Plan to search landfill for women's remains moves ahead as province approves environmental licence change

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

The Manitoba government has set out five stages to search a Winnipeg-area landfill by hand for the remains of two victims of an admitted serial killer — the first of which has now been completed, Premier Wab Kinew said Tuesday.

That first stage included getting the licence approvals to search the Prairie Green landfill, which the province's environmental approvals branch gave on Tuesday.

Altering the Environmental Act licence for Waste Connections of Canada — which operates the landfill — was one of the requirements for a search to move forward listed in a feasibility study conducted about the search of the landfill just outside of Winnipeg.

"At the end of the day, this is a very emotional process," Kinew said at a Tuesday news conference, after meeting with the families of Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, the two women whose remains are believe to have been taken to the landfill after they were killed by a man who is now on trial for first-degree murder in their deaths.

"We can only imagine what it's been like for the families to find out this news, what it was like for them to have the search politicized last year, what it's been like for them to go through the trial period, and then now for us to engage with them and tell them, 'We are starting the search. We are going to try to bring the remains of your loved ones home,'" Kinew said.

Donna Bartlett, the grandmother of Myran, said she was glad to hear the search would likely start by the end of the summer and continue through the winter.

"I am really happy and my girl is happy, and we'll get her home," Bartlett said on Tuesday, as she and her family headed to the landfill for a ceremony and prayer after a meeting with Kinew.

Jorden Myran, the sister of Marcedes Myran, declined an interview at the legislative building. However, in a Facebook post Tuesday, she said, "I've fought so incredibly hard for this, and although it shouldn't have taken this long I'm still so grateful that we are now doing it.

"I want to thank all of our supporters who showed up to all of our protests and helped us fight for this and get this done."

The update comes a day after closing arguments in the first-degree murder trial of Jeremy Skibicki, who in a 2022 police interview admitted to killing three First Nations women — Harris, Myran and Rebecca Contois, 24 — and an unidentified woman community leaders have given the name Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman. Police have said they believe she was an Indigenous woman in her 20s.

Skibicki told police he killed the women in his apartment, then threw their remains in garbage bins in the area.

While Contois's partial remains were found in those garbage bins and at the Brady Road landfill in Winnipeg, Harris's and Myran's remains are believed to be at the Prairie Green landfill, north of Winnipeg.

The provincial and federal governments each announced $20 million to help fund the landfill search earlier this year.