Year of Manitoba landfill searches shows reconciliation a work in progress, families say

The year that saw the remains of two First Nations women brought home from a Manitoba landfill and a search get underway for the remains of a third showed how far reconciliation efforts have come — and how far they still need to go, the families say

Melissa Robinson, whose cousin Morgan Harris’s remains were among those recovered earlier this year, says she feels at peace now that the chapter of her life focused on searching the Prairie Green landfill outside Winnipeg is over.

Robinson said after having an initially tense relationship with Winnipeg police when they decided not to search for her cousin’s remains, her family feels they’ve now built trust with new police Chief Gene Bowers, who she says listens and has shown he’s “committed to the families.”

“When we talk about reconciliation, this is exactly it,” she said. “Action behind those words, not just, you know, empty words.”

Donna Bartlett, whose granddaughter Marcedes Myran’s partial remains were also found during the search of that landfill this year, said finding those remains — though difficult — brought her family some long-awaited finality.

However, she isn’t sure that what they went through changed anything when it comes to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

“I'm hoping it did. I really am hoping,” Bartlett said. “They’ve got these big plans, but nothing gets done, so reconciliation is kind of — to me, it's kind of not real.”

Harris, 39, and Myran, 26 — both originally from Long Plain First Nation — were among four women killed in 2022 by Jeremy Skibicki. He was convicted of first-degree murder in 2024 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years after a weeks-long trial that heard he targeted vulnerable First Nations women before killing them and disposing of their remains.

Skibicki was also convicted of killing Rebecca Contois, 24, a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, and Ashlee Shingoose, 30, who was from St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation, and whose identity was unconfirmed until this year.

Contois’s partial remains were found in garbage bins near Skibicki’s apartment and at Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill, while a search for Shingoose’s remains at that landfill started recently.

Those developments brought renewed calls to also search that landfill for the remains of Tanya Nepinak, 31, who was last seen in 2011. Police conducted an unsuccessful six-day search for her remains there the following year. The province has since announced it plans to search for Nepinak’s remains once the search for Shingoose is done.

Bartlett says she hopes no one ever finds themselves in the position her family was in — and if they do, she hopes they don’t have to fight to recover their loved one’s remains. 

She also hopes more is done to protect vulnerable people such as her granddaughter, something echoed by Robinson, who questioned why it took the province so long to establish an emergency safe space for Indigenous women that is expected to open in the new year.

“Why are we still functioning the same way it was when my cousin was out on the streets?” Robinson said.