Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs will push to search landfill for Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe: grand chief
Police have not publicly said whether they have theory on location of Winnipeg serial killer's 1st victim
WARNING: This story contains details of violence against Indigenous women.
The head of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs wants to see the search of a Manitoba landfill continue in hopes of finding the remains of the sole unknown victim of a Winnipeg serial killer.
Grand Chief Kyra Wilson says she's grateful that the remains of two women — Marcedes Myran, 26, and Morgan Harris, 39, both originally from Long Plain First Nation — were found at the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg, just months after the province started searching a targeted area.
However, Wilson also wants to see an attempt to recover the remains of the unidentified women given the name Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, by the community. Along with Harris, Myran and Rebecca Contois, 24, Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe was among the four Indigenous women murdered by serial killer Jeremy Skibicki in 2022.
"Everyone is watching Manitoba right now with this landfill search, and now we have an opportunity to show everybody that we're not going to leave anybody behind, and so it's important that we continue on that search to find Buffalo Woman," Wilson said Wednesday.
"There is a family out there that is missing a loved one, and there is no closure."
WATCH | Grand Chief Kyra Wilson wants Prairie Green search to continue:
Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe has never been identified and her remains have never been found.
Police have not publicly said whether they have a theory as to where her body might be, and very few details about her have been made public.
Skibicki unexpectedly confessed to killing the four women when he was arrested and brought in for questioning by police in May 2022, after the partial remains of Contois were discovered in garbage bins near his North Kildonan apartment.
In that police interview, he described Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe as Indigenous and in her early 20s, with dark patches on her skin, an average build and short hair. He also said she was the first woman he killed, in mid-March 2022.
DNA tests on a jacket it's believed she wore were also not enough to identify the woman, court heard during Skibicki's trial last year.
Skibicki said he met Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe outside of the Salvation Army shelter in Winnipeg, adding there was still snow on the ground at the time and that COVID-19 pandemic restrictions had just been lifted in Manitoba.
Those restrictions were lifted on March 15, 2022.
Skibicki also said he was coming down from being high on mushrooms when he got upset with the woman after she tried to steal from him.
Skibicki said after killing her, he put her remains into a dumpster behind a business on Henderson Highway. He also gave police the name of a person he believed was the woman he had killed, but that person was later found alive.
'Still a lot of work to be done'
On Monday, when the province confirmed Myran's remains had been found at the landfill, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew did not answer questions on whether the search at Prairie Green would continue in an attempt to find Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe.
He said a decision on the province's next steps will be made jointly between the government and the families of Harris and Myran.
"There's always that desire to push the story forward, and I fully respect that," he told reporters.
"But at the outset of this search, to be able to say that we would return Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran seemed like — at the very least — a really tall order."
Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said the province's current priority is to bring Harris and Myran home from Prairie Green.
"I remind folks that [it] has only been in the last couple of weeks that we have found the remains of Morgan and Marcedes, and there's still a lot of work to be done there," she said Friday.
Police declined to comment on whether they have information about where the remains of Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe are, and whether they may be at Prairie Green or the city-run Brady Road landfill in Winnipeg, where some of Contois's remains were found.
Gene Bowers, Winnipeg's new police chief, told CBC News on Monday that investigators are still trying to identify Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe.
After police went to Prairie Green as part of their homicide investigation on June 20, 2022, the landfill stopped using two cells where Harris and Myran's remains were believed to have ended up. Dumping hasn't been allowed in that area since.
'What is our break point?'
An American police chief who studied landfill searches says he was ecstatic to learn that the remains of Harris and Myran were recovered, but adds Manitoba should keep searching for Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe — if the destination of the garbage truck that picked up her remains is known.
"I would encourage continuing the search, because they would have … the co-ordinates of where trash came in on a particular day," Brian Paulsen told CBC News.
While police have previously said they believed they knew the cells, or areas, of the Prairie Green landfill where the remains of Harris and Myran were dumped, the trucks involved did not have GPS units on board to track their location or video cameras.
The City of Winnipeg has said that while all city waste hauling contracts include a requirement for cameras and GPS systems on vehicles, there are different requirements for facilities like the privately run Prairie Green landfill.
Paulsen also said the searchers are equally important as the people they're tasked to look for, and their safety must also be considered.
"You've successfully found two of the three [women] without any injury — you really have to consider yourself lucky," Paulsen said. "There's just so many variables in a landfill, and in that search, and then the materials where a person could get injured."
Paulsen was chief of police in Plattsmouth, Neb., in 2003 when he led the search of a landfill for the body of a four-year-old boy. The unsuccessful search was halted after 45 days.
"There's always that, 'What if?'" Paulsen said. "That can really destroy you if you let it get too far."
He later completed his study on landfill searches, as well as a master's thesis on the subject in the United States.
He says Manitoba should outline the parameters of the Prairie Green search with Indigenous leaders and the families of Harris and Myran.
"I would sit down with them and say, 'What is our break point? At what point do we say we've exhausted all avenues?'"
Wilson says the AMC receives regular correspondence from community members who ask the organization to call for a search for Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe's remains.
"I know that the community wants to continue looking for her, and that's what we will push for," the grand chief said.
After all the uncertainty that surrounded the search for Harris and Myran, Wilson says she felt hopeful when she learned both women's remains had been found at Prairie Green.
"There's also this sadness that comes with it, because it is confirmation that they have been in the landfill, and what they experienced was something that no one should experience."
Support is available for anyone affected by these reports and the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Immediate emotional assistance and crisis support are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through a national hotline at 1-844-413-6649.
You can also access, through the government of Canada, health support services such as mental health counselling, community-based support and cultural services, and some travel costs to see elders and traditional healers. Family members seeking information about a missing or murdered loved one can access Family Information Liaison Units.
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With files from Alana Cole and CBC Radio's The Current