Families and supporters of four murdered women celebrate outside the Manitoba Law Courts after the guilty verdict of serial killer Jeremy Skibicki is read in a courtroom in Winnipeg on July 11.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
A superior court judge has declared Jeremy Skibicki guilty of the first-degree murders of four First Nations women in Winnipeg, rejecting the 37-year-old’s plea to be found not criminally responsible for his serial killings.
In an oral verdict delivered Thursday, Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Justice Glenn Joyal told a packed room filled with the women’s families and friends that Mr. Skibicki’s killings in March and May of 2022 were deliberate and planned. He knew his crimes were convictable and his defence was unable to prove any mental illness that limited his capacity to commit the murders, the judge said.
Mr. Skibicki now faces an automatic life sentence of 25 years with no chance of parole.
“The facts of this case are mercilessly graphic,” Justice Joyal said, adding that his “lengthy and complex” written verdict, well over 100 pages, will be published next week. “For many, this case was and is in numerous respects emblematic of much that is associated with the tragedy and very grave reality of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada.”
Loud applause and cheers of relief erupted from the court gallery after the hearing. Surrounded by four sheriff services’ officers, his ankles shackled, Mr. Skibicki left the room showing no emotion and without making eye contact with observers. Wearing a grey T-shirt and jail-issue sweatpants, he had been sipping water from a small plastic cup while the judge spoke.
A Manitoba judge convicted Jeremy Skibicki on four counts of first-degree murder on July 11. Skibicki admitted to killing four Indigenous women, and his lawyers asked that he be found not criminally responsible.
The Canadian Press
The courtroom, which had been smudged in a traditional ceremony shortly before the verdict to cleanse it, was fully occupied with a seating capacity of 100 people. Dozens of other attendees stood in the back corner and an overflowing crowd formed in the hallway outside. Family members were given priority to sit in the gallery, as court staff, police officials and media were moved to the empty jury seats that had not been used throughout the judge-alone trial.
On the eve of his trial, after Mr. Skibicki had pleaded not guilty for two years, he agreed with the Crown in a last-minute confession that he killed a yet-to-be-identified woman who Indigenous elders have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, meaning Buffalo Woman, on or about March 15, 2022; 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.
But the defence argued that Mr. Skibicki be found not criminally responsible of murder, claiming he was suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia that produced voices in his head.
“Simply put: The accused did not have a mental disorder,” Justice Joyal decided Thursday, adding that he gave little weight to testimony from the defence’s only witness, British psychiatrist Sohom Das, whom he described as unprofessional and inexperienced.
The judge agreed with the Crown’s evidence that demonstrated Mr. Skibicki stalked the women at shelters for vulnerable people, inviting them back to his home to drug them, sexually assault them, then kill them before engaging in further sexual acts on their bodies, only to dump their dismembered remains in garbage bins, such that they ultimately ended up in Winnipeg-area landfills.
Court of King's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal, left, defence lawyer Leonard Tailleur, centre, and Jeremy Skibicki, right, in this courtroom sketch in Winnipeg on April 29.James Culleton/The Canadian Press
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew told The Globe and Mail the heavy emotions related to the gruesome details revealed in the trial show precisely why searching the landfills for the three victims – Ms. Harris, Ms. Myran and Buffalo Woman – whose remains have yet to be found is a paramount task for his government.
Winnipeg police had found some of Ms. Contois’s remains at the Brady Road landfill in the southern outskirts of the city in 2022, the month after Mr. Skibicki’s arrest. But the bodies of the other three women that he killed that year have never been located. Two of those women – Ms. Harris and Ms. Myran – are believed to be buried in the separate Prairie Green landfill north of the provincial capital, for whom a search is now under way, Mr. Kinew said.
“This decision is a pivotal moment in the national conversation around reconciliation,” the Premier said in an interview Thursday. “We are now telling Indigenous women and girls that they are able to have the same level of respect that we would show any other person in the country. Our collective action needs to turn to preventing crimes like this from happening again in the future.”
Some of the women’s relatives, along with First Nations elders and Métis leaders, held a round dance in downtown Winnipeg later in the day. Drums echoed at the historic intersection of Portage and Main, often called the crossroads of Canada, as families of the victims briefly brought 16 lanes of vehicle traffic to a halt, with many drivers honking in support for the rally.
Judge Joyal said the case has had an “undeniable and profound impact on the entire Manitoba community, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.”
In his conclusions, the judge thanked the families and friends of the women for vigilantly attending the trial each day, even when being subjected to the most “excruciating and horrific of details.” By being in court, they not only honoured their loved ones but also ensured that Buffalo Woman was never forgotten, he said.
Morgan Harris’s daughter, Cambria Harris, who was in Montreal attending the Assembly of First Nations general assembly told The Globe she almost can’t believe her years-long fight for justice is almost over. “We had to fight so hard to put this monster away,” she said over the phone Thursday.
“Now, we need to find my mom and all our women. Leaving her in that landfill would form such a dangerous precedent – it tells you that monsters like this can take away our Indigenous women, do these horrible things to them, and keep getting away with it, only for us to never go looking for them.”
Jorden Myran, Marcedes Myran’s sister, said she found it difficult to hold back her tears in court. “Justice was served today,” she said outside the courthouse.
Jeremy Contois, Rebecca Contois’s brother, said it felt like his sister has finally achieved peace, but he still needs to process his trauma.
“Why did he have to do it?” he said. “I wish I knew that.”