Winnipeg landfill search for remains of First Nations women disposed by serial killer could last two years

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Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew says the search of a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of at least two First Nations women disposed of by a confessed serial killer will begin this summer, but cautioned it could last until 2026.

Mr. Kinew has revealed that a search of the Prairie Green landfill, north of the provincial capital, will be conducted manually by dozens of soon-to-be-hired workers and likely occur throughout the winter.

Families of the women and First Nations leaders have been demanding such a search for the past two years, as hundreds of people across the country rallied in support. The Manitoba and federal governments each committed $20-million for the search in late March, though were advised not to disclose details of the operation because of the trial for Jeremy Skibicki, who has admitted to the killings but is arguing he was too mentally ill to be held criminally responsible for first-degree murder.

This week, after a superior court judge scheduled the verdict for Mr. Skibicki to be delivered on July 11, prompting another protest urging a search of the landfill, the Premier and federal Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Gary Anandasangaree said preparations had already been under way quietly. That includes construction of a new healing site for the families of the victims as a communal and private space near the landfill.

Recruitment for workers to conduct the extensive search will be opened widely and not limited to a single company, the Premier told The Globe and Mail. The search will start with a pilot project on a test area of the site where the bodies of the women are not believed to be located, Mr. Kinew said. Once procedures and techniques are refined, the search will target a two-hectare section, expected to be roughly 10 metres below the surface.

Ponds and parking lots will be built, and access roads will be created. Giant tents and temporary buildings will also be erected at the landfill, according to planning documents prepared by the provincial government, which has now received environmental approvals.

Both the defence and Crown agreed at the start of 37-year-old Mr. Skibicki’s trial that he killed four First Nations women in 2022: a yet-to-be-identified woman whom Indigenous elders have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, meaning Buffalo Woman, on or about March 15; 39-year-old Morgan Harris on or about May 1 of that year; 26-year-old Marcedes Myran on or about May 4; and 24-year-old Rebecca Contois on or about May 15.

After his arrest on May 17, 2022, the day after police retrieved Ms. Contois’s severed head in a residential bin outside Mr. Skibicki’s apartment, he provided locations of the other bins he used to dump the women’s remains.

Police had halted all garbage collection services around the city’s Kildonan area, Constable Brian Neumann testified before Court of King’s Bench Justice Glenn Joyal last month. But by the time investigators could inspect the bins, the constable said they had already been emptied – one of them at the Brady Road landfill in the southern outskirts of Winnipeg.

Wrapped in a multicoloured bedsheet and pieces of black plastic, Ms. Contois’s torso was located on June 14, 2022, in a three-acre section of the Brady landfill after a multiday search and weeks of planning.

But the remains of Ms. Myran, Ms. Harris and Buffalo Woman have never been found.

Based on information obtained by police from the GPS of garbage trucks, at least two of the victims – Ms. Myran and Ms. Harris – are believed to have ended up at the Prairie Green landfill.

Although police assessed the Prairie Green site at the time, it was considered too dangerous to conduct a full search because of hazardous chemicals and waste. Since then, the elevation of the landfill has “gone up 40 feet,” Constable Neumann said, adding that exposure to heat has likely also increased the decomposition of the potential remains.

The Premier said this week those variables are now considered manageable. “We will take all the safety precautions required,” he said.

In Ottawa on Wednesday, Mr. Anandasangaree said Winnipeg police could have been more proactive. “I do believe that in this case, the police could have done the search,” he told reporters at an unrelated event. “For the family to go through this traumatizing experience over the last year and a half, I think it’s quite problematic.”

In an e-mailed statement on Thursday, Winnipeg police declined to address questions about its involvement in the search this summer, adding the service would reach out to Mr. Anandasangaree about his comments criticizing their efforts.

Donna Bartlett, Ms. Myran’s grandmother, said in an interview Thursday that she had a highly emotional viewing of the Prairie Green site with Manitoba government officials and other relatives of the victims this week.

“I just want my girl to be able to come home,” Ms. Bartlett said, as Ms. Myran’s sister Jorden Myran watched tearfully before adding: “Enough is enough.”

Ms. Harris’s daughter, Cambria Harris, said she was able to finally celebrate her mom’s birthday with her family this week without worrying when she would be found. “I feel like I don’t have to scream anymore,” she said.

Mr. Kinew said these emotions are part of the reason why the healing site is required. “Can any of us imagine losing a loved one and have it become the subject of politics?”