Landfill search progressing on schedule, says Manitoba premier

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One day after a serial killer learned he will serve four concurrent life sentences, Manitoba’s premier said much of the focus for the province and the victim’s families will now turn to getting the Prairie Green Landfill searched for the remains of two of the killer’s victims.

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On Thursday during an unrelated media conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew told reporters that plans to search the Prairie Green Landfill for the remains of Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris continue to move forward and remain on schedule, and that work on the massive excavation project is scheduled to get underway sometime in October.

Myran and Harris are two of four women that Winnipeg serial killer Jeremy Skibicki was sentenced for killing on Wednesday, and he will serve four life sentences concurrently, with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

Both women’s bodies are believed to have been dumped by Skibicki at the Prairie Green Landfill, a privately run landfill north of Winnipeg near the community of Stony Mountain.

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Families of victims and advocates have been calling for a search of the landfill for the women’s remains since their murders were first announced in the spring of 2022, and after Winnipeg police said they would not search for their remains because a search was not “feasible.”

The NDP government and the federal government announced in March they were each putting up $20 million to fund a search of the landfill, and on June 11 the province announced they had granted the environmental licenses needed for the search.

Kinew confirmed that he met Thursday morning with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau while the Prime Minister was in Winnipeg, and said he updated the PM on the status of the landfill search.

“I did provide a fairly detailed update to the Prime Minister about the status of the landfill search, and what I told him is that we have voices from each of the families helping us to run this oversight committee, so that they can steer project management,” Kinew said.

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“And we’re working with leadership including the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs to give them a really concrete role in the operations of the search.”

Kinew added the province and those in charge of the search have started the “hiring process” for staff that will work on the landfill search, and they hope to have the search officially underway by the end of October of this year.

He added the search will be “targeted” and focused on areas of the landfill where it is most likely the remains would be.

Kinew said he also planned to personally visit the Prairie Green Landfill on Friday, and on Friday afternoon he posted a short video on X from his time visiting the site along with a brief update.

https://x.com/WabKinew/status/1829597778340954344

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“Saw a flurry of activity during my visit to Prairie Green Landfill today. The construction of the search facility is well underway,” Kinew posted.

Skibicki, who court heard during his first-degree murder trial purposely targeted and killed Indigenous women, was also convicted this week of killing Rebecca Contois, whose remains were discovered in Winnipeg’s Brady Road Landfill in 2022, as well as a unidentified woman who is referred to as Buffalo Women.

— Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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