He has been charged with four murders, but by all appearances 21-year-old Cody Alan Legebokoff was a “perfectly normal” young man.
Legebokoff grew up hunting for grouse and fishing for trout in Fort St. James, a small town about 100 km northwest of Prince George.
“He had a good upbringing – everything was perfect,” said Legebokoff’s grandfather Roy Goodwin. “I hunted with him. I fished with him. We did everything and he was a perfectly normal child.
“He was no different than you or I when we were younger.”
Goodwin, 79, paints a remarkably different picture of the young man police allege preyed on at least four women, killing them over a one-year period that ended with the murder of 15 year-old Loren Leslie on Nov. 27, 2010.
“The Cody that I know – that I took hunting and fishing – wouldn’t do any of that,” Goodwin said. “Everybody liked him, there wasn’t a person that had a bad thing to say about him – nobody.
Legebokoff was born and raised in Fort St. James but moved to Prince George after he graduated from Fort St. James secondary school.
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Goodwin said he talked to Legebokoff’s parents on Sunday and that almost a year after his initial arrest, they are still coming to terms with it. “They’re a little better now, I think,” Goodwin said. “It’s quite a shock though.”
The 6-foot-2 Legebokoff had no run-ins with the law and was in good standing with his employer, according to Prince George police.
Goodwin last saw his grandson at a big family dinner during last year’s Thanksgiving weekend.
“He drove up from Prince George, had dinner and then went back,” Goodwin said. “He had a girlfriend with him. He introduced her to me and I talked to her and that was it.
“I hardly talked to him.”
Just over a month later, Legebokoff was stopped by police and arrested near an old logging road where Leslie’s body was found.
Shortly after he was arrested, superintendent Ray LeMoigne of the Nechako Lakes School District 91 – of which Legebokoff’s high school was a part – told the Prince George Citizen, “Cody has a loving family and caring parents, siblings and a large extended family in the region. In school he was well liked by his peers and was very good at sports. He played minor hockey at all levels and belonged to the downhill ski and snowboard team.”
“The people of Fort St. James have been dealing with shock, confusion and disbelief since Tuesday when the word came out. . . .”
At the time, LeMoigne told the Citizen he extended support to Legebokoff’s family “as they deal with each new day.”
Asked if she felt good about the latest charges, Kathleen Leslie, the grandmother of Legebokoff’s first alleged victim, said she had mixed emotions.
She said she’s glad there has been an arrest, but feels badly for his family.
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