Saskatoon police say they have not found all GPS trackers. It is believed that a man planted in vehicles in the city.
Saskatoon police say that Marty Schira, 46, is in custody and faces 36 positions: several harassment, intimidation, mischief, fraudulent use of a fraudulent computer system and concealment of a computer system. Police say that each tracker located results in at least five additional positions.
Police say that in each of the seven cases of trackers discovered in vehicles so far, the devices have been found under the vehicle, inside the rear fender wall, near the tire.
Police believe that there are still at least 10 more trackers, although the number could be higher.
“We don’t know,” the staff sergeant. Brett Maki said when asked how many.
“That is why we are trying to request public help to try to recover them before everyone dies, chargers lose their energy from batteries. We would like to recover as many as we can.”
The trackers are installed with magnets, wrapped in black tape and will be seen out of place, Maki said. If people are not sure where to look at, Maki suggested to take their vehicle to a mechanic.
The investigation began on September 6, 2024, after a citizen reported having found two GPS trackers in his vehicle.
He took the officers to search an apartment in the 2000 block of 20th Street West, where the officers found more trackers.
Some victims unknown to Schira: the police
Maki said the trackers are owned by a subscription -based company and that is how the officers learned that there are additional trackers allegedly under the name of Schira.
Maki said Schira knows some of the people who were being tracked, but not others.
He added that similar problems have been reported with the locations of the people who are tracking before, but not at this point.
Maki said it is not illegal to possess such trackers, but that it is alleged that Schira had been using illegally.
Couple discover truck trackers
When Daelyn Boettcher found engraved devices planted at the back of his truck, he said he knew what they were “immediately.”
Boettcher said he had been working on the truck brakes when he saw the team at the corner of his eye.
“My first reaction was that I thought someone was trying to steal my truck,” he said.
Boettcher said the police hinted that the devices had probably joined the vehicle for several months.
“He knows everything to know about us.”
His girlfriend, Mackenzie Hanson, said they reported that police trackers after determining none of them had planted the devices.
Later, Hanson learned that Schira had planted the trackers. She looked in her name and knew that Schira had been previously convicted of sexual aggression and kidnapping.
“I felt very uncomfortable and restless,” said Hanson.
“I’m not anywhere alone, more or less, and I just look over my shoulder much more.”
Schira’s previous convictions
In May 2004, Schira declared himself guilty in a provincial Chamber of Calgary of sexual aggression and kidnapping.
According to a statement of agreed facts, Schira kidnapped a woman at a gunpoint while walking in her hometown of Rosetown, Sask., In June 2003.
The court documents say that Schira took her to Calgary, sexually assaulting them both in her vehicle on the way to the city and inside her apartment.
It was originally sentenced to 14 years in prison. However, later that year, Alberta Court of Appeal reduced its sentence to 13 years.
According to the documents of the Canada Probation Board in 2017, Schira stabbed a correctional officer with a protractor in June 2013, which turned out to add two years to his sentence.
The document cites the case management team of Schira, saying that it has advanced little addressing its offensive behavior, including violence, sexual deviation and mental health deficiencies.
The probation Board said at that time that if Schira was released, probably reincided, causing serious damage to another person, before the end of his sentence.
A psychological risk assessment completed in December 2016 said that Schira presented characteristics of several disorders of the schizophrenia spectrum.
GPS tracker technology has advantages, cons
The computer science professor at the University of Manitoba, David Gerhard, said that there are beneficial and nefarious uses for trackers. He gave examples as people who use trackers to follow their vehicles or possessions in case of robbery, or for security if they are walking in forests, as positive.
“But, of course, if you take one of these small boxes and put it in another person’s vehicle instead of your own vehicle, then you can know their location without their consent,” he said.
“And that’s something bad.”
Gerhard said that with some trackers that use cellular networks, such as Apple Airegs, people with Apple phones or certain applications can be notified if a tracker is close and moves when they do.
Other trackers that use satellite signals do not have similar notification forms, he said.
