Indigenous-led committee requests funds from Ottawa to look landfill for ladies’s stays – Winnipeg Free Press
An Indigenous-led committee studying the feasibility of searching a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of two women has submitted a funding proposal to the federal government.
The committee expects Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada to decide soon on public funding to conduct a search, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs announced Tuesday.
Committee members are exploring the likelihood of finding the remains of Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26, at the Prairie Green Landfill, just north of Winnipeg.
JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES
Committee members are exploring the likelihood of finding the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran at the Prairie Green Landfill, just north of Winnipeg.
City police believe four Indigenous women — Harris, Myran, Rebecca Contois, 24, and an unidentified victim since named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman) by elders — were slain by an alleged serial killer in Winnipeg last year.
The remains of Harris, Myran and Buffalo Woman have not been found.
The feasibility study will likely be completed by the end of March, while the committee tries to conduct its work promptly and urgently, according to the AMC, which provides updates on the group’s meetings and progress.
At a recent meeting with members of a technical sub-committee, Prairie Green’s owner confirmed it stopped dumping waste in June in a section police have marked as an area of interest for the potential search and recovery of Harris and Myran’s remains, the AMC said.
“This information means there is less overburden (waste) to remove for a proper search if it is… determined to be feasible,” the AMC stated in a news release.
Last month, the province and members of Harris and Myran’s families told the Free Press an area, or cell, remains closed for a potential search.
The two women are believed to have been killed in March. Detectives from the homicide unit learned in June their remains could be at Prairie Green in the RM of Rosser. The facility is owned by Waste Connections of Canada.
The Winnipeg Police Service decided not to search the landfill, after its own assessment found the likelihood of finding the women was low due, in part, to the amount of waste deposited between March and June.
The Indigenous-led committee also plans to study the feasibility of searching the city-run Brady Road landfill, where some of Contois’ remains were found by police in June.
In December, police said they do not have a definitive location for Buffalo Woman’s remains.
Jeremy Skibicki, 35, is charged with four-counts of first-degree murder in the women’s deaths.
Skibicki intends to plead not guilty to all the charges, his lawyer Leonard Tailleur said Tuesday.
Chris Kitching
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