Two months ago, the bodies of American adult models Steve Wright and Mark Kraynak were discovered in a rock quarry in a suburb outside Montreal. Police said a surveillance video outside the club where the men allegedly were headed showed them jump from a cab and run into an alley.
The cab pursued them off camera, after which police speculated that the men jumped a fence at the end of the alley, not realizing in the dark of night that a 50-foot drop into the quarry lay on the other side.
However, police were unable to locate the cab driver in question to verify their theory.
On Friday, however, Canadian authorities said they had received a call from a woman on behalf of the cab driver, claiming he had nothing to do with the case but that he did not want to come forward.
The caller said the two men were “fare-cheats” and had refused to pay their $40 fare.
Since the incident, Kraynak's mother has refused to accept the police account. She said there are too many unanswered questions, including why her son would run from a cab to avoid paying the fare when he had plenty of money in his pockets and an ATM card in his wallet.
She pointed to a statement from a waitress at the club who reported that the men had left her a $200 tip earlier in the day as evidence that her son would not stiff a cab driver for $40.
“I have reason to believe my son was being threatened at the time,” she said after watching the surveillance video. “To me, he was running for his life. That's what it looks like to me.
“I know my son and I know he didn't skip his fare. I just want answers,” Kraynak said.
And there are many questions. For example, police have yet to release Mark Kraynak’s cellphone records, which reportedly show he received a call at 3:32 a.m., the same time he was allegedly running from the cab.
On top of this, the footage also shows a possible fourth person in the taxi, as well as a two cars parked nearby with people clearly visible in them. None of these people have been found or questioned, according to police reports.
Kraynak’s mother also told reporters on Thursday that she never personally identified her son's body. Instead, both models’ identity had been confirmed through dental records, she said.
Speculation has also arisen that the work permits given to the two models were illegal. Gregory Carlin, director of the Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition (IATC), which has taken on Kraynak’s case, went as far as to claim local police are trying to cover up the incident to avoid highlighting Canada’s adult industry.
“Laval police have come under a lot of pressure to get rid of this and try not to bring attention to the exotic dancer scheme,” Carlin said. “This is the exact same scheme Kraynak brought in. It is a dirty, filthy, despicable racket.”
Carlin said Wright and Kraynak were two of six American models that received 90-day permits to work as exotic dancers in Canada, a system Carlin said has been heavily abused and often brings in dancers to the country who are then forced into prostitution.
A U.S. Government report in 2003 concurs with Carlin’s statement. The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act included extensive research into Canada’s adult industry, concluding “corruption among foreign law enforcement authorities continues to undermine the efforts by governments to investigate, prosecute and convict traffickers.”
Kraynak’s mother also recently made public a poem she found in her son’s belonging, which she said lamented his decision to go to Canada as an exotic dancer.
“He knew things were headed in a bad direction,” she said. “He didn't know the extent he was getting involved. He may have known some of the things he was getting into, but never to the degree they went.”
