Deadly common denominators The circumstances leading to homicides in Winnipeg’s most murderous year tended to follow a narrative that has become tragically familiar By: Erik Pindera Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Jan. 27, 2023 Last Modified: 7:53 PM CST Friday, Jan. 27, 2023 Updates

Eight evidence markers, lettered A through H, were placed on garbage bins in the backyard of the white two-storey fourplex at 259 McKay Ave., just east of Henderson Highway.

Winnipeg Police Service investigators, some in plain clothes, some in uniform, came and went from the yard, cordoned off with yellow police tape. A white forensics van sat parked in the muddy alley.

Nearby, reporters knocked on the doors of worried neighbours.

It’s mid-May and a grisly discovery had been made. Parts of a young woman’s body had been found in a dumpster on a nearby street.

The woman, police said at a May 19, 2022, news conference, was identified as Rebecca Contois, 24, a member of Crane River First Nation who grew up in Winnipeg. Her suspected killer, Jeremy Anthony Michael Skibicki, 35, lived at the McKay Avenue address, a quiet residential street in North Kildonan. He had been charged with first-degree murder.

It would be six months before Skibicki made headlines again. On Dec. 1, police Chief Danny Smyth, joined by major crimes Insp. Shawn Pike and Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham, announced at a news conference that Skibicki was facing additional first-degree murder charges.

Calling the slayings “senseless and tragic,” Smyth alleged Skibicki was responsible for the deaths of three more Indigenous women: Morgan Beatrice Harris, 39, Marcedes Myran, 26, and unidentified woman later named Buffalo Woman, or Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, by elders.

It’s the worst case in what was an unprecedented year for deadly violence in Winnipeg — police investigated 53 homicides, surpassing the previous record of 44.

In many ways Skibicki was an outlier; one man accused of four deaths.

But the 57 people charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter in 2022 tended to have more in common than not.

They were often in violation of a court order, or there was an outstanding warrant for their arrest at the time of the deadly crime. Some had convictions for minor infractions, others for more serious offences.

So, although each homicide has its own facts, the lives of most of the accused were connected by a single through line — the criminal justice system.

The issues surrounding violent crimes and repeat offenders has been in the forefront, not only provincially with the Conservative government pushing a tough-on-crime agenda in the run-up to an election, but also nationally. High-profile cases in Saskatchewan and Ontario have resulted in increased calls for changes to the Criminal Code to make it more difficult for those accused to get bail.

As the deadliest year for homicides played out in Winnipeg, the Free Press sought to gain a better understanding of who’s accused of taking another person’s life.

The Free Press reviewed provincial court records for all 45 adults accused of first- and second-degree murder, as well as manslaughter. Thirty-six were men, nine were women. Homicide charges were stayed against at least three of the accused, while 11 had no previous convictions.

An additional 12 youth — 11 males and one female — were charged in homicides in 2022. Because their offences are handled under the Youth Criminal Justice Act and their history within the justice system is restricted, they are not included in our analysis.

The Free Press also listened to court hearings for prior offences of some of those accused. Those hearings often painted a picture of people set up to fail. They are lives marked by colonialism, the ’60s Scoop, the residential school system, and inter-generational trauma, along with childhood abuse, a history with the foster-care system, or current drug and alcohol addictions.

That shared background, along with other patterns, emerged from analyzing the court records.

Fifteen of the accused were under a mandatory prohibition not to possess weapons; in three of those cases, police say the victim died by gunfire.

In at least 16 cases, the accused was already facing charges for other offences and was either out on bail, was the subject of an undertaking or actively wanted.

Of the 34 accused with prior records, at least 20 had been convicted of a violent crime.

Seventeen had been convicted of a property-related crime, while 13 had been convicted of a drug offence.

The most common denominator for the accused — 27 in total — was past convictions for administrative offences, such as failing to attend court or breaching court-ordered conditions.

And in at least six cases, including Skibicki’s initial one, the accused was either on a release order or a probation order at the time of the slaying.

In Skibicki’s case, he had been charged in May with failing to comply with the condition of a release order.

The order, obtained by the Free Press, dictated he live at an address on Alloway Avenue in West Broadway, far from the North Kildonan suite where police executed a search warrant — and where Skibicki was living while he’s alleged to have killed Buffalo Woman in March and Harris, Myran and Contois in May.

Tenants of the West Broadway walk-up told the Free Press at the time they didn’t recognize a photograph of the man who would soon become an accused serial killer making headlines nationwide.

In fact, the tenants said, the basement suite Skibicki was ordered to live in had been empty since January. It appears those responsible to ensure he was following his court order did not check on him at the Alloway address.

