August sentencing date set for Winnipeg serial killer who murdered 4 Indigenous women
Jeremy Skibicki, 37, faces automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years
A convicted Winnipeg serial killer who targeted and murdered vulnerable Indigenous women will be sentenced next month.
Jeremy Skibicki, 37, who was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder earlier this month, will be sentenced in a Winnipeg courtroom on Aug. 28, a Manitoba Courts spokesperson said on Wednesday.
On July 11, Skibicki was convicted of murdering three First Nations women — Morgan Harris, 39, Marcedes Myran, 26, and Rebecca Contois, 24 — and a fourth unidentified woman police believe was Indigenous and in her 20s. Community leaders have given that woman the name Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman.
All four were murdered between March and May 2022.
In a nearly 200-page decision following a weeks-long judge-alone trial, Manitoba Court of King's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal called Skibicki's crimes "emblematic of much of what is associated with the tragedies that underlie the very grim reality of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls [MMIWG] in Canada."
Skibicki confessed to the murders during an hours-long interrogation by Winnipeg police where he also revealed the murders were racially motivated. He went on to plead not guilty and his lawyers argued he wasn't criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.
Joyal disagreed and pointed to Skibicki's confession in saying the murders were deliberate and planned.
Investigators believe Skibicki killed Harris, Myran and Contois in May 2022 and Buffalo Woman in March that year.
The location of the remains of Buffalo Woman aren't known.
Contois' remains were recovered in garbage bins near Skibicki's apartment and at Winnipeg's Brady Road landfill. She was a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation.
The case has led to calls to search two Winnipeg-area landfills for the remains of Harris and Myran — both members of Long Plain First Nation — who police believe are in the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg.
A search of Prairie Green, initially deemed not feasible by Winnipeg police, was politicized during the 2023 provincial election and is now set to begin later this year.
Skibicki faces an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
His lawyer, Leonard Tailleur, said earlier this month he planned to review Joyal's written decision before deciding whether to appeal.
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With files from Caitlyn Gowriluk