted to sit with the parents and she sat beside the mother and stroke her arm and this is how unique she's 9 years old this is the unique little girl Lauren Lesley is a very innocent 15-year-old girl she meets this predator on a Canadian Internet site called nexopia from the very beginning it's it's is clear that the agendas are very very different from the very beginning um Cody starts saying things about sex to Lauren very very graphic things about sex you can see that this makes Lauren very very uncomfortable and the way she handles that in their Communication online is she tries to ignore it and then she tries to kind of say to him hey that's not what I'm looking for I'm looking for something different um and you know it's it's just dramatic to see the differences in what these two people are [Music] saying well the last time I saw her was about 3:00 in the afternoon and she was hanging around with friends and walking downtown on the night of November 27th she tells her mom she's going to have coffee with a friend and she goes and she meets this person this Predator at a school on the playground he offers to get her some alcohol um which you know she is much too young to be drinking um but she finally says okay I'll have some muds [Music] sliders what is about to happen I think is something that's very very scary there were um two RCMP officers one from the prince Geor Detachment uh one from the vaner roof Detachment that were meeting on Highway 16 uh late at night it is amongst one of the darkest highways I've ever been on just ahead of them this truck pulls out of a isolated Logging Road um and uh at a high rate of speed kind of fish tailing down the road to his credit this cop's Spidey senses just start going off puts his lights on calls her backup and pulls over this black truck [Music] think about the remoteness of the highway of tears but can you imagine making a traffic stop in a remote area like this the police officer comes up to the window he's shining his light he looks at his uh credentials and he notices that there's this kind of red smudge on um this person the driver's chin and it looks like a blood meanwhile his backup person comes they start looking around and they find blood there's a knife in the car that's got blood on it there's a wrench in the car that's got blood on it they find blood just about everywhere the first response from him is well I've been hunting been poaching deer and that's what happened okay blood on a wrench the officer continues on even though the police don't at all believe Cody's story they're going to check it out they go back to this Logging Road and they discover the worst case scenario they discover the body of a young girl who's in the snow she has been beaten so badly that her face is unrecognizable they have some clue though in terms of who she is because they also had found this really adorable monkey backpack they find a wallet a polka dot wallet and in that has got uh Lauren Leslie's identification card her medical card I got a call from the cops at I don't know it was probably midnigh is I went up to the to the site and that when I got there the cops were at the end of the road my son Doug called me by phone quite early in the morning to tell me what had happened and it was devastating to hear that news Lauren was so young absolutely devastated that family absolutely devastated that family um in so many ways I couldn't imagine um what Lauren's last moments were [Music] late I remember vividly the the photograph that they issued of Cody leer boov he looked like an absolute train wreck you could tell he did a lot of drugs I ended up in the police station in Van about 30 ft from Leeder bokov he was in the cell in the next couple of rooms over and you know I I told the cop to let me in for 5 minutes and I found out later on and that's all he could to not let me in um but it was you know to to have that 30 ft away from me at that time was uh pretty rough this is somebody who was not out of control of his life this was somebody who had a girlfriend this was somebody who was holding down a job so this is not somebody whose life is gone off the rails because of their cocaine use when you look at the premeditated and calculating way that this offender that this Predator goes online meets somebody and that's not the kind of murder that you see with somebody who's psychotic because of some drug and fueled frenzy leab bakov is held in custody [Music] his apartment is searched and he swabbed for DNA as police began preparing evidence for his trial 12 months after Lauren's death after examining new evidence police contact Lauren's family with shocking news about a year later we got called in when they connected the dots and uh found out that he was in fact um being charged with three more murders it's unbelievable stumbled upon what turned out to be kanda's youngest serial killer you never know what's going on in the house beside you with this case that's probably one of the most terrifying things Cody lebov is in custody charged with the first-degree murder a 15-year-old Lauren Leslie police now suspect Lauren isn't his first victim they've been investigating the murders and missing persons cases of three other women this happened over a course of you know uh a long period of time when you have one body turn up and then maybe you have another body and completely unrelated you don't believe that you have a serial killer walking amongst us and it was only after um the discovery of Lauren um that investigators were they able to really piece together that Holy Smokes we have a serial killer uh amongst us the unsolved murders and missing person cases date back to over a year before Lauren Leslie was killed on October 9th 2009 Local woman Jill Steno is reported missing Jill Steno a 35-year-old mother of five who was very much deep into her addictions she was kind of known I and I actually kind of known and liked she had friends who wanted to get the word out about her disappearance and and of course turned to us to get that word out this is a woman who had had some struggle in her life she had a pretty significant Co cocaine addiction that she was battling but she was also the mother of five children and she really really wanted to get her life straightened out so she could take care of her children and it she was just having a difficult time with [Music] it stachenko was found half half buried in a gravel pit just outside Prince George she had been completely mutilated