Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs will push to search landfill for Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe: grand chief
CBC
WARNING: This story contains details of violence against Indigenous women.
The head of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs wants to see the search of a Manitoba landfill continue in hopes of finding the remains of the sole unknown victim of a Winnipeg serial killer.
Grand Chief Kyra Wilson says she's grateful that the remains of two women — Marcedes Myran, 26, and Morgan Harris, 39, both originally from Long Plain First Nation — were found at the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg, just months after the province started searching a targeted area.
However, Wilson also wants to see an attempt to recover the remains of the unidentified women given the name Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, by the community. Along with Harris, Myran and Rebecca Contois, 24, Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe was among the four Indigenous women murdered by serial killer Jeremy Skibicki in 2022.
"Everyone is watching Manitoba right now with this landfill search, and now we have an opportunity to show everybody that we're not going to leave anybody behind, and so it's important that we continue on that search to find Buffalo Woman," Wilson said Wednesday.
"There is a family out there that is missing a loved one, and there is no closure."
WATCH | Grand Chief Kyra Wilson wants Prairie Green search to continue:
Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe has never been identified and her remains have never been found.
Police have not publicly said whether they have a theory as to where her body might be, and very few details about her have been made public.
Skibicki unexpectedly confessed to killing the four women when he was arrested and brought in for questioning by police in May 2022, after the partial remains of Contois were discovered in garbage bins near his North Kildonan apartment.
In that police interview, he described Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe as Indigenous and in her early 20s, with dark patches on her skin, an average build and short hair. He also said she was the first woman he killed, in mid-March 2022.
DNA tests on a jacket it's believed she wore were also not enough to identify the woman, court heard during Skibicki's trial last year.
Skibicki said he met Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe outside of the Salvation Army shelter in Winnipeg, adding there was still snow on the ground at the time and that COVID-19 pandemic restrictions had just been lifted in Manitoba.
Those restrictions were lifted on March 15, 2022.
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