The Free Press presented its analysis to a range of experts. They were not surprised the lives of those accused of murder and manslaughter were already intertwined with the justice system.

But they were deeply concerned a system meant to prevent further harm failed to do so.

So, the question remains: What more can be done to break the cycle of violence, while protecting the wider community?

The first-floor exterior wall of the squat three-storey brick building, on Ellice Avenue near Sherbrook Street, is painted sky blue and marked with murals of Indigenous motifs and life.

Inside, Sharon Perrault works in a corner office with window blinds she’s a little too short to open and close herself. Men live on the floors above, amid the restorative justice programs offered by the non-profit John Howard Society of Manitoba.

Perrault, the organization’s executive director, has worked in and around the Canadian and provincial justice systems since 1987, including a 10-year stint on the Parole Board of Canada.

“In that time, I reviewed many, many files, (it was) a little over 6,000 decisions I made in 10 years,” she said.

The lives of the accused facing murder and manslaughter charges in 2022 are a microcosm of the wider population that encounters the justice system, she suggested.

“Some of the themes that I expect to emerge, in the years I’ve worked with people that are in conflict with the law, is often their lives have been chaotic, sometimes through no fault of their own,” Perrault said.

“There’s been many things that have impacted people while they’re growing up — in their family, and that is often demonstrated by the conditions they live in, by poverty, lack of opportunity for employment, family fragmentation, foster care, child and family (services) involvement, sometimes the impacts of residential school — intergenerational and sometimes direct impacts, because it hasn’t been many years since the residential schools closed.”

The justice system — and its supervisory powers — works for some, depending on their motivation, their support system and what kind of preventative programs are in place, she said. But there are limitations.

“I can tell you what happens when people are the most successful… one of the biggest things is when people are released, to have a plan in place,” Perrault said.

However, offenders coming out of provincial jails often have no choice but to return to their former lives because there are insufficient supports.

“Now they’re back to couch surfing. Why would their lifestyle be that much more stable? Often, it’s with negative peers,” she said.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been an increase in the use of intoxicants, she said, and very few people commit crime without some level of intoxication.

“What I’ve seen over the last two, three years, is problems increase. The cost of living has gone up, homelessness has increased, substance use has increased. We know criminal behaviour is alive and well,” she said.

“On the other side of the coin, some things are going well. We have numerous successes, we have numerous people that live out in the community that are under sentence, could be under supervision, that are doing well.”

“For us to really make a dent in people committing crime and recidivism, it’s not only providing skills right at the front end, but a continuity of care. A continuum of care services, where people can do that.”–Sharon Perrault

When viewing the Canadian system at large, she’s proud of it. Those involved, from Crown, defence and legal aid attorneys, to probation officers and judges, do the best they can every day, she said.

And non-profits like hers work to provide people in the system with programs for substance abuse, anger management, parenting and relationship, along with healing and harm reduction, couched in Indigenous teachings, and with the help of elders. They are there to help people navigate bail requests, pardon applications and the courts. All in the hopes of reducing the risk of re-offending.

And a lot of people do become law-abiding citizens — if given the skills and ability, she said.

“For us to really make a dent in people committing crime and recidivism, it’s not only providing skills right at the front end, but a continuity of care. A continuum of care services, where people can do that,” Perrault said.

The Canadian justice system’s failings were back into the spotlight following a devastating rampage in an Indigenous community last September and the slaying of a police constable in late December.

One of the deadliest mass killings in Canadian history, in which 11 people were killed and 18 injured in stabbings in James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon, Sask., on Sept. 4, was believed to have been carried out by 31-year-old Myles Sanderson, who died of a suspected drug overdose shortly after he was arrested three days later.

As news of the chaos trickled out and Sanderson remained at large, it was revealed he had been granted statutory release in August 2021 from a federal sentence for assault, robbery, mischief and uttering threats. That release was revoked that November, before the parole board granted his release again in February 2022 with further conditions.

He was deemed as a high risk to re-offend with violence. In May 2022, a warrant was issued for his arrest for being unlawfully at large, months before the rampage.

The Parole Board of Canada said in September it will jointly investigate the circumstances of Sanderson’s release with the Correctional Service of Canada. The results of that investigation have not yet been released.

On Dec. 27, Ontario Provincial Police Const. Grzegorz Pierzchala, 28, was responding to a call for a vehicle stuck in a ditch west of Hagersville, Ont., when he was shot dead.

Randall McKenzie, 25, and Brandi Stewart-Sperry, 30, are accused in his slaying.

