Search of Brady landfill for remains of serial killer’s victim set to start in December

The search of a city landfill for the remains of one of a serial killer’s four victims is set to start by December, Premier Wab Kinew said Monday.

“We’re moving ahead to the next steps, which involve hiring the searchers,” he told reporters during a scrum in his office in the Manitoba Legislative Building.

A preliminary search for the remains of Ashlee Shingoose started at the City of Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill in early August, The Canadian Press reported that month. Kinew said at the time that a proper search of the landfill could happen later this year.

The city and the Winnipeg Police Service have been “great” about collaborating with the search, Kinew said.

“We’re moving ahead with a target of searching that zone of highest interest in December,” he said.

Kinew committed to searching the landfill for Shingoose’s remains after the remains of two of Jeremy Skibicki’s other victims were found in Prairie Green Landfill. The remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran were found at Prairie Green, located north of Winnipeg in the Rural Municipality of Rosser, in February and identified in March.

On Monday, Kinew described the Brady Road search as a similar process to what was done at Prairie Green. He couldn’t say whether a house that was moved to Prairie Green for use by the families of Harris and Myran will be moved to the Brady landfill for the Shingoose family.

“That’s something that we’re still working on with the representatives of the families. There’s no final answer as to what’s going to happen with that, but there’s been some discussion with the families, that maybe that could be put to use for housing or some other purpose to help people in a vulnerable position,” Kinew said.

Skibicki was convicted last year of murdering four First Nations women in 2022. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Shingoose was the first victim. Indigenous community members gave her the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, until she was publicly identified in late March.

Police announced this year that interviews with Skibicki after the trial, along with DNA evidence, led them to identifying Buffalo Woman as Shingoose.

The remains of the fourth victim, Rebecca Contois, were found in a garbage bin in May 2022, leading to Skibicki’s arrest. Police later found more of her remains at the Brady Road landfill.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca