Complex emotions for victims' families as landfill search in Winnipeg officially ends

Winnipeg Free Press

17-07-2025

The search of a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of First Nations women slain by a convicted serial killer has officially ended, leaving the victims' families feeling a mix of loss and hope.
Relatives of Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, confirmed searchers finished working at the Prairie Green Landfill, located just north of the city in the Rural Municipality of Rosser, on July 9.
The search effort began Dec. 2 and turned up partial remains of both victims within a few months. Jeremy Skibicki killed the women, and two others, between March and May 2022.
NIC ADAM / FREE PRESS FILES
Donna Bartlett, grandmother of Marcedes Myran
'I don't know if we will have complete closure, but we will have some type of closure,' Donna Bartlett, Myran's grandmother, said in a phone interview.
'I haven't decided exactly what to think about it. It's hard.'
Bartlett said searchers were able to recover about 85 per cent of Harris' remains, but only 15 per cent of her granddaughter's remains.
She tried to convince officials to expand the search beyond a specific cell within the landfill, which officials determined was the most likely place to find remains, she said.
Bartlett said her daughter, Myran's mother, is struggling with the result.
'I know my daughter is not happy, but she is trying to accept the fact they found some of her, not all of her,' Bartlett said. 'Am I satisfied? I don't know. I'm happy I've got some of her, but I still would have liked more.'
Melissa Robinson, a cousin of Morgan Harris, said those involved in the search are now turning their attention to Winnipeg's Brady Road Landfill.
Victims of admitted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki (left to right): Morgan Beatrice Harris, Marcedes Myran, Rebecca Contois.
The remains of Skibicki victim Ashlee Shingoose, 30, are believed to be buried there.
Partial remains of Contois were found in a garbage bin near Skibicki's North Kildonan apartment in May 2022. A subsequent search of the Brady landfill recovered further remains. Skibicki was arrested on May 17, 2022 and confessed that he killed four women and disposed of them in garbage bins in Winnipeg.
'We finished what we set out to do and there is really nothing more to say about that… We're happy with the findings, we're happy with the end result,' Robinson said by phone Thursday.
Premier Wab Kinew pledged to search the Brady landfill after Shingoose was formally named as a victim. She was previously known only as Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe (Buffalo Woman).
Shingoose's identity, which wasn't known for years, was confirmed in March, after Winnipeg Police Service investigators interviewed Skibicki in prison and he provided information that led to further DNA testing of pants seized from his apartment.
Albert Shingoose, her father, declined to comment Thursday.
In a news release Thursday afternoon, the province confirmed the search had ended. Relevant specialized equipment and personnel will soon transition to the Brady Road landfill to look for Shingoose, it said.
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The remains of Ashlee Shingoose are believed to in Brady Road landfill
'The Manitoba government remains committed to supporting the families and will ensure the search at the Brady Road Landfill is conducted with care, dignity and respect,' the statement said.
'We thank the people of Manitoba. Together, we have brought Morgan and Marcedes home.'
Specific details of the Brady search, including a timeline and estimated cost, have not been released.
The provincial and federal governments each put up $20 million for the search of the Prairie Green site.
The money was used, in part, to build a large steel Quonset which functioned as the primary search facility on site. Excavated material was transferred into the building and spread out on the floor, where searchers sifted through the waste with gloved hands and rakes.
Electrical infrastructure and an access road were also constructed at Prairie Green to assist in the search.
'Everyone was there for us, supported us, ensured that this was going to get done, and we got it done,' Robinson said.
MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS FILES
The search at Prairie Green began Dec. 2 and turned up partial remains of both victims within a few months.
Kinew visited the Prairie Green site this week, where the victims' families, supporters and people involved in the search gathered to mark its closure, the province said.
'They did a smudge, a pipe ceremony and I asked someone to say a prayer for me,' said Bartlett.
Cambria Harris, Morgan Harris' daughter, acknowledged the end of the search in a statement on social media. She did not respond to a request for comment.
'I have been struggling to gather the words on how immense this feeling is for me,' the statement said.
She thanked the workers, family members, officials and Indigenous leaders who participated in the search, and others who advocated for it to take place.
Nearly 200 people applied to be part of the recovery. There were 45 search team members, the Free Press reported previously.
'It takes an incredibly courageous but also empathetic person to be able to commit for something more than a search: a need for justice, closure, ending to the families' grief within a landfill, holding up the right to a human burial, human rights and more,' Cambria Harris said in her statement.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
Cambria Harris (left) and Melissa Robinson
The question of whether to search the landfill became a political issue during the 2023 provincial election after the Winnipeg Police Service said it was not feasible and the former Progressive Conservative government campaigned on its opposition to the search.
The remains of Tanya Nepinak, who investigators believe was slain by a different serial killer, could also be at the Brady site. Police searched a small portion of the landfill for Nepinak in 2012 but were unsuccessful and halted operations after a week.
Indigenous leaders, including the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, have called for searches for Nepinak's remains to continue.
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Tyler SearleReporter
Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press's city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic's creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.
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