Excavation begins at Winnipeg-area landfill for remains of women, victims of serial killer

The search for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran has officially started at Prairie Green landfill, north of Winnipeg.

The dig began Monday morning, Premier Wab Kinew announced at a noon news conference.

“At 10:01 a.m., the first truck carrying landfill material drove down this mountain that is Prairie Green and delivered that first load of landfill material into the search facility,” he said.

“While I am professionally obligated to remind everyone that we don’t know what the odds of the situation being successful are, in terms of recovering the remains of Morgan and Marcedes, we can say with confidence that we have a chance for this search to succeed.

“No matter what lies ahead, we can say we tried and we made the effort for these families.”

Search technicians with rakes and glove-covered hands have been working their way through the material since, Kinew said.

“We found some items that indicate that we are in the right date range and time,” he said, later adding that dates on some garbage, including a milk carton and newspapers, indicate searchers are looking in the right area.

Kinew called Monday’s developments the fourth stage of the landfill project.

Stage 3 happened over the past two months, with 18,900 tonnes of material carved away from the top of the targeted “zone of interest” to prepare for what has now begun — the excavation of another 20,300 cubic metres of material.

“This will be a difficult stage. It could stretch on for a very long period of time,” Kinew said.

“I hope the search concludes quickly, with the result that the families are looking forward to. We can then move on, helping them walk through the next stages of their healing journeys and of grieving their loved ones, who were taken from them in what are some of the worst crimes that we’ve ever seen in the history of our province.”

WATCH | ‘We don’t know the odds’ of landfill search success, premier says:

Harris, 39, and Myran, 26, are assumed to have been dumped at the privately run Prairie Green, in the rural municipality of Rosser, two years ago.

They were killed by Jeremy Skibicki and left in a dumpster near his apartment in Winnipeg.

The garbage collection contract for that dumpster led to Prairie Green, while the target location within the landfill is based on GPS information obtained from garbage trucks.

Skibicki was convicted in July 2024 of four counts of first-degree murder in the killings of four women in total. In addition to Harris and Myran, he was found guilty in the deaths of Rebecca Contois, 24, and a still-unidentified woman who has been given the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, by community leaders.

Police have said they believe she was Indigenous and in her 20s. Her remains have never been found.

Partial remains belonging to Contois were discovered in garbage bins near Skibicki’s apartment and at Winnipeg’s city-run Brady Road landfill.

Investigators believe Contois was the last of the four women Skibicki killed, on May 14 or 15, 2022. They believe he killed Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe in mid-March of that year, and went on to kill Harris on May 1 and Myran on May 4.

During Skibicki’s trial, court heard that when Contois’ remains were found, Harris’s and Myran’s remains were in a dumpster just a few blocks away and about to be taken to a landfill that same morning.

It wasn’t until June 20, 2022, that police realized Harris’s and Myran’s remains had been taken to Prairie Green, and by then more than 10,000 loads of garbage had been dumped there.

The provincial and federal governments each committed $20 million earlier this year to fund the search, which the province has said could continue into the new year.

All of the necessary infrastructure, such as hydro lines, trailers with change rooms and lunch areas, roads and parking lots, was completed recently.

A heated building where the landfill materials will be searched through by hand was also built earlier in the year.

Though a feasibility study recommended sifting through debris on a conveyor belt, Kinew said earlier this year that doing a search by hand was the best option, in part because of how wet the garbage will be.

Searchers are expected to work in groups of about 12 to manually spread the lines of debris out with rakes and other tools, and open any bags or packaging, before inspecting it for anything to suggest they’re getting close to garbage from a date range of May 9-21, 2022, such as receipts with dates.

That’s when the remains of Harris and Myran, both from Long Plain First Nation just southwest of Portage la Prairie, are believed to have been taken there.

It was two years to the day on Sunday that the Harris family first learned that’s where her remains likely are, Kinew said at the news conference Monday.

“Yesterday … we returned to the site with both the Harris and Myran families and we stood with them in ceremony, and this morning, I was there with two family members as we watched the first blue truck of landfill material come down to the search facility,” Kinew said.

“It is an intense emotion that you feel, standing on that site with those families.”

The province, in partnership with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and the victims’ family members, hired experts such as technicians, engineers, managers and anthropologists, as well as searchers.

About half the 45 search team members are Indigenous, said Amna Mackin, the provincial assistant deputy minister leading the operation.

She said the search is expected to continue until at least spring. If, at the conclusion of Stage 4, no remains have been found, “we will make a determination as to what additional searching will be required as part of Stage 5,” Mackin said.

That could include excavating deeper into the target zone or going back to some of the waste displaced during Stage 3.

Along with training on what to look for, the searchers also got health and safety training due to risks such as asbestos exposure.

Kinew on Monday said asbestos has been encountered and moved safely and without issue.

He also said the condition of the material being excavated is good enough to allow identification of items and potential remains. 

“Everything that was previously proffered as an excuse, I think has been systematically disproven,” Kinew said, referring to reasons a search wasn’t done sooner.

The Winnipeg Police Service decided initially that it was not feasible, a decision that was backed by then-premier Heather Stefanson and her Progressive Conservative Party.

Kinew made searching the landfill an election promise. His NDP party won an overwhelming victory over the PCs in fall 2023.

The families of the women, as well as all others involved, are bound by non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from sharing any information at this stage, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said in a news release last week, asking media to refrain from asking questions.

“This is a deeply emotional and critical process, and the privacy of all involved must be prioritized. Your understanding and co-operation in respecting these requests will ensure that the work proceeds without unnecessary stress or interference.”