Winnipeg serial killer's message to ex-wife before last killing said he might do '3 life sentences'

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

The week before he was arrested, a confessed Winnipeg serial killer sent a Facebook message asking his ex-wife to forgive him if he ended up going to prison, his trial heard Thursday. 

That was among a series of messages court heard Jeremy Skibicki sent the woman in May 2022, at which point the two had long been estranged, including one close to midnight on May 9 of that year telling her that he still "might not be caught," but "could be doing like three life sentences."

Skibicki is on trial for first-degree murder in the deaths of four women, who are believed to have been killed between mid-March and mid-May of 2022. The messages he sent his ex-wife came just days before investigators say he killed the last of his victims.

Skibicki, 37, is charged in the deaths of three First Nations women — Rebecca Contois, 24, Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26 — as well as the death of an as-yet-unidentified woman who has been given the name Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, by community leaders. She is believed to have also been Indigenous and in her 20s when she died.

Contois is believed to have been the last of the women killed, on May 14 or 15, 2022. Skibicki was taken into police custody on May 17 — a day after police discovered Contois's partial remains in garbage bins near the accused's North Kildonan apartment. More of her remains were later found at a Winnipeg landfill.

Court heard the morning before he was arrested, Skibicki sent his now ex-wife another message: "Lots to do today. Take care, baby."

Prosecutors have said the women's deaths were intentional and racially motivated, and that Skibicki preyed on vulnerable Indigenous women at Winnipeg homeless shelters before killing them and throwing their bodies into garbage bins.

The remains of Harris and Myran are believed to be in a different landfill outside Winnipeg, while police have not said where they believe Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe's remains are.

While Skibicki was initially only arrested in connection with Contois's death in May 2022, he unexpectedly confessed to that killing and the three others, which police previously had no knowledge of.

Skibicki told police he strangled, choked or drowned the women, and confessed to performing sex acts on their bodies before dismembering some of them and throwing their remains into the garbage.

Skibicki's legal team says while he's admitting he killed the women, they plan to argue he shouldn't be held criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.

Skibicki's ex-wife, who is Métis, testified as part of the Crown's use of similar fact evidence in the trial, which prosecutor Christian Vanderhooft said will highlight abuse and violence perpetrated on vulnerable Indigenous women that "is so strikingly similar that they establish a modus operandi in the perpetrator."

Skibicki's defence team consented to allow the similar fact evidence in the trial, saying it plans to get its own expert to comment on some of the evidence later on.