Canadian Sentenced to Life in Prison for Serial Killings of Indigenous Women

Jeremy Skibicki, 37, has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of the brutal rape and murder of four Indigenous women in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Skibicki’s heinous crimes, which involved carving up the victims’ bodies and disposing of them in garbage bins, have shocked and deeply affected the Indigenous communities.

Skibicki, found guilty last month, was sentenced by Justice Glenn Joyal, who criticized the inhumanity and barbarism of Skibicki’s actions. The sentence includes four concurrent life terms with no possibility of parole for 25 years. Justice Joyal remarked that the sentence, while significant, does not fully reflect the severity of Skibicki’s crimes and his moral culpability.

The trial revealed that Skibicki targeted Indigenous women he met in homeless shelters between March and May 2022. After bringing them to his apartment, he sexually assaulted them, then killed them by strangulation or drowning. He continued to sexually assault their bodies post-mortem.

The remains of two victims, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, are believed to be in a landfill north of Winnipeg, which is currently being searched. Rebecca Contois’s partial remains were found in a garbage bin in Winnipeg and in a landfill. The body of a fourth victim, an unidentified woman in her 20s, remains missing. She has been named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or “Buffalo Woman,” by local Indigenous leaders.

Harris’s daughter, Elle, described the trial as horrific, reflecting the profound personal and communal trauma caused by Skibicki’s crimes. Grand Chief Cathy Merrick of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs emphasized the deep scars left on First Nations communities by Skibicki’s actions.

At the time of Skibicki’s arrest in December 2022, Marc Miller, the then-minister of Crown-Indigenous relations, remarked that the case highlighted the ongoing legacy of systemic violence against Indigenous women in Canada. This case underscores the broader issues of violence faced by Indigenous women and the need for continued efforts to address these injustices.

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