(Ottawa) Ottawa and Manitoba committed Friday to paying $40 million to search a landfill for the remains of Indigenous women, potentially murdered by a serial killer in 2022.
The bodies of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran were allegedly dumped in the Prairie Green landfill, north of Winnipeg.
The remains of another victim, Rebecca Contois, were found in another landfill. The body of a fourth unidentified woman, whom indigenous leaders named “Buffalo Woman,” has not been found. Police did not provide further details about the circumstances surrounding his death.
A prime suspect in the case, Jeremy Skibicki was charged in December 2022 with first-degree murder for the four deaths that occurred earlier that year. The thirty-year-old’s trial is scheduled for April.
State and local authorities have agreed to share the cost of investigating the case, an indigenous leader and members of the victims’ families said at a news conference after meeting with officials as part of their awareness campaign.
“Today and all the days to come will be very, very difficult,” Cambria, the daughter of Morgan Harris, said at a press conference, while welcoming the financial “commitment” of the authorities. “I pray that one day justice will be done,” she added.
In recent years, Canada has been shaken by revelations concerning at least 1,200 indigenous women killed or missing and by the discovery of more than a thousand unidentified children’s graves near the sites of former residential schools for indigenous people.
Indigenous women are 12 times more likely to be victims of violence and seven times more likely to be killed than other Canadian women, according to a 2019 survey.
A search at the Manitoba landfill was initially rejected, with officials saying there was no guarantee of success and the risk posed by the presence of asbestos and other toxic materials at that site was too great. But two reports subsequently concluded that the operation was feasible.