Excavators begin work at landfill to prepare for search

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This article was published 23/10/2024 (319 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The plan to search a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of two slain Indigenous women has entered its next phase and recovery efforts are set to begin in December, Premier Wab Kinew announced Wednesday.

“I hope everybody in the province and across the country sees that Manitoba values and honours Indigenous women and that the plight of these families has served to deliver us to this point,” he said, speaking to reporters from a construction site at Prairie Green Landfill, just northwest of the city.

Excavators have started moving material on top of a targeted zone at the private dump where the remains of Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, are believed to be buried.

The women are victims of serial killer Jeremy Skibicki, who admitted to killing them, Rebecca Contois, and a fourth unidentified woman in 2022. In July, the 35-year-old was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence.

Skibicki said he put the remains of Harris and Myran in a garbage bin, which city police later traced to a two-hectare section at Prairie Green.

An engineering report completed earlier this year determined a four-metre deep layer of material should be removed to expose the target zone, said Amna Mackin, the provincial assistant deputy minister who’s leading the search operation.

An asphalt pad has been poured nearby and will provide a foundation for an all-weather search facility set to be erected by mid-November.

Mackin said excavated material will be taken into the 40-foot tall building, where two teams of 12 searchers will spread it into a “thin layer” and look for human remains or evidence that might help locate the women’s bodies.

The site required the development of a new access road and a hydro transmission line — both of which have been completed. Construction of a drainage area to collect surface water runoff and protect the environment from leachate continues, Mackin said.

A healing lodge, contained in a prefabricated building, has been placed elsewhere at the Prairie Green site.

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Trailers for staff involved in the search are expected to arrive next week and will be placed near the asphalt pad, she said.

The federal and provincial governments have committed a combined $40 million for the effort.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs partnered with the provincial government and relatives of the slain women to hire the search team earlier this year.

Mackin said nearly 200 people applied to participate in the search.

“The interview process is ongoing, but the offers are expected to be made shortly,” she said.

The province has said the search may continue into 2026 and could include excavation to a maximum depth of about 10 metres.

Material outside the target zone will be removed and temporarily covered so it can be searched if remains are not located within the target zone.

Forensic anthropologist Emily Holland, a Brandon University professor who worked on the search of serial killer Robert Pickton’s farm in B.C., is working with the RCMP to develop a response protocol in the event remains are recovered, Mackin said.

Cambria Harris, daughter of Morgan Harris, said she was “honoured” to be part of an oversight committee involved in hiring searchers.

“That’s my mom in that landfill and I can’t just let anyone go searching for her. I need somebody with empathy, somebody with compassion,” she said, speaking alongside Kinew.

“There is a lot of work that needs to get done, but for our families, we’re finally seeing that light at the end of the tunnel.”

The Winnipeg Police Service will not be involved in the operation, said Melissa Robinson, a cousin of Morgan Harris.

The police service and former Progressive Conservative government wouldn’t move ahead with recovery efforts, saying a search of the landfill site was not feasible.

The Tories took out election campaign ads last fall promoting their decision to “stand firm” against the search.

Kinew took shots at the former government Wednesday by saying the search was “always possible, (but) it required political will.”

“I hope we can bring your loved ones home, but the most important thing is we are going to try,” he told the families.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler 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.