BONNYVILLE – On Sunday afternoon, community members took up space outside of the Bonnyville Provincial Building to help amplify the voices of those calling on the Manitoba and federal governments to search for the remains of victims of an alleged serial killer in two Winnipeg landfills.
The Search the Landfill Red Dress Rally was organized by the Lakeland Society for Truth and Reconciliation in a show of cross-Canada solidarity.
The objective of Sunday's rally "is to raise awareness of what is currently going on in our very own country right now – in real time. And to amplify the calls to search the landfills," said Lakeland Society for Truth and Reconciliation president Corita Vachon.
Winnipeg police believe a man by the name of Jeremy Skibicki is responsible for murdering four women, Morgan Harris, 39, Marcedes Myran, 26, Rebecca Contois, 24, and an unidentified woman known as Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, and discarding their bodies in the city's public waste system.
In the spring of 2022, police found partial human remains of Contois in a garbage bin near a Winnipeg apartment building. Then they discovered the rest of the 24-year-old's remains at the Brady Road Landfill during a two-week search. Investigators also believe the remains of Harris and Myran are at the Prairie Green Landfill.
On July 6, the Premier of Manitoba Heather Stefanson said her government would not pay for a search of the landfill, citing concerns for workers’ health and the "emotional cost" it could have on those tasked with searching the landfill if the remains are not found.
“We understand the desire to leave no stone unturned, however, the search process described in the report is complex, and comes with long-term human health and safety concerns that simply cannot be ignored,” the Premier said in a written statement.
“Based on the report, we cannot knowingly risk Manitoba workers’ health and safety for a search without a guarantee. As stated in the report, the emotional costs associated with conducting a search and not recovering remains must be considered, as should the emotional costs associated with potential delays and the duration of a search.”
The search could take up to three years and cost $184 million with no guarantee of success, states a feasibility study. The decision not to search the landfills has caused outrage for many across the country.
Referring to the federally funding feasibility study announced in December of 2022, Vachon said to those gathered at the rally, “Instead of applying these human and financial resources towards finding evidence to convict another suspected serial killer, the Manitoba and Canadian governments subjected the Harris and Myran families to a Canadian history breaking, painstaking, discriminatory $500,000 feasibility study. This forced the families to relive this never-ending nightmare.”
She continued, “The study determined it is in fact feasible to search the landfills, stating that while there are considerable risks, foregoing to do the search would do more harm to the victims' families.”
Vachon went on to note that within the last 13 years, two successful landfill searches for the remains of murdered men have taken place in the neighbouring province of Ontario.
In 2021, police searched for the remains of Nathaniel Brettell, 57, for three months before his body was found at the Green Lake Landfill eight months after he was last seen. In January of 2011, the partial remains of Wesley Hallam, 29, was found on a road east of Sault. Ste. Marie. Ontario police searched three separate landfills, taking about three months and $1 million to find the rest of Hallam’s remains.
Vachon went on to share the story of Tanya Nepinak, another alleged victim of a Winnipeg serial killer.
Nepinak, 31, was last seen on Sept. 13, 2011. The man who would eventually be charged in her death, Shawn Lamb, told police he had put her body in a Brady Landfill dumpster.
At the time, police carried out a week-long search of the landfill but her remains were never found. Lamb was charged with three counts of second-degree murder in connection with the deaths and disappearances of Nepinak, Carolyn Sinclair and Lorna Blacksmith.
Lamb was convicted of manslaughter in Sinclair’s and Blacksmith’s cases, while the charge for Nepinak was stayed due to a lack of evidence.
Vachon fears that without a search of the Winnipeg landfills and the recovery of the partial remains of the four women, the charges against Skibicki, the man accused in the women's deaths, will be stayed, as was the case with Nepinak.
For nearly three hours, those in attendance shared prayers, smudged, laid tobacco, said the names of missing and murdered women, danced and sang.
Adding a poignant close to Sunday’s rally, Vachon noted “If it can happen there, it can happen here.” The public event ended with a group round dance.
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