Loren Donn Leslie was a 15-year-old girl with a compassionate heart who, despite being legally blind, saw the good in people. Her father, Doug Leslie, described her as a "fun-loving, innocent little girl" who treated everyone with "dignity, compassion and respect." Loren herself once wrote about her deep empathy for others, saying, "I hear tears on people's faces who aren't accepted... But I hear them."
This profound sensitivity defined the young woman from Fraser Lake, British Columbia, whose life was stolen on a cold November night.
On the evening of November 27, 2010, Loren, a Grade 10 student at Nechako Valley Secondary School, made plans to meet 20-year-old Cody Alan Legebokoff, a man she had connected with on the social networking site Nexopia. She told her mother she was going for coffee with a girlfriend. Instead, she met Legebokoff, who picked her up in his truck. Later that night, around 9:45 p.m., a rookie Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer on patrol near Vanderhoof grew suspicious when he saw a pickup truck speeding erratically out of a remote, snow-covered logging road onto Highway 27.
Acting on a hunch, the officer pulled the truck over. The driver was Legebokoff, and the officer immediately noticed blood on his face, chin, and legs. A search of the vehicle uncovered a blood-stained multi-tool and a pipe wrench, as well as Loren's wallet and a distinctive monkey backpack she owned. When questioned about the blood, Legebokoff claimed he had been poaching and had clubbed a deer, explaining, "I'm a redneck, that's what we do for fun." Unconvinced, police called in a conservation officer with tracking skills. The conservation officer followed the tire tracks from Legebokoff's truck back up the logging road into the fresh snow, where he soon discovered footprints leading to a gravel pit. There, partially hidden in the brush, he found Loren's body. She had been beaten to death just hours before.
The arrest of Cody Legebokoff for Loren's murder was just the beginning. The investigation quickly revealed a much darker story, linking him to the deaths of three other women in the Prince George area: Jill Stacey Stuchenko, 35; Cynthia Frances Maas, 35; and Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 23. DNA evidence connected Legebokoff to all three women. Stuchenko and Maas had been found in outdoor locations, while Montgomery's body has never been recovered, though her DNA was found in Legebokoff's apartment. The discoveries exposed Legebokoff, known to friends as a popular "country boy," as one of Canada's youngest serial killers.
During his trial, Legebokoff pleaded not guilty, offering a fabricated story that he was present at the deaths but that they were committed by a drug dealer and two accomplices he named "X, Y, and Z." For Loren's murder, he bizarrely claimed that she had "freaked out" and inflicted the fatal injuries upon herself with a knife and pipe wrench. The jury rejected his outlandish testimony. In September 2014, Cody Legebokoff was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. The judge, calling him remorseless, stated, "He should never be allowed to walk among us again."
In the wake of their devastating loss, Loren's family has worked to create a positive legacy in her name. Her father established the Loren Donn Leslie Foundation to promote youth empowerment and to spread his daughter's message of treating others with kindness and respect. "Everybody that knew Loren knew her as a special child and a special adolescent," her father said. "Her compassion for everybody was unreal." The family's grief remains a constant, a deep sadness for a young life full of promise that was so brutally cut short. Her mother, Donna, expressed the shattering impact of the murder, saying, "Losing Loren has basically destroyed [our memories]. I am shattered, heartbroken and will never be the same."
