Premier promises landfill search for Shingoose’s remains ‘I cannot promise you that we will bring her home, but I can promise you that we are going to try,’ Kinew assures parents By: Chris Kitching Posted: 6:37 PM CDT Wednesday, Mar. 26, 2025

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This article was published 26/03/2025 (194 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Wab Kinew promised Ashlee Shingoose’s parents that Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill will be searched for her remains, after city police confirmed she is Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman).

Official conversations have not yet taken place, and specific details of a search, including funding, when it could begin and the roles of each involved party, have not yet been worked out.

“I promise you that we are going to search the Brady landfill for your daughter,” Kinew said in a message to Shingoose’s parents, Albert and Theresa, at a news conference in Winnipeg Wednesday.

“I cannot promise you that we will bring her home, but I can promise you that we are going to try.”

Kinew said all levels of governments, including Indigenous governments, the Winnipeg Police Service and Shingoose’s family will work together to carry out the search at the city-run landfill.

Shingoose, 30, was the last of serial killer Jeremy Skibicki’s four victims to be identified. The Indigenous community gave the unidentified victim the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, when police announced in December 2022 that her identity and the location of her remains were not known.

Kinew’s pledge followed a plea from Shingoose’s parents, who live in St. Theresa Point First Nation. Raymond Flett, the northern community’s chief, became emotional while he read messages from the couple.

“Please start a search as soon as possible,” a message from Theresa Shingoose stated. “It’s been a long time waiting. I need to bring her home. I need that closure.”

Albert Shingoose acknowledged a search will take time.

“This new update, it takes me back. It’s hard reliving the hurt,” his message stated.

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Winnipeg police Chief Gene Bowers acknowledged the service’s 2022 decision not to search the privately owned Prairie Green landfill for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, who were also killed by Skibicki, had negative impacts on the families and community. He was deputy chief at the time.

Bowers would not say if the WPS will make a public apology until he meets with all families involved.

Then-WPS chief Danny Smyth defended the decision in 2022, saying it was not feasible to search Prairie Green due, in part, to the large volume of waste, including asbestos, that was dumped and compressed in the weeks before investigators learned Harris and Myran’s remains were there.

“We have had a time for reflection. While we cannot undo the past, we can learn from it,” Bowers said. “Today, we know what needs to be done.”

Bowers said discussions about what a search would look like are in the early stages, but the WPS supports the effort and will be involved.

He told reporters the WPS could offer resources such as forensic identification unit, and lessons learned from earlier searches of the landfill.

“We’re somewhat familiar with the landscape and environment, so I think we’ll bring added value there,” Bowers said.

Mayor Scott Gillingham said he pledged his and the city’s support to the Shingoose family.

“We will make every effort to bring her home,” he said.

“I cannot promise you that we will bring her home, but I can promise you that we are going to try.”–Premier Wab Kinew

Gillingham said Brady Road staff have detailed GPS records and operational expertise.

“They’re ready to assist however they can,” he said.

Surveillance video could also be useful, the mayor noted.

Bowers said the WPS has reviewed its landfill search policy since the 2022 decision regarding Prairie Green, and “built it” based on that experience.

The intention going forward, depending on specific circumstances, “is always we need to try to search” to find a person who is in a landfill, depending on circumstances and whether police have the capacity and support of partners such as the community, he said.

Police services sometimes don’t look outside their organization for help, the chief noted, while indicating a willingness to change.

“We need to do that. We need to talk to partners,” Bowers said. “We need to reach out, and if we need help we need to ask for it.”

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Regarding trust that was eroded after the 2022 decision not to search Prairie Green, Bowers asked the community to give the WPS a chance.

Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Kyra Wilson said it fell on the Harris and Myran families and Indigenous leaders to ensure that Prairie Green was searched. No non-Indigenous government stepped up to take the lead.

Wilson said official conversations will happen in the near future to ensure a search of the Brady Road landfill moves forward.

“This is another search that we have to take on, for the Shingoose family. Everyone, I believe, will come together,” she said.

Bowers was lauded by Kinew after the police chief said the WPS is committed to reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. Kinew commended those who were involved in ensuring Prairie Green was searched for Harris and Myran.

The premier said every Manitoban will be safer when police and Indigenous communities can work together and trust each other, and when reconciliation is pursued in a proper way.

He encouraged that to happen, and for people to be open to welcoming the WPS in reconciliation efforts.

“This is another search that we have to take on, for the Shingoose family. Everyone, I believe, will come together.”–Grand Chief Kyra Wilson

“I know that this does not make the healing journey or the questions that families still want to ask go away, but it does perhaps indicate that some progress is being made,” Kinew said.

“In addition to having your loved ones being returned to you, I hope you also know that you are changing Manitoba, and you are changing Canada for the better. Future generations of girls and women and two spirit people will be safer because of that.”

He said he hopes the situation will be a healing moment for Canada.

Cam Mackid, the WPS deputy chief of investigation, said the cell that was in use at Brady Road in March 2022, when Shingoose was killed and her remains put in a garbage bin that was later deposited at the landfill, is the same cell where police recovered remains belonging to Rebecca Contois, who was also killed by Skibicki, in June 2022.

The area was sealed off shortly after police learned Contois’ remains were likely there. Mackid believes no further waste has been deposited in that cell since.

“I know that this does not make the healing journey or the questions that families still want to ask go away, but it does perhaps indicate that some progress is being made.”–Premier Wab Kinew

The remains of Tanya Nepinak, who investigators believe was slain by a different serial killer, could also be at the city-run Brady landfill.

Nepinak, 31, vanished the night of Sept. 13, 2011, after leaving her Sherbrook Street home to walk to a pizza restaurant.

Winnipeg police believe she was slain and her body put in a garbage bin that was deposited at the landfill. They searched a portion of the facility for the mother of two in October 2012, but the effort ended after six days.

The Crown later stayed a second-degree murder charge against her alleged killer, Shawn Lamb, who entered guilty pleas for manslaughter in the deaths of Carolyn Sinclair, 25, and Lorna Blacksmith, 18, in a 2013 deal struck with prosecutors before his murder trial was to begin.

All three women were Indigenous.

“Of course, this is a conversation that we need to have,” Wilson said in response to a question about whether Nepinak could be included in a search of the Brady Road site, which is on Winnipeg’s southern limits.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

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.