Red dresses, hung in honour of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit individuals line fences at a landfill in Winnipeg on April 4, 2023.SHANNON VANRAES/Reuters
Manitoba is set to begin the most critical stage in the search to recover the remains of at least two First Nations women dumped by a convicted serial killer at a Winnipeg-area landfill, the Premier says.
In an exclusive interview ahead of a public announcement this week, Wab Kinew told The Globe and Mail that a targeted section of the Prairie Green landfill has now been pinpointed as the most probable location of the bodies of the victims, 26-year-old Marcedes Myran and 39-year-old Morgan Harris.
Starting at 6 a.m. Monday, multiple teams will work in shifts to move the refuse material into a large purpose-built facility, one of several new buildings erected on site. For the first time during the search, the debris from dozens of feet below the surface will then be sifted manually in the hopes of finding human remains.
Over the past two months, more than 18,000 cubic metres of detritus has been removed from the towering mound on top of the target area at the four-acre landfill, operated by Waste Connections of Canada Inc. in the rural municipality of Rosser, north of the provincial capital.
Work after this stage of the multiyear project, an effort that the Manitoba and federal governments have each committed $20-million toward, will depend on what is discovered in the coming weeks and months.
“As Premier, I just want to set some realistic expectations. This could be the difficult stage that carries on for quite a long time,” Mr. Kinew said, warning that the province is preparing for the excavation to continue all of next year, and potentially into 2026.
“But on a personal level, as one Manitoban looking at these fellow Manitobans who’ve lost their loved ones, I just hope the search is successful as soon as possible. These families have been through enough.”
Narrowing the search to events in May of 2022, when garbage was collected from receptacles in the precise parts of Winnipeg where the killer had dumped Ms. Harris and Ms. Myran’s remains, has required a lot of guesswork. But Mr. Kinew said evidence recently found at the marked site has been reassuring.
“We’ve been able to look at receipts and newspapers that we can legibly read,” he said. “They’re in the date ranges that we’re actually tracking, so it’s a real reason for hope.”
In late August of this year, after a months-long trial, 37-year-old Jeremy Skibicki was sentenced to life 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.
Winnipeg police had located some of the remains of Ms. Contois, a member of Crane River First Nation, at a separate landfill shortly after the killer’s arrest. But remains of the other three women have never been found.
The bodies of Ms. Myran and Ms. Harris, both from Long Plain First Nation, are believed to have been dumped at Prairie Green, based on GPS information obtained by police from several garbage trucks. But Winnipeg police would not conduct a search of the landfill, considering it too dangerous.
Gary Anandasangaree, the federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister, has called the Winnipeg police’s handling of the case a “complete failure,” stating that it shows systemic issues.
Superintendent Cam MacKid has defended the service, describing the case as “one of the most complex investigations in Manitoba history,” where considerable safety risks for police led to the decision to forgo a search of the landfill.
Mr. Kinew said the Winnipeg police will not be involved directly in the current project.
Workers have so far not had any significant issues dealing with asbestos, chief among the contaminants that police had believed would make the search unsafe, he added.
Should human remains be found, a families-first identification and notification protocol will be established by the RCMP and the province’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. After that, the Manitoba government would likely help the families with a burial and funeral, Mr. Kinew said.
All the necessary structures for the search – such as changing rooms, lunch areas, new hydro lines, parking lots and access roads – have been completed, he told The Globe.
The facilities are intended to operate in all four seasons, including Manitoba’s harsh winter conditions. Although the targeted zone is not covered by a roof, Mr. Kinew said heavy equipment will be able to work despite the snow.
About 40 or so full-time and part-time workers – engineers, forensic anthropologists, managers and search technicians – have been hired, with the victims’ family members participating in job interviews. The bulk of the newly hired staff finished their training and were outfitted with personalized protective equipment this past week, Mr. Kinew added.
Cambria Harris, daughter of Morgan Harris, said these next steps are all that she has wanted for more than two years. “We haven’t had time to grieve because we’ve had to constantly scream for justice,” she told The Globe.
Jorden Myran, sister of Marcedes Myran, said she’s daunted by the intensity of the process.
“But I can finally see it all being near the end,” she said.
“We want to just finally bring our baby girl home,” added her grandmother, Donna Bartlett.
The Premier emphasized that no matter what lies ahead, this search has always been about healing for the families. “And it’s a healing journey for the whole province,” he said.
Excavation and sifting started of a section of a landfill believed to hold the remains of two slain First Nations women. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said he was at the site when the first truck moved a load of refuse from the area to where searchers are manually sifting through it in the hope of finding the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran.
The Canadian Press