Family of woman slain by Winnipeg serial killer relieved search for remains moving forward

Posted on June 12, 2024 by Peggy

For the first time in a long time, Elle Harris slept peacefully on Tuesday night — no longer plagued by the nightmares she’s been having since she learned her mom was the victim of the serial killer, but instead relieved to know her remains could soon be returned to her family for a proper burial.

Harris was among those who learned Tuesday that a long-awaited search of the Winnipeg-area landfill where the remains of her mother, Morgan Harris, and another woman are believed to have been taken in 2022 is moving forward.

“I think I was left very speechless. I had no words. I’m still kind of trying to process it,” Harris said on Wednesday, which would have been her mother’s birthday.

“It’s very overwhelming, because we’ve been fighting for two years. And it’s weird – it’s going to be weird not to fight. It’s going to be really weird being able to, you know, have a day to myself and not have all these meetings I have to go to.”

The families of Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, have been pushing for a search at the Prairie Green landfill, just outside Winnipeg, since police announced in 2022 that the women had been killed by the same man, who then disposed of their remains in the garbage.

Jeremy Skibicki, 37, is charged with first-degree murder in their deaths, and in the death of Rebecca Contois, 24. All three were First Nations women.

He’s also charged in the death of a fourth woman who has not been identified but who police believe was Indigenous and in her 20s. She has been given the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, by community leaders.

The faces of three First Nations women are pictured side by side. — Left to right: Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and Rebecca Contois. (Submitted by Winnipeg Police Service and Darryl Contois)

Tuesday’s update on the landfill search came the day after closing arguments in Skibicki’s judge-alone trial, which began hearing evidence on May 8.

Prosecutors argued the killings were motivated by racism and homicidal necrophilia. Skibicki has admitted to killing all four women, but his defence argued he should be found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder. The judge has reserved his decision until July 11.

Moving forward

Melissa Robinson, one of Morgan Harris’s cousins, said her family is now focused on the day they can properly lay her cousin to rest — but they know there’s a lot of work to be done still before they can get there.

Some of the details of that work were laid out for family members who were taken to the landfill for ceremony on Tuesday, following a meeting with Premier Wab Kinew about the search, which is being led by the province.

Robinson said that tour included seeing a site at another location where the province is building a healing lodge, which will later be moved to the landfill for family during the search.

Hydro power is also currently being set up at the landfill site near the sections that will be sifted through by hand, while work is expected to begin soon on steps including hiring and training staff, she said.

Kinew said Tuesday the first stage of the search process, which included getting licence approvals to search the landfill, is now complete. The search will move through its next stages through the year and could extend into early 2026, he said.

Robinson said seeing all the work that’s been done to try to bring her cousin’s remains home felt like a weight being lifted off her shoulders.

A view from above of garbage in a landfill in summer, with a yellow canola field in the background — An aerial view of the Prairie Green landfill, north of Winnipeg, on July 13, 2023. (Jaison Empson/CBC)

“It was like, where do we go from here now?” she said. “It was a good feeling, though. So yesterday, those were happy tears.”

Those tears fell in part because of a promise Robinson said she made to her late cousin’s sister, who died after Morgan was killed, that she would make sure to bring Morgan’s remains home from the landfill.

“I think back to when we went there a year and a half ago … and being so struck with the idea that she was laying there. And here we are now, you know, delivering that promise that we’re going to be bringing her home. And at this point, that’s all that matters,” she said.

For now, the family is putting their energy into a memorial powwow they’ve organized in Morgan Harris’s honour on Saturday afternoon at an encampment they’ve named Camp Morgan, near Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill. Robinson said she’s heard from people flying in from across Canada for the event.

Elle Harris said she’s also finding strength in a new group her family has started in her mother’s honour — Morgan’s Warriors, a community patrol that’s aiming to hit the streets of Winnipeg to hand out food and hygiene kits to people in need, as well as conduct wellness checks and pick up discarded needles.

“As horrible as these past two years might have been, a lot of good has come out of it,” she said. “I found my voice, I’m getting out there. I’m not wanting to hide away anymore. I’m not ashamed of who I am anymore.”

Myran’s family say they plan to hold a news conference Thursday to speak about the search.