A Winnepeg man has been arrested and charged with the murders of four Indigenous women in Canada, with police seeking assistance identifying one of the victims.
Jeremy Anthony Michael Skibicki, 35, was initially arrested in May and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Rebecca Contois, a member of Crane River First Nation. Now, Mr Skibicki has been charged with three further counts of murder in the deaths of Morgan Beatrice Harris, Marcedes Myran, and a fourth, unidentified victim. The first three victims were all Indigenous women.
Investigators have said that they believe Mr Skibicki acted alone and that there is no ongoing threat to the public.
Indigenous women have been targeted with a disproportionate amount of violence throughout Canadian history, and in recent years, activists from the transnational Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement have raised awareness about the extent of the issue.
“It does involve Indigenous women,” Winnepeg police chief Danny Smyth said on Tuesday. “We’re very sensitive to the whole missing and murdered Indigenous women investigation and inquiry and the recommendations that came out of that.”
Police have not confirmed whether or not the women who were killed were targeted because they were Indigenous, but the extent of the violence that First Nations women and gender expansive people have faced in recent years is a major issue in a case that has left some in Winnepeg shaken.
The trauma of the killings is reverberating around the region, Angie Tuesday, a family support and resource advocate with the police, told Global News.
“This is a tremendously difficult time for both these families that we’re discussing today, as well as all the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and two-spirit and gender-diverse people in Manitoba,” Tuesday said.
When Mr Skibicki was first arrested in May, police warned that there may be more victims. It is unclear now whether Mr Skibicki may be charged with any further murders, or if this week’s charges represent the extent of his alleged criminal activity.
Investigators believe that the currently unidentified woman was killed around March 15, while Ms Harris was killed around May 1 and Ms Myran around May 4. The partial remains of Ms Contois were found in a garbage dump on May 16.
Mr Skibicki is being held at the Milner Ridge Correction Centre, where he will remain awaiting further developments in his criminal cases.
