Winnipeg serial killer told shelter worker 'he was just there to stalk his victims,' trial hears

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

A worker at a shelter that Jeremy Skibicki frequented said the confessed serial killer once told him he came there to "stalk his victims," Skibicki's trial heard Wednesday.

Ronald Normand said that conversation happened after Skibicki — whom the worker testified seemed out-of-place at the Disraeli Freeway shelter, because he wore clean clothes and appeared well-shaven — approached him one day while he was working.

"He came up to me and told me that he didn't need to be there, that he had his own place. He was just there to stalk his victims," Normand told court, adding Skibicki's mood seemed "normal" as he made that comment.

"I hear things every day at the shelter. People go through psychosis and say a lot of strange things, you know? People who've got mental health issues, they say a lot of things, right?  

"That stuck out to me."

Skibicki, 37, is accused of first-degree murder in the 2022 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 been in her 20s when she died.

Contois was a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, also known as Crane River. Harris and Myran were both members of Long Plain First Nation. Police have said they believe Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe was also Indigenous.

All four women were killed in Winnipeg between mid-March and mid-May 2022, police have previously said. Skibicki was initially arrested only in connection with Contois's death in May 2022, after her partial remains were discovered in garbage bins near his North Kildonan apartment.

He unexpectedly ended up also confessing to the three other killings, which police had no knowledge of.

Prosecutors have said the women's deaths were intentional and racially motivated, and that Skibicki preyed on vulnerable Indigenous women at Winnipeg homeless shelters.

While Skibicki's defence team says he admits to the killings, they plan to argue he should be found not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder.

During cross-examination on Wednesday, one of Skibicki's lawyers asked Normand questions that only included one about the conversation with Skibicki.

"Would it be fair, Mr. Normand, to characterize that conversation as weird?" lawyer Leonard Tailleur asked.