The remains of an Indigenous woman murdered by a convicted serial killer three years ago have been found in landfill in central Canada, local authorities confirmed following a months-long search.
Morgan Harris was one of the Indigenous women slain by Jeremy Skibicki, who is serving multiple life sentences after being convicted of four murders last year.
Skibicki met his victims in homeless shelters, in a case seen as a symbol of the dangers faced by Indigenous women in Canada, where they disproportionately fall victim to violence, termed a “genocide” by a national public inquiry in 2019.
Testimony at Skibicki’s trial said he raped, killed and dismembered Harris and another woman, Marcedes Myran, in 2022.
Photo by Shay Conroy for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Police believed their remains were dumped at the Prairie Green Landfill site, north of Winnipeg, the capital of the province of Manitoba.
Last month, authorities announced that the remains of two bodies had been found at the site. They confirmed late Friday that one set of remains are those of Harris.
Manitoba police “have confirmed that human remains found in the Prairie Green Landfill search have been identified as those of Morgan Beatrice Harris of Long Plain First Nation,” the province said in a statement on Friday.
Identification of the second set of remains will be released “as facts are confirmed,” it added.
The body of another of Skibicki’s victims, Rebecca Contois, was found in a separate landfill and in a garbage bin, while the remains of a fourth unidentified victim in her 20s are still missing.
In a social media post, Harris’s daughter called the identification of her mother’s remains “a bittersweet moment.”
“She’s coming home just like we said from the very beginning…we fought with our hearts and now her spirit can rest,” Cambria Harris said.
The families of Harris and Myran had pushed authorities in Manitoba to search for the bodies.
Manitoba’s Premier Wab Kinew, the first Indigenous person to lead a Canadian province, said “Morgan Harris we honor you,” in a post on social media.
In December 2022, Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth wrote an open letter to Indigenous leaders, acknowledging the “unimaginable” pain surrounding the case.
“The investigation involving the murders of Rebecca Contois, Marcedes Myran, Morgan Harris, and Buffalo Woman has been one of the most complex and important homicide investigations during my tenure,” Smith wrote. “I have heard the calls from the families, the Indigenous leadership, and the community. I understand your calls; the pain and sorrow is unimaginable.”
Shay Conroy for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Indigenous women represent about one-fifth of all women killed in gender-related homicides in the country — despite comprising just five percent of the female population.
A similar crisis exists in the U.S., where Native American women are disproportionately targeted in murders, sexual assaults and other acts of violence, both on reservations and in nearby towns.
There were more than 5,700 reports of missing Native women and girls in 2016, according to the anti-sexual assault organization RAINN, which cites statistics from the National Crime Information Center. The Bureau of Indian Affairs estimated more recently that roughly 4,200 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people remain unsolved.
Last month, the remains of a woman found dead on a reservation in southwestern South Dakota were identified as a Sioux woman who went missing more than a year ago.
