Serial killer victim Ashlee Shingoose's parents remember their daughter as a loving person
Manitoba premier promised landfill search for Shingoose's remains on Wednesday
The parents of a woman recently identified as the previously unknown victim of a Winnipeg serial killer remembered their daughter Thursday as a loving person whose kids meant the world to her — and whose remains they now hope to recover from a Winnipeg landfill as soon as possible.
"[The most] loving, kindest person that you ever would meet — I'll put it that way," Albert Shingoose said of his daughter, Ashlee Shingoose, at a news conference a day after she was publicly confirmed to be the woman previously known as Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman — a name given to her by Indigenous community members before she was identified.
"She'd do anything to keep her kids. She wanted her own place, and to look after her own kids. That's what kind of a person she was."
Ashlee Shingoose was confirmed this week to be among the four First Nations women killed by Jeremy Skibicki between March and May 2022, along with Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26 — both originally from Long Plain First Nation — as well as Rebecca Contois, 24, a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation.
While the first of Skibicki's victims was unidentified for years, DNA results identified Shingoose, 30, as that woman this month, after Skibicki gave investigators new information in a December interview, police said Wednesday.
Skibicki was convicted last July of four counts of first-degree murder in the women's deaths after a weeks-long trial that heard he targeted vulnerable First Nations women at Winnipeg homeless shelters before killing them and disposing of their remains.
Investigators believe Shingoose's body was placed in a garbage bin behind a business on Henderson Highway in the North Kildonan area and taken to Winnipeg's Brady Road landfill.
Shingoose's mother on Thursday described how difficult it was not knowing where her daughter was until now.
"But I prayed all the time. I talked to the Creator. I said, 'if it is your will, then it will be,'" Theresa Shingoose said, her oldest daughter and two granddaughters standing behind her as she spoke.
"And I've been thinking about these other people that are lost. I pray for them too … because it's so hard to lose your daughter, not knowing where she is.
"I thought I wouldn't be able to say anything because the pain is so strong, but I want to thank everybody."
Ashlee Shingoose's father had long held suspicions that his missing daughter may have been the unidentified victim in the case — and said when police came to their home this week to tell them the news, he and his wife looked at each other and cried "a happy, happy cry."
Raymond Flett, chief of their home community of St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation, said Thursday he remembered the young woman from his time as a high school principal in their community.
WATCH | Ashlee Shingoose's dad speaks about struggle to bring her home:
"I used to see her in the hallway, happy with her friends and classmates," Flett said. "And that's how I want to remember her — the positive memories that we have of her."
During Skibicki's trial, court heard investigators found a DNA sample on a Baby Phat brand jacket they believe Shingoose wore, but that sample was never matched to anyone, including samples taken from Shingoose's family. Police said Wednesday they now believe while she wore the jacket, the DNA found on it was someone else's.
DNA belonging to a number of women was also found in the killer's apartment during the investigation, including a cigarette butt that had Shingoose's DNA on it, found on a hallway floor in front of a linen closet.
Skibicki unexpectedly confessed to killing the four women during a police interview in May 2022, after Contois's partial remains were found in garbage bins near his North Kildonan apartment. More of her remains were later discovered at the Brady Road landfill.
Harris and Myran's remains, which were put in a different location, were recently recovered during a search of the Prairie Green landfill just outside Winnipeg.
Struggles after leaving home
Shingoose was from St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation, in northeastern Manitoba, but moved to Winnipeg around 2016, her father previously said. The mother of three was last confirmed seen in the city's downtown on March 11, 2022 — days before it's believed she was killed.
Theresa Shingoose said Thursday her daughter moved to Winnipeg because they didn't have room for her at their home, and she ran into trouble sometime after that.
"I kind of noticed that she was talking to, I would say [the] wrong kind of friends. And she started taking drugs and drinking," she told reporters. "Then she lost her kids, and they were sent to my home for me to look after."
Albert Shingoose told CBC News in an October 2023 interview a lack of housing in St. Theresa Point forced their daughter to move. He and his wife shared a small bungalow with eight grandchildren, some sleeping on a couch and in the kitchen.
There are at least 300 families on the waitlist for housing in the First Nation, which has an on-reserve population of about 4,000 people, according to the federal government.
Albert said his daughter's disappearance was hard on the family, and their tragedy was compounded in March 2023, when Ashlee's daughter, Dayna, was identified as one of two 14-year-old girls found dead outside a home in St. Theresa Point.
On Thursday, Albert Shingoose called on people to push for a landfill search for his daughter's remains to start quickly, after Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew promised on Wednesday that search would indeed happen.
"I need your words, I need your voices. Speak up," he yelled, raising his hand in the air. "It's too long. It's not good. The landfill is not a burial ground.… We're not garbage."
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