The courthouse in Winnipeg where the trial of Skibicki is taking place. Photo: APTN.
Warning, this story contains graphic details. Please read with care.
Winnipeg prosecutors revealed gruesome details in court Wednesday about the 2022 serial killings now admitted by Jeremy Skibicki, and alleged they were “racially motivated.”
Crown attorney Reneè Lagimodiere outlined the Crown’s case by saying Skibicki murdered four vulnerable, Indigenous women and disposed of them “as though they were garbage.”
Skibicki, 37, confessed the crimes to Winnipeg homicide detectives, but pleaded not guilty in court to four counts of first-degree murder. Then, during his trial on Monday, he pleaded not criminally responsible due to mental illness.
Lagimodiere alleged Skibicki was “intentional, purposeful and racially motivated” in committing the crimes between March 15, 2022 and May 16, 2022.
She said he picked up the four victims – Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and Buffalo Woman – at Winnipeg homeless shelters.
Buffalo Woman is the spirit name gifted the “Jane Doe” victim by Indigenous leaders in Winnipeg. She was the first to be murdered and police have been unable to identify her.
Lagimodiere said Skibicki had sex with the victims before he “forcibly confined” them. She alleged he choked or strangled the women, before drowning them in the bathtub of his one-bedroom apartment.
Lagimodiere said two of the victims – Contois, 24, and Myran, 26 – fought back when Skibicki “got rough”, while Harris, 39, was permitted to go outside for a last cigarette. A cigarette butt with her DNA was later recovered in a garbage bin near Skibicki’s apartment, the Crown said.
While Skibicki sat in the prisoner’s box staring straight ahead, Lagimodiere said he “defiled” the women’s bodies with sexual and other acts.
She said Buffalo Woman, whom police believe was Indigenous and in her mid-20s, wore a Baby Phat jacket police recovered from a man who claimed to buy it from Skibicki on Facebook Marketplace.
Lagimodiere said Skibicki had known Contois for some time before killing and dismembering her, then dumping the remains in garbage bins hear his suburban home.
“These were hate-filled and cruel acts perpetrated against four vulnerable Indigenous women,” the Crown told Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal.
“He preyed on these women in Winnipeg shelters and invited them back to his home, where he assaulted them, often sexually, and killed them.”
Co-Crown counsel Christian Vanderhooft played a 911 call from a man who discovered Contois’ severed head in a green garbage bag on May 16, 2022, while rummaging in a garbage bin near Skibicki’s North Kildonan apartment building.
The scavenger, worried that a garbage truck might come or the person responsible would return, removed the bag, stowed it in a window-well and called police, court heard.
“It’s human?” asked the 911 operator.
“It’s a human – human female,” confirmed the man. “It looks like a young woman.”
Contois’ arms and legs were also located in the bin, Lagimodiere said, while her torso was later recovered in the city’s Brady Road landfill.
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Sgt. Greg Allan of the Winnipeg police Homicide Unit testified he identified Skibicki as a suspect and connected him to Contois. He said the tactical unit arrested Skibicki on May 18, 2022, while the accused waited for a southbound bus on Henderson Hwy.
“He was quite calm, very composed,” Allan told court. “…We had no concerns for his mental health.”
Allan and his partner interviewed Skibicki on and off for 20 hours. A three-hour portion of that recorded interview was played in court before the noon break.
Skibicki, who appears relaxed and didn’t have the beard he now wears in court, told detectives he was not on any medication.
At one point, he admits he thought he wouldn’t get caught.
He requests a priest to confess his sins to.
“I really just wanted to see how far I could go because the criminal justice system is a joke,” he told investigators.
-More to come.