McKenzie, who is subject to a lifetime weapons ban, was released on bail subject to conditions for alleged 2021 firearm offences and assaulting a peace officer. McKenzie failed to appear in court on Sept. 6 and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth, who also heads the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, had just returned from Pierzchala’s funeral when he talked to the Free Press.

He wasn’t surprised most of those accused in Winnipeg’s recent homicides have lengthy histories in the system.

Smyth pointed to Winnipeg police data that showed 11 per cent of homicides in 2021 were allegedly committed by a person on bail and in breach of their release conditions. In 2020, that number was 14 per cent; in 2019 it was eight per cent and in 2017, it was four per cent.

“What you’re seeing up front and close now, is the fact that we’re trying to balance individual rights against the rights of the community to feel safe,” he said in a phone interview.

“Our Supreme Court made it pretty clear — people are presumed innocent under the (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), and they’re presumed innocent until they’re found guilty, so with that, the Supreme Court made it pretty clear that release when you’re charged is the rule, and continued detention is the exception.”

In his view, the problem rests with chronic, repeat violent offenders. He believes the bail system should be reformed to include a mechanism that deems an accused person a chronic offender if they’re charged for several violent crimes during a set time period, and remain in pre-trial custody as a result.

“The balancing act from my perspective is that when somebody has demonstrated this kind of unrelenting desire to not follow the rules, particularly if they’ve been involved in repeated violent crime, I think that fits the bill of the exception and they should be kept detained until trial,” he said.

“The balancing act from my perspective is that when somebody has demonstrated this kind of unrelenting desire to not follow the rules, particularly if they’ve been involved in repeated violent crime, I think that fits the bill of the exception and they should be kept detained until trial.”–Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth

Speaking in general terms, Smyth continued: “If somebody skipped out an address, I don’t think we can chase after every administrative breach out there, but if somebody is on bail already for violent behaviour, and then repeated another violent charge — I think that’s the kind of stuff we need to start paying attention to.”

Two weeks ago, provincial premiers sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau requesting changes to the bail system, as well as legislation to address firearm offences. The premiers argued for a “reverse onus” for loaded prohibited or restricted firearm offences, so that someone accused of those crimes would have to demonstrate why their detention is not warranted.

The police chiefs’ association, which Smyth heads, applauded the move.

Winnipeg criminal defence lawyer Stacey Soldier is not sure whose idea it was to try to fix society’s ills with incarceration. After all, somebody entering the criminal justice system is the result of societal failings as they descend to the bottom.

“We hear that in courts quite a bit, that people find themselves in these circumstances and it’s almost as though (we’re saying), ‘Let’s put them in the criminal justice system and maybe that will smarten them up,’” said Soldier, who also teaches law classes at the University of Manitoba.

“But really, what the expectation is, is asking the system that’s not set up to, to help somebody with their trauma or addictions, the addictions they have to deal with that trauma, the lack of housing, the poverty — all of those systems have failed the person at this point.”

From Soldier’s perspective, those involved with the system are mostly not being rehabilitated and supervised effectively, despite guiding principles within the Criminal Code and by case law, and existing layers of probation and other oversight measures.

“We want to hope that the system has the tools and the wherewithal to give tools to people who are being supervised on probation,” she said.

“I’m not a believer that all roads lead back to needing more money — but this way is not working.”

It’s critical for the system to look at alternatives, she said.

“I think those in power, those who make those decisions, need to hear from the community, and community leaders and elders — my focus is on Indigenous people within the system — I think the Southern Chiefs’ Organization is doing some fantastic work (with its restorative justice program).”

“There needs to be a real focus and a buy-in to looking at alternative systems.”

Manitoba Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen has been concerned about the bail system since the federal Liberals reformed the Criminal Code in 2019.

Among its wide-sweeping changes, Bill 75 sought to streamline bail processes, improve measures to better respond to intimate partner violence, reduce delays in the court system and address the overrepresentation of Indigenous people and vulnerable populations in the system.

“There were some things in Bill 75 that were positive in terms of moving the court system more quickly, in terms of increasing some ability for higher maximum sentences… but I think one of the negative things and unintended consequences was that it essentially codified making bail much easier, even for violent offenders,” Goertzen said in a recent interview at his office.

Goertzen and other provincial counterparts have called on federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendocino and Justice Minister David Lametti to amend the Criminal Code.

“We’re releasing people who’ve demonstrated that they’ve been a danger in the community before and are demonstrating they’re a danger to community again when they’re out on bail,” Goertzen said.

“That causes a few things, most primarily it causes people to be victimized… It also causes people to lose faith in the justice system, and that worries me equally.”

The Free Press data is indicative of the “tremendous pressure” being put on the justice system, he said.

