I have to travel through two metal detectors, past a dozen security officers and answer multiple questions to take in Friday’s session in the murder trial of self-confessed serial killer Jeremy Skibicki.
It’s all very surreal.
On the door to the courtroom, there’s a big sign: “NO food or drinks – including water – allowed.”
Some in the gallery mention the sign is new; people were able to take water inside on the first two days. When I ask court staff why the change was made — particularly given the number of older relatives of victims who are attending — I receive five different answers.
Several people, however, point out that Skibicki, dressed in grey and sitting in the prisoner’s box, has been drinking water freely during the trial. The accused — like the other participants in court proceedings, are afforded that courtesy.
The courtroom gallery is filled with family members of the victims, their supporters, Indigenous elders and media. Many display photos of the victims or carry medicines and wear red or ribbon dresses. The Winnipeg Police Service Indigenous liaison is here. There is a therapy dog.
There are armed guards posted throughout the courtroom.
Sitting in front of Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal is a court officer who holds a feather when swearing in witnesses.
To their right sit Crown prosecutors. And to the left is Skibicki, not handcuffed, but in leg chains. There are two women on his Legal Aid team.
I’m told Skibicki, who is staring straight ahead, has refused to look at anyone in the gallery or say anything to anyone since the trial began.
In almost diametrical opposition, a taped confession Skibicki gave to Winnipeg police was played in court Wednesday. In it, he talks endlessly, describing in meticulous detail how he carried out the murders of four Indigenous women between March and May in 2022: Rebecca Contois, Marcedes Myran, Morgan Harris, and a fourth unidentified woman elders have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman.
He also describes how he planned to get rid of his victims, calling the acts “mercy killings” that were “directed by God” and intended to stop “the extinction of the white race.”
Skibicki’s defence is that, although he killed the four women, he is not criminally responsible for their deaths due to a mental disorder – meaning he did not understand the nature and quality of what he did or what he was doing to be morally wrong.
The Crown contends that Skibicki’s own words, the physical evidence and the investigation proves that he “preyed on these women in Winnipeg shelters and invited them back to his home, where he assaulted them — often sexually — and killed them.”
The prosecution presents the evidence dispassionately; the words “dumpster” and “decapitation” are used repeatedly as shocking facts are revealed.
“You don’t want to go to the bathroom… you’ll miss something huge,” a reporter covering the case says.
The court has heard that DNA belonging to a dozen other women was found in Skibicki’s North Kildonan apartment.
Some of the DNA was from Ashlee Shingoose, who has been missing since around the same time the four victims in this case were slain.
The soundtrack to the disturbing proceedings is frequently punctuated by the muffled sounds of sobbing from someone in the gallery hearing another detail of their loved one’s death and dismemberment.
They’ve heard investigators explaining petechiae is (pinpoint-size blood spots under the skin or in mucous membranes; strangulation can be one of myriad causes), which garbage trucks in Winnipeg have GPS and cameras, and the procedural differences between the Brady Road landfill and Prairie Green Landfill.
This trial changes much for many in this city. I see the neighbourhood where Skibicki lived differently. I will never be able to be anywhere near where the remains were disposed of without thinking about what I heard.
One of my Indigenous media colleagues in the courtroom tells me this trial is starting “to feel, sound and look like the Robert Pickton case.”
Pickton is the B.C. serial killer convicted in 2007 of the murders of six Indigenous women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and suspected in dozens of other cases.
I have no doubt sitting in that courtroom was devastating. Sitting in this one certainly was.
niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca
Niigaan Sinclair
Columnist
Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe and is a columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press.