there was evidence that she had been beaten with a blunt object um she had been stabbed there was evidence that she had been sexually assaulted it was just an absolutely horrendous crime scene whenever they find a body they do a lot of forensics they they just ga as much evidence as they can they'll close the the scene down for a day or so by comparing DNA records from Jill sinko to a stain found on leab bakov sofa police now believe he is Jill's killer this is Cody lov's first murder at least first confirmed murder Cody would often contact women who were sex workers he also would get them to get crack cocaine for him he seemed to have a pretty significant addiction around this time to crack cocaine and so those both may have been in play in terms of when she came over to his apartment we know that she died an absolutely horrendous horrendous death based on autopsy results the first murder was probably very opportunistic and he found that well wait a second I got away with this it was easy to do and he had it in him um and that just fueled the passion to do [Music] more another vulnerable woman is reported missing from Prince GE Gorge Natasha Montgomery was a girl from quinel which is a a small community probably about an hour and a half hour and a half Drive south of Prince George came from a good family um did a lot of figure skating as a as a youngster and sort of lost her way when she came up to Prince George Natasha Montgomery was 23 years old she had struggled with uh crack cocaine that was kind of a a on her back that she had a really hard time getting rid of um she sometimes resorted to sex work as a way to supplement her income so she was really somebody who was in a highrisk category she was missing um and we you know quite honestly every couple of weeks somebody goes missing and more often than not they sort of resurface um but she hadn't resurfaced Natasha mcgomery is still missing and presumed dead when leab bakov is charged with Lauren's murder police find Natasha's DNA on leab bov's clothing and in various places in his apartment they Blu lighted it and there was swabs everywhere and um it was it looked like he basically started chasing her from his bedroom into the kitchen and and beat her to death now we have another vict victim that's linked to him because of DNA evidence found in his apartment if we have Montgomery's body that has never been found we just never know how many others are out there whether it be on the highway of Tears or some other place that if one is already killed then how many other victims may still be out there there is 11 months between uh Cody's first murder and a second one is it possible that he did other murders during this time it is there certainly have been several Killers who have started out slowly and then ramped up they did one one year one the next year one six months later and ramped up so it's possible that he waited for a year um but it's also possible that there are other victims that we don't know about it would be horrifying for parents to not not be able to find their children regardless of what has happened to them you know um to not know anything is would be very very [Music] difficult the best way to describe her is through her sister the way she described Cynthia was a very trusting uh you know a bit of a hippie it sounds like uh you know she was quite the pleasant person Cynthia seemed to struggle at times with cocaine addiction and also would engage in sex work is a way to supplement her income on September the 10th 2010 Cynthia Moss was murdered leaving behind one child to now be without a mom Moss is found in a wooded park in Prince George one of leab bov's socks is found to contain DNA matching Cynthia her DNA is also found on an axe in leab bov's bedroom what we see with the brutal murder of of Miss Moss is just pure aggression and violence coming out we' have seen his vience with animals and the way that he hunts and the way he kills with his hands we hope that we don't see that move to a human being but we do with the victim of moss these three victims are clearly targeted I believe they're vulnerable and they're individuals that Cody knows he can take advantage of most of his victims are mothers who now leave behind children who will never see the smile the affection of their mother again leab bakov arranged to meet Lauren Leslie Less Than 3 months after murdering Cynthia Moss Lauren had no way of knowing that the guy she met online was already a serial killer because until he met Lauren he'd gotten away with it I'm certain that Cody leder bokov was really counting on nobody finding Lauren Les's body the way he was trying to get away from the scene it sound like he had a probably a lot of guilt on his mind um a lot of fear it's challenging um for those that go missing that may be on the street and maybe do not have regular contact with loved ones it also speaks to how uh incredibly fortunate that that RP officer on the on the on the road was cuz if they hadn't caught him that night they likely wouldn't have caught him for a while the way the bodies were positioned uh and the the injuries that they suffered and um what he did to them afterwards um it you know it was all it was definitely the signs of a pattern if he was not stopped would we have the ability to catch this individual because he is moving on from people being involved women being involved in the sex trade to people who are not involved in the sex trade we we often like to put our serial killers in a box where we can find that these similar characteristics are telling us or giving us sort of profile or indicator of where he she may go next this switch up is is a difficult one to take and thank goodness he was taken into custody it's bittersweet because I mean it's terrible to have a child gone but that she was a catalyst to stop him that was the good part one of the really impressive things about the story is that Lauren Leslie's family has said a couple of times that the one thing they've held on to is the fact that their daughter's murder prevented additional murders and that that has been somewhat comforting to them and I am 100% sure that if they had not caught him at this point he would have continued to murder until he was [Music] caught during court we were pretty much all together so many people were impacted by it he was living with three girls and uh one of the girls testified that she she saw him um his nose was bleeding into a toilet and she said Cody you