Chief Kyra Wilson of the Long Plain First Nation speaks during a news conference at the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly in Ottawa, on Dec. 8.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
A Winnipeg-area landfill has paused operations as police face growing pressure, including from the city’s police board, to search the site for the remains of two women believed to be victims of an alleged serial killer.
Investigators have said it would be both difficult and dangerous to attempt to recover the remains of Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 24, from the Prairie Green landfill – where they are believed to have been buried for more than six months. But even if the search is unsuccessful, the Winnipeg Police Services Board’s chair said, there are humanitarian reasons to try.
“This is a high-risk search that would be done, in terms of the safety components to it and the potential of not finding anything,” Markus Chambers, who is also a city councillor, said in an interview on Friday. “So we have to manage expectations around that – but we also can’t sit back and do nothing.”
Indigenous leaders in Manitoba call for Winnipeg police chief’s resignation
Mr. Chambers said the board met Thursday evening with Police Chief Danny Smyth, and directed him to consult with Indigenous leaders and industry experts – including in waste management, excavation, and forensic anthropology – to determine whether to search or possibly decommission part of the Prairie Green landfill, a private four-acre facility north of the city.
In the meantime, Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson and Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham announced this week that the landfill has paused operations.
“We extended our heartfelt condolences to the families impacted by this unimaginable tragedy,” Prairie Green’s district manager Barry Blue said in an e-mailed statement Friday. “We continue to work collaboratively [with] all authorities.”
The Winnipeg Police Service has not responded to requests for comment.
Investigators have said they believe the remains of Ms. Harris and Ms. Myran are buried at the landfill, but that a search would pose both logistical and health and safety risks.
Jeremy Skibicki, 35, is facing four first-degree murder charges for the deaths of Ms. Harris and Ms. Myran, as well as Rebecca Contois, a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, and a fourth woman who has not yet been identified. The unidentified woman is also believed to be Indigenous, and elders have named her Buffalo Woman. Police do not know where her remains are.
The partial remains of Ms. Contois were discovered in May in a garbage bin outside a Winnipeg apartment building. Within hours, additional remains were recovered from the city-owned Brady Road landfill.
Mr. Skibicki was charged after that discovery in the spring. Police didn’t determine Ms. Harris and Ms. Myran had likely been killed until 34 days after investigators believe their remains were transported to the Prairie Green landfill. By that time, police have said, 10,000 truckloads of debris had been dumped at the site, compacted and buried in 9,000 tonnes of construction mud.
By the time the additional murder charges were announced last week, six more months had passed.
Indigenous leaders as well as the family of Ms. Harris have called for the resignation of Winnipeg’s police chief for the force’s refusal to search the landfill.
Long Plain First Nation Chief Kyra Wilson said Friday that she was with the Harris family when they learned the landfill would be pausing operations, and that they were all pleased by the development.
“It’s just the beginning but it’s a step in the right direction,” she said. “Obviously we still have a lot more work to do, in terms of what the process or plan is going to look like for a search and all that. We’re all trying to figure this out together.”
Ms. Wilson has not heard from the police chief, and said the calls for his resignation stand: “I’m waiting on their response, but I’m not I’m not holding my breath.”
Mayor Gillingham said it will be important that Indigenous communities and leaders be involved in informing the next steps.
“I think it’s also important today to remember that the Winnipeg Police Service did make an arrest,” he said. “There’s an individual right now accused on four counts of first-degree murder, and that person is incarcerated.”