Possible remains of indigenous women slain in Canada found in landfill

Winnipeg: Authorities in the western Canadian province of Manitoba said Wednesday that they had found what could be the remains of two Indigenous women murdered by a serial killer, a possible breakthrough in a case that has devastated local communities and brought to the fore the issue of violence against Indigenous women in Canada.

During a search of the Prairie Green Landfill near Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, experts "identified potential human remains in the search material," the provincial government said in a statement.

The families of the two victims, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, had been notified and visited the site, it said, adding that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and other agencies would take over the investigations.

Between March and May 2022, Jeremy Anthony Michael Skibicki, then 35, killed four Indigenous women, all from the Winnipeg area. He was arrested in December the same year. He had expressed support for the far right on social media, filling his Facebook page with white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic comments.

Last year he was sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole for the first-degree murders of Myran, who was 26 when she was killed; Harris, who was 39; Rebecca Contois, 24; and an unidentified woman whom First Nations elders called Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, which means Buffalo Woman.

Some of Contois' remains were recovered in a separate landfill in 2022, but the remains of the unidentified woman, Harris and Myran were never found.

The latter two women were killed within days of each other in early May 2022, authorities said at the time. Both were from Long Plain First Nation, a reserve about 55 miles west of Winnipeg, and had been reported to police as missing.

Harris' and Myran's families, friends and communities had mounted a relentless fight to persuade authorities, both local and federal, to permit and to fund a thorough search for their remains in Prairie Green Landfill, where GPS evidence suggested they had likely been dumped.

The Canadian government had resisted the landfill search, citing costs and technical difficulties.

In 2022, the homicide rate of Indigenous women and girls in Canada was more than six times higher than that of their non-Indigenous counterparts.

Cambria Harris, the daughter of Harris, who has led the fight for the recovery of her mother's and Myran's remains, asked for privacy. "I would like this time to grieve in peace," she said on a social media posting.

Jorden Myran, a sister of Myran, did not respond to a written request for comment.