He said the government has taken steps to address the problem. He pointed to recent funding for provincial probation services, along with the creation of a new integrated “high-risk” warrant unit between the WPS and RCMP last fall. The province earmarked $3.2 million for the warrant unit, but the enhancements to the probation-supervision program are being done with existing internal resources, a provincial spokesperson said this week.

“We will see more intensive supervision on the probation side — absolutely, it’s important, but if you continue to release people who shouldn’t be released, it just creates pressure throughout the system,” Goertzen said.

“We will see more intensive supervision on the probation side — absolutely, it’s important, but if you continue to release people who shouldn’t be released, it just creates pressure throughout the system.”–Manitoba Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen

However, Goertzen recognizes there are correlations between trauma, addiction, mental health, poverty and colonialism and Canadian crime — and says those matters must be addressed.

He pointed to addictions and mental health funding, money for the Bear Clan Patrol, healing lodges at two provincial jails and programming within jails, as examples of the work his government is doing to address the root causes of crime.

“None of that prevents or stops the reality that there are times when individuals, regardless of how they got there, and regardless of how they got to that situation, are still dedicated and determined to go into the community and to victimize individuals,” he said.

“How they got there doesn’t prevent our responsibility for ensuring they aren’t able to be in the community to create those victims.”

As a Manitoba Crown attorney for 12-and-a-half years, Melissa Serbin prosecuted numerous homicides and sat down with many victims’ families.

It’s heartbreaking, she said, and one can get lost in the desire for punitive sanctions without looking at the bigger picture of violent crime.

“And it’s very easy to do that because it’s very real,” Serbin said.

Now in a private practice and an instructor, along with Soldier, of the University of Manitoba’s Indigenous People and the Criminal Justice System seminar, Serbin said it’s easy for the public and politicians to “jump on a bandwagon and say, ‘Let’s be tougher on crime.’”

“That translates to ‘let’s keep people in jail,’ but I don’t think it’s as simple as using incarceration as a default solution to societal problems, and I don’t think that the expansion of pre-trial detention, or the creation of unnecessarily punitive sentencing practices, is at all a solution,” she said.

Community courts, such as the mental health, drug and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder court in Winnipeg, and long-term crime suppression strategies, such as the one used to decrease auto-theft, are evidence society needs to approach crime holistically, she said.

“If we take pre-trial release as an example, we have this extensive, structured bail system and it already speaks to risk mitigation, repeat offending, public safety, and while the public might not be knowledgeable about the grounds for bail and release, the judges, Crowns and defence counsel are… all acutely aware of the factors when dealing with release,” Serbin said.

“What we seem to be lacking, once an accused person is released, we no longer really have the infrastructure to monitor their bail conditions, or once they’re placed on probation, we have fantastic probation officers, we have programming, but we don’t really, I would say, have adequate social programming to address the issues that result in criminal behaviour, like marginalization or addictions or homelessness or poverty or social exclusion.”

Without addressing root causes of crime — while still holding offenders accountable, including through incarceration — the justice system will always be a revolving door, regardless of how “tough on crime” it may be, she said.

“We have so many people in the system working hard to do a good job, but we’re limited — you can only work with what you have,” Serbin said.

“We have so many people in the system working hard to do a good job, but we’re limited — you can only work with what you have.”–Melissa Serbin

“I think we need to make a real, tangible commitment as a community, or as province, or as a society, to address root causes of criminality, through social programming, youth mentorship and mental health supports, and it’s definitely a long-term strategy but that’s how we ensure public safety.”

Frank Cormier, a longtime professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Manitoba, agrees.

“Can we eliminate homicides? No, humans are humans, humans are messy and they’re going to kill each other,” he said, adding there are people with psychological problems who commit homicide without remorse, but they’re an overwhelming minority.

Most people who commit a homicide, he said, grew up in dysfunctional families or within the child-welfare system, and face poor education and employment prospects.

“Can we eliminate homicides? No, humans are humans, humans are messy and they’re going to kill each other.”–Frank Cormier, U of M professor

“Anybody in those circumstances might start drinking, might start using drugs, might start associating with the people we don’t want them to associate with,” Cormier said.

Typically, that’s when they might take someone else’s life, he said.

The answer is ensuring people’s basic needs are met. “That’s never popular, because it’s a huge undertaking,” he said.

“Far too many people in a wealthy country like Canada… whose basic needs are not met right from the day they are born, and when those people have chaotic lives, and end up having violent lives, then we can’t be surprised, and we can’t say ‘What was wrong with that bad seed?’ This is not an individual level problem, it’s a societal level problem, and we have to treat it that way.”

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Erik Pindera
Reporter

Erik Pindera reports for the city desk, with a particular focus on crime and justice.

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