Barbara Jean MacLean was 19 when she was murdered in Calgary on February 26, 1977. She had moved to the city six months earlier and worked at the Palliser Square branch of the Royal Bank. Described as friendly and outgoing, she was socializing at the Highlander Bar the night of February 25. After an argument with her boyfriend—who had been removed from the bar—she left alone, later rejoined him in his parked car, argued again, and was left in the parking lot. Reportedly somewhat intoxicated, she intended to hitchhike to another party and never arrived.

Her fully clothed body was found the next morning along a gravel road near 80th Avenue and 6th Street N.E., just outside Calgary’s city limits. She had been strangled, and investigators believe she was killed elsewhere and her body dumped. For decades the death remained unsolved and at one point was linked to the series called the Highway Murders.

In 2024 advanced DNA analysis and investigative genetic genealogy identified the perpetrator as Gary Allen Srery, a U.S. citizen and convicted sex offender who had lived in Alberta and British Columbia in the 1970s and died in an Idaho prison in 2011 while serving a life sentence for rape. DNA linked Srery to Barbara’s murder and three other young women. Does anyone have information about Barbara’s last night in Calgary or the people she was with at the Highlander Bar?