A search of a Manitoba landfill for the remains of two First Nations women murdered by a serial killer in 2022 has officially ended, the province says.
The search of a section of the Prairie Green landfill, north of Winnipeg, for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran started in December. It wrapped up on July 9, the province said in a Thursday news release.
The update comes months after the women’s partial remains were discovered at the landfill in February, though workers remained at the site after that in an effort to find more of their remains, Premier Wab Kinew said previously.
Private ceremonies with Harris and Myran’s families to honour the women were held July 14 and 15 alongside Kinew, members of the search team and other community supporters, Thursday’s news release said.
Harris and Myran were among four First Nations women killed by Jeremy Skibicki in 2022. He was convicted last year of four counts of first-degree murder in their deaths and the killings of two other women: Rebecca Contois and Ashlee Shingoose.
With the Prairie Green search concluded, specialized equipment and personnel will soon move to the Brady Road landfill to continue the search for Shingoose’s remains, which are believed to be in that Winnipeg landfill, the release said.
Contois’s partial remains were found in May 2022 in a garbage bin near Skibicki’s apartment in Winnipeg’s North Kildonan area, and more were found the following month at the Brady Road landfill.
Both Myran, 26, and Harris, 39, were originally from Long Plain First Nation in south-central Manitoba, while Shingoose, 30, was from St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation in northeastern Manitoba.
Contois was a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, also known as Crane River, on the western shore of Lake Manitoba.