The mystery of Buffalo Woman

Nearly a year later, no details are publicly known about woman believed slain by serial killer

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Somewhere in Manitoba, or beyond, is a family that likely doesn’t know their loved one is among four Indigenous women police believe were slain by an alleged serial killer.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/10/2023 (718 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Somewhere in Manitoba, or beyond, is a family that likely doesn’t know their loved one is among four Indigenous women police believe were slain by an alleged serial killer.

It’s been an anguished thought for Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Cathy Merrick since Winnipeg police first asked the public to help put a name to the unidentified victim Dec. 1, 2022.

“It’s pretty sad, a year later, to not be able to at least identify a woman,” Merrick told the Free Press on Monday. “We had to give her a traditional name to be able to talk about her.”

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
                                George Robinson, left, and Darryl Contois put up posters on Main Street near Higgins Sunday to help identify Buffalo Woman, an unidentified person who police have said was a victim of an alleged serial killer.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

George Robinson, left, and Darryl Contois put up posters on Main Street near Higgins Sunday to help identify Buffalo Woman, an unidentified person who police have said was a victim of an alleged serial killer.

Community members temporarily named her Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, after the deaths of three other women were announced by city police.

For the public, the only clues to her identity are photos of a distinctive jacket and a limited physical description provided by police.

Detectives believe Buffalo Woman and three others — Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran — were killed by the same suspect in 2022.

Remains of Buffalo Woman, Harris and Myran have not been recovered. Police previously said they do not have a definitive location for Buffalo Woman.

Harris and Myran’s remains are believed to be in the privately owned Prairie Green Landfill, just north of Winnipeg.

Sandra DeLaronde, a member of the MMIWG2S+ Implementation Committee, described the situation involving Buffalo Woman as devastating.

She and Merrick said it has been traumatic for families of missing or murdered women; Buffalo Woman, like Harris and Myran, deserves the dignity of a proper burial.

“There’s a family out there missing their loved one,” said DeLaronde. “The fact that no one knows who she is, no one can advocate for her in terms of the landfill search.”

The Winnipeg Police Service said Buffalo Woman was the first of the four victims and was killed on or about March 15, 2022. It has been largely mum on tips or any progress toward identifying Buffalo Woman since the photos of a reversible Baby Phat brand jacket were shared at a Dec. 1 news conference.

This month, a police spokeswoman told the Free Press there are no new developments in the search for Buffalo Woman.

Investigators had encouraged people to phone in tips, even if the information seemed trivial.

“It’s important for every single person in this room, and beyond, to appreciate somewhere out there, there’s a family and a community that are missing a loved one and truly deserve to know what happened,” WPS major crimes Insp. Shawn Pike said Dec. 1. “Give us a chance to follow it up, because the last thing that we want is for this fourth victim to remain a ‘Jane Doe.’ It’s not acceptable.”

Detectives believe Buffalo Woman was in her mid-20s and had an average build.

The jacket, which has a fur-lined hood, is black on one side and striped on the other. The black side has “Baby Phat” on the front and a cat logo on the back. The striped side has a cat logo on the front and “Baby Phat” across the back.

Police haven’t said what led them to believe Buffalo Woman wore the same type of jacket.

A first-degree murder charge was laid in her death, even though she hasn’t been identified and her body hasn’t been recovered.

Without providing specific details, WPS Chief Danny Smyth previously said police had enough evidence for the Crown to authorize four counts of first-degree murder against suspect Jeremy Anthony Michael Skibicki.

Police confirmed DNA was part of the investigation.

Police believe one of Skibicki’s alleged victims wore a reversible jacket similar to the one pictured. The jacket has the words “baby phat” and a cat-like logo on the front and back and has a fur-lined hood.

Police believe one of Skibicki’s alleged victims wore a reversible jacket similar to the one pictured. The jacket has the words “baby phat” and a cat-like logo on the front and back and has a fur-lined hood.

Skibicki, 36, has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His trial is due to begin in April.

Michael Arntfield, a former London, Ont., police detective, agreed the situation involving Buffalo Woman is rare and challenging for police and prosecutors.

When a victim’s body is missing but their identity is known, police will gather circumstantial evidence in a bid to prove the person is no longer alive, said Arntfield, a professor and criminologist at Western University.

“It’s very difficult to do that if you don’t know who the person is,” he said. “You would have to have strong direct evidence of the crime itself.”

In 2001, Toronto-based lawyer David Butt successfully prosecuted a case where the victim’s body was never found.

Without a body, prosecutors must establish that a death occurred — while eliminating other possible explanations for a disappearance — and prove the manner of death, which is different from cause, he said.

“In general principle, you’re building evidence of activity around the unanswered questions of where is this body and how did it meet its end,” said Butt, who is now in private practice.

Contois’s partial remains were recovered from a garbage bin in North Kildonan and the city-run Brady Road landfill.

The federal and provincial governments support a search of Prairie Green for Harris and Myran’s remains.

An Indigenous-led committee, which is seeking government funding, has been given 90 days to further study some of the work that will be necessary during the planning phase.

The case has amplified calls to provide more social supports for people who are vulnerable.

Bernadette Smith, Manitoba’s new minister of housing, addictions and homelessness, restated the NDP government’s goal of recovering the women’s remains.

She was among the Indigenous cabinet ministers who joined Premier Wab Kinew at a meeting with the Harris and Myran families, Merrick and others last week.

“Buffalo Woman was loved,” Smith said in a statement. “She deserves a government that does everything possible to find her remains and bring her home to her family.”

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

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