Manitoba’s landfill search for homicide victims set to begin by end of October

Article content

Plans for Manitoba’s landfill search for human remains are on schedule and optimism is high after a similar search in Saskatchewan was successful, said an organizer.

Article content

“I’ve always had hope and I’ve always held onto that hope, but now it just makes it that much more real knowing that it was successful there,” Melissa Robinson said on Wednesday morning after the news a three-month search of a Saskatoon-area landfill by police located the human remains of a 22-year-old Métis woman who was last seen in December of 2020.

“So we’re sad for the victim and her family, but also happy they can get that closure, and I truly believe we’re next.”

But Robinson also expressed anger and frustration at the fact the Saskatoon search was successful after just more than three months, while she says the province’s previous PC government and the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) said on many occasions that a search for the remains of her cousin Morgan Harris was not feasible.

Article content

Article content

“I have been pissed off about that from the very beginning,” Robinson said. “We said from the very beginning, ‘how do you put a dollar amount and say this is not feasible when it’s a fellow human being lying in a landfill?’

“And that’s why we fought this whole time and why we weren’t going to take no for an answer, because we knew it could be done.”

Saskatoon police estimate about 5,000 tonnes of waste was sorted in their search which cost approximately $1.5 million.

In March, Manitoba’s current NDP government and the federal government announced they were putting up $20 million each to fund a search of the privately-run Prairie Green Landfill, north of Winnipeg, for the remains of Robinson’s cousin Harris, and Marcedes Myran, two Indigenous women who fell victim to serial killer Jeremy Skibicki, who is now serving a life sentence for the killing of four women in total.

Article content

Skibicki was also convicted of killing Rebecca Contois, whose partial remains were found in a different landfill, and an unidentified woman Indigenous leaders have named Buffalo Woman.

In 2022, after the murders were first made public, WPS said they would not search the Prairie Green Landfill, where they believed the remains of Harris and Myran to be, because they said a search was not feasible and could pose health and safety risks to those who would be doing the search. Manitoba’s former PC government also determined a search to be not feasible.

Since funding from the province and the feds was announced, Robinson has served on a landfill search oversight committee, and said the committee continues to meet regularly with provincial and other officials, and they are on track to officially get a search of the Prairie Green Landfill underway before the end of October.

Article content

“Last week we got an update on the project and everything just looks amazing,” she said. “And we’re on time and on-date for everything. “This search will begin before the end of October.”

According to Robinson there are three sections of the Prairie Green Landfill where searchers will work and she said she is optimistic for a discovery once the search gets underway.

“I just don’t think it’s going to take that long, we believe we will be successful at the latest before next summer,” Robinson said. “We will bring our women home, I am confident of that.”

The provincial and federal governments have also earmarked cash to provide mental health support for the families and loved ones of the women believed to be in the Prairie Green Landfill while the search takes place.

— 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.

Have thoughts on what’s going on in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada or across the world? Send us a letter to the editor at wpgsun.letters@kleinmedia.ca

Article content