The families and supporters of murdered women enter the Manitoba Law Courts for the trial of Jeremy Skibicki in Winnipeg on Tuesday, May 8, 2024.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
Graphic details about the crimes of a man who admitted to killing four First Nations women were revealed in a Winnipeg court on Wednesday, including his video confession during a nearly 20-hour police interrogation and a recording of the 911 call that alerted authorities to the deaths.
Jeremy Skibicki’s defence lawyers are arguing he was not criminally responsible for the murders because of mental illness. But on Wednesday, in opening statements for the trial before Court of King’s Bench Justice Glenn Joyal, the Crown contended that Mr. Skibicki murdered the women in a calculated manner. The prosecution believes he should be found criminally responsible.
Crown prosecutor Renée Lagimodière said Mr. Skibicki, 37, preyed on his victims from shelters for vulnerable people, invited them back to his home where he assaulted them, often sexually, then killed them before engaging in further sexual acts on their bodies. Eventually, he disposed them “as though they were garbage,” she said.
Mr. Skibicki, she added, carefully thought out schemes about what he intended to do and carried out those violent plans successfully. “This case is about a man’s hate-filled and cruel acts perpetrated against four vulnerable Indigenous women,” Ms. Lagimodière said.
Mr. Skibicki told the court earlier this week that he unlawfully caused the deaths of 24-year-old Rebecca Contois, 26-year-old Marcedes Myran, 39-year-old Morgan Harris and an unidentified woman whom Indigenous elders have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, meaning Buffalo Woman.
Flanked by two sheriff’s officers, his ankles shackled, Mr. Skibicki walked into and out of the packed courtroom before and after brief breaks in Wednesday’s five-hour hearing, never making eye contact with families of the victims and other observers.
According to a statement of facts agreed to by both the Crown and the defence, a man named John Kinal called police at 5:24 a.m. on May 16, 2022, after finding a human head in a garbage bag in a bin outside an apartment building in Winnipeg’s East Kildonan neighbourhood. This turned out to be the remains of Ms. Contois; her torso was later found in the city’s Brady Road landfill.
Timeline of slayings of four women in Winnipeg, demands to search a landfill for remains
Prosecutors played the audio recording of Mr. Kinal’s 911 call, where he said he had been rummaging for salvageable items. He agitatedly told the dispatcher that he knew he needed to call police, but was fearful that the person who disposed of the bag might return.
He was also worried about a garbage truck arriving to empty the bin. “She’s obviously been murdered,” Mr. Kinal said in the recording.
Police arrested Mr. Skibicki the next day, with the help of tactical units. His lengthy interrogation lasted until May 18.
In the shortened, three-hour version of the interrogation video shown in court, Mr. Skibicki said he strangled, choked and drowned at least four women in his apartment.
At one point, he asked investigators whether he could confess his sins to a priest. Later, just after a bathroom break, he said police are “neutral” to him, but if he were put in a prison cell with anyone who was “not white,” he would try to kill them.
He said he had no difficulty “powering” over the women. He said he improved his process for dismembering the women’s bodies after his first victim, who was Buffalo Woman.
After helping to identify three of the women, he was unable to correctly identify Buffalo Woman. The only information he gave was that she was wearing a Baby Phat sweater he sold on Facebook Marketplace shortly after he killed her. Police seized the sweater, but have not been able to identify her yet.
“I really just wanted to see how far, you know, I could take things,” he said in the video. “The criminal justice system is a joke.”
Some relatives of the victims left the room when the video was played, hugging each other in the hallway, as Mr. Skibicki watched it on a large screen, sipping water from a small plastic cup.
Winnipeg Detective Sergeant Greg Allan, who interrogated Mr. Skibicki, briefly testified in court.
Both the Crown and the defence questioned him on whether police had observed any signs of psychosis from Mr. Skibicki or whether he asked to see a doctor. Det. Sgt. Allan repeatedly said “no” to those questions.
The defence pointed out that Mr. Skibicki had told police he suffers from borderline personality disorder and that he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, which the lawyers intend to explain when the trial continues on Thursday.
The Crown said evidence in the court will include letters that Mr. Skibicki wrote and sent to another prisoner, which they believe will be important to assess his mental capacity.
Justice Joyal commenced Wednesday’s hearing by formally discharging the 12-member jury that was selected for the trial late last month. Both the Crown and defence agreed to a judge-alone trial, given the complicated nature of ascertaining a not-criminally-responsible verdict in Mr. Skibicki’s case.