know just kind of warned him like you're doing way too much cocaine he he was a bit of a puzzle I I remember during the during the trial um there was a a you know a sex worker who supplied drugs to him and she said yeah I owe you 300 bucks and he said oh don't worry about it you know I'll I'll catch you on the rebound I I just don't quite understand um I think it was a little bit of probably a bit impulsive friends of Jill sinko Natasha mcgomery and Cynthia Moss also testify in court they really wanted to get their stories out and uh really they were scared they were really worried that they could be this next victim and I think they really wanted to put him away pretty much the first thing that the crown prosecutor says was we have 3,000 pages of forensic evidence you know they weren't going to miss a beat on this one [Music] he basically said uh well uh these three women were in trouble with the local drug dealers and uh you know they wanted to get them because they owed them money um uh and a Mr X and a Mr Y and a Mr Zed uh said Cody you you got to help us out he said that he was the he was the one who handed them the weapons and they the these characters actually did did these three end and uh uh disposed of the bodies it was it was you know so outrageous and so ridiculous leab bakov has another explanation for Lauren's death he claims that her death is because she brought a knife with her and self-inflicted this harm on herself she you know somehow escaped from the truck and she was doing this to herself and uh that he decided Well okay she's done for I'm going to just put her out of her mizy with this wrench he truly seems to have a lack of understanding about normal emotions and he also seems to have a limited ability to feel them you know when you hear him talk about the murders there's just no sense of emotion remorse regret guilt or any of the things that we would hope to see he was going to roll a dice and see if he could fool everybody the jury are considering their verdict at leab bov's murder trial his defense claimed Lauren Leslie tried to take her own life and that three unnamed individuals are responsible for the murders of Joel sinko Natasha mcgomery and Cynthia [Music] Moss Ledger bov is convicted in September of 2014 of four counts of murder I think what's interesting is how rare it is for a serial killer to start in their teens and I think that speaks to the level of depravity to some extent in Cody about 14% of serial killers start in their teens remember the brain does not fully formed until about age 25 so he has the impulsivity of a teenager with the anger that's developed that usually doesn't make its way to criminal activity of this nature until one is in their late 20s or 30s that shows itself in the aggressive nature of how these people were killed I think that we often do tend to look primarily at at circumstances CH trauma and those kinds of things and I think it's easy to forget that there are people who seem to for whatever reason biologically they seem to have something missing and I do think that Cody is an example of that I would say he was a predator he prayed on the weak he prayed on the the most vulnerable and he took full advantages of their [Music] disadvantages as his methods and motiv uh openda kind of uh involved with their [Music] others what they do is they give uh they give prisoners a bit of a faint hope as as a way to make them behave themselves and and kind of do the right things and you know not be incorrigible and and not make it difficult for the on the staff it gives them that a bit of incentive and and keeps them out of trouble it seems he's following the rules and therefore he is rewarded with being in a less secure prison what that means more privileges uh a better environment 255 years is a long time some people become institutionalized and follow the rules and make their way toward Rehabilitation others take the time to Simply say let me go along with this let me play the game if you will and do my time and then go back to whatever [Music] I just want him to stay in jail for the rest of his life I'm working with MPS to try to get him back in maximum security where he belongs I think a lot of people are very angry um that this has happened just on principle the whole turmoil that he caused these people I've raised this in Parliament um a number of times as Cody has gone through the system you know how can how can Kus Canada transfer this horrific killer Canada's youngest serial killer he shown no signs of remorse uh still holds the information to the whereabouts of one of his victims you know when you speak with the victim's families um it's absolutely heartbreaking and overwhelmingly the question is who fights for us where's our voice you know it's just uh you can't help but get emotional and get drawn into it we've never seen any remorse from this person this is somebody who to this day is saying he didn't do it he's blaming it on three other people there's no evidence they even exist and so when you look at risk factors for recidivism they're all over the place I think he has the capacity to kill again how many more are there actually out there that he has has murdered I I don't think it's done you can't learn that you have to be born that way because there's you can't learn that evil I think the word psychopath gets used and overused all the time I have not personally evaluated him but I will tell you there is something about him I think that is is very scary we have so many people that um seemingly just disappear and in our neck of the woods and and there's lots of different theories as to what's happening with that um did did did he use that as a cover did did that motivate him did that fuel him to try it himself that's something to ask Cody leab off and and I don't think he'll ever tell that Lauren was kind of a free spirit and we didn't worry about her when probably we should have worried about her more and you know you take it for granted that people are who what they what you see but they're not really we got to pay more attention to our kids for sure definitely has affected everyone around uh people that I never knew before that I've come in contact know about Lauren certainly it's made an impact what would she be doing today if she was still here she would still be going around helping people that's what she would be doing in some way or another I try not to think about that it it's too too much to think about [Music] [Music] [Music]