Families of murdered First Nations women overcome with grief, hope after possible human remains found at Manitoba landfill

Open this photo in gallery:

Families of two First Nations women murdered by a convicted serial killer spoke tearfully Thursday to explain their complicated emotions about Manitoba’s discovery of possible human remains at a Winnipeg-area landfill where the victims’ bodies were disposed of nearly three years ago.

The province has been searching for the remains of Marcedes Myran, 26, and Morgan Harris, 39, at the Prairie Green landfill since last fall, sifting through thousands of cubic metres of waste material. This week, Premier Wab Kinew told The Globe and Mail that experts on-site found what are believed to be partial human remains.

The province is now working with the RCMP and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to identify the potential remains, an investigation that Mr. Kinew confirmed could take at least two weeks.

Jorden Myran said her grief is palpable, coupled now with the hope that there may soon be an end to her push since 2022 to find the remains of her sister, Marcedes. But she feels rage down to her bones, she said, for Winnipeg police and Manitoba’s previous Progressive Conservative government, both of which had refused to search Prairie Green.

“They didn’t deserve to sit in that landfill for as long as they did,” she said at a news conference held Thursday inside the downtown Winnipeg office of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the organization that represents 63 First Nations across the province. “If people would have just listened to us and realized that they are there, this could have happened a lot sooner, and that’s what really angers me.”

In August last year, after a months-long trial, Jeremy Skibicki, then 37, was sentenced to life in prison for the first-degree murders of Ms. Myran, Ms. Harris, 24-year-old Rebecca Contois and an unidentified woman whom First Nations elders have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, meaning Buffalo Woman.

After the killer’s arrest in May of 2022, Winnipeg police had located some of the remains of Ms. Contois, a member of Crane River First Nation, at a separate landfill. But while police obtained GPS information to confirm that the bodies of Ms. Myran and Ms. Harris, both from Long Plain First Nation, were at Prairie Green, they opted not to conduct a search of that landfill.

Police said the Prairie Green search would be too dangerous. That decision became the flashpoint issue of Manitoba’s election in 2023, with the PC Party at the time paying for billboards, radio ads and newspaper spots to tell voters that “the answer on the landfill dig just has to be no.” But Mr. Kinew’s New Democrats, who eventually won the election, argued that the search was the humane thing to do.

The Winnipeg Police Service and PC Opposition Leader Wayne Ewasko declined to comment on the matter Thursday.

Mr. Kinew told The Globe that after the families were notified about the potential remains being found, search activity at the landfill site – an effort that the Manitoba and federal governments have each committed $20-million toward – was paused for a day.

Before resuming, Mr. Kinew said the victims’ families were invited on site. As they prayed together to process their trauma, the Premier said they all thought of Cathy Merrick.

Ms. Merrick, the late Grand Chief of the Manitoba Assembly, had spent years advocating for the victims’ families. She died suddenly last September. After her funeral, where she became the first woman to be given the honour of lying in state in Manitoba, Mr. Kinew said Ms. Merrick’s husband, Todd, told him that the landfill search was the most important part of her lasting legacy.

Grand Chief Kyra Wilson, who took over Ms. Merrick’s role, said this week’s discovery highlights how many missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people are still out there, without any resources dedicated toward looking for them to be found.

“Our sisters, our stolen sisters, deserve to be honoured. They deserve, like all humans, to be laid to rest with dignity,” she said.

Elle Harris, the youngest daughter of Morgan Harris, initially elected not to speak with reporters Thursday. But when asked by The Globe about what Ms. Merrick would say if she was present, Elle said she was reminded of the late leader’s words: The fight to give her mother a dignified funeral would ensure a life beyond this tragedy.

“When I got the call yesterday, my heart dropped right down to my stomach. And my first thought was of Cathy,” she said. “I know she would be really proud of how far we made it and how far we fought.”

Elle Harris was barely 18 years old when her mother was murdered. “I was dropping out of school and I didn’t see myself making it too far in life after I found out about my mom,” she said. Now 20, she has graduated, supports herself and lives on her own. She even has new nieces who she hopes will never have to see such hardship.

“I’m on my journey of healing. But every day, I just think about how much I want my mom to be there,” she said, trembling through tears.

“For every single one of you who said no – to the police system, to the government – you sit there and think about this. Think about how disgustingly you treated us. And think of how far we made it, even though you said no. Look where we made it. Look where we are now. And we’re not done, not at all.”