Winnipeg serial killer knew what he was doing was wrong, judge says

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Serial killer Jeremy Skibicki knew what he was doing was wrong, a judge said in a lengthy decision outlining why he convicted the Winnipeg man in the murders of four vulnerable Indigenous women.

Court of King's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal said he came to that conclusion in part because of comments Skibicki made during his police interview, when he told officers he did some "horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible things," asked if he could confess his "sins" to an Orthodox priest and told detectives that whatever happened to him next was "never going to be enough," even if it included capital punishment.

Messages and letters Skibicki sent after the killings also showed he knew what he did was wrong, from a series of Facebook messages telling his ex-wife that he could be facing several life sentences, to letters he sent another inmate discussing his case while incarcerated that suggested "an awareness, a calculated opportunism and a potential for manipulation at the very least," Joyal's decision said.

Skibicki's police statement also revealed how the murders were racially motivated, a fact Joyal said was "rendered all the more chilling" when considered with the evidence of a shelter worker who testified Skibicki told him he was only there to "stalk his victims."

The 190-page decision released Monday comes over a week after Joyal delivered a comparatively brief oral decision on July 11 convicting Skibicki, whose face showed no sign of emotion in court as he was convicted of all four counts of first-degree murder he faced before a courtroom packed with relatives and supporters of his victims.

The convicted killer, whose defence team argued during his trial he should be found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder, now faces an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

His lawyers argued at the time of the killings, Skibicki was driven by delusions caused by schizophrenia that left him unable to realize what he was doing was morally wrong.

The ruling came after a trial that heard weeks of evidence in May and June. The high-profile case galvanized people across the country to push for the search of a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of two of the women Skibicki killed.

Joyal said that backdrop to the case, combined with the "cruelty and barbarism" of the women's deaths, required the court to be especially conscious of its responsibility to give the accused "the required due process from what is and must be perceived as an impartial tribunal."

Skibicki, 37, was convicted in the killings of three First Nations women — Morgan Harris, 39, Marcedes Myran, 26, and Rebecca Contois, 24 — as well as an unidentified woman who has been given the name Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, by community leaders. She was believed to be in her 20s, and court determined based on the evidence she was also Indigenous.

Contois was a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, also known as Crane River. Harris and Myran were both members of Long Plain First Nation. All four women were killed in Winnipeg between mid-March and mid-May of 2022.

Planned, deliberate murders

Skibicki's admissions to police provided what Joyal called a "very compelling" list of similarities among the killings, which helped the judge determine the accused was guilty of four planned, deliberate murders — which he found were also carried out at the same time as sexual assaults in all four cases.

Those similarities included that Skibicki met all four women at shelters, brought them back to his apartment where he killed them early in the morning "to ensure that no one would notice," performed sex acts on their bodies after killing them, dismembered some before disposing of their remains in garbage bins near his apartment and kept some of their belongings after killing them.

Skibicki also told police during his confession that he planned some of the killings around when garbage was scheduled to be collected, and that he had criteria for choosing his victims that included not targeting anyone who had a cellphone with them or who had someone who knew where they were.

The judge also found testimony from Skibicki's ex-wife — who told court Skibicki would regularly sexually assault her while she was passed out, and tell her that if she died he planned to keep her remains in a closet and perform sex acts on them until she "would stink too bad" — helped establish his modus operandi because of how "strikingly similar" those actions were to what he did to his victims.

Skibicki's behaviour after the killings, including how he disposed of and concealed the victims' remains and searched online for topics including garbage days, DNA, fingerprints and missing Indigenous women, also demonstrated a "self-interested and self-protective awareness," Joyal's decision said. 

All that helped cast doubt on the argument that Skibicki was not criminally responsible for his actions because of mental illness, the decision said. 

Defence expert demonstrated 'professional self-aggrandizement'

Joyal also discussed in more detail why he afforded little weight to the evidence of Dr. Sohom Das, a forensic psychiatrist from the United Kingdom who assessed Skibicki for the defence after the killings.

Das testified he believed Skibicki was driven by delusions linked to schizophrenia and heard voices that made him believe he was on a mission from God, preventing him from realizing his actions were morally wrong.

Joyal previously expressed concern about Das's professionalism but found the evidence of Dr. Gary Chaimowitz, a forensic psychiatrist who testified for the prosecution, to be reliable and credible. Chaimowitz testified he believed Skibicki made up his delusions and was motivated by racism and homicidal necrophilia, or arousal to having sex with people he killed. 

In his written decision, Joyal said he found Das was comparatively inexperienced and based his opinion about Skibicki on "a flawed or weak foundation." 

The judge also said the "unique approach" Das takes with his controversial YouTube channel reflects "an apparent professional self-aggrandizement and professional exhibitionism," and noted the psychiatrist recently did a "rather opinionated" interview with the Globe and Mail where he "offered comments about the present case, which he would have known was on reserve — the verdict of which was to be delivered later that same week."

Search for remains

Though Skibicki is believed to have killed the first of the four women in March 2022, the investigation into the case didn't begin until two months later, after someone looking through dumpsters for items to salvage discovered Contois's partial remains in a shopping bag.

Police soon identified Skibicki as a suspect and brought him in for questioning in Contois's death, during which he surprised the officers interviewing him by suddenly admitting to the racially motivated killings of all four women, and to performing sex acts on their bodies before disposing of their remains.

With that videotaped confession admitted as evidence, the trial became not about proving whether Skibicki committed the killings, but about his motivations.

While Contois's partial remains were discovered in garbage bins near Skibicki's apartment and at Winnipeg's Brady Road landfill, the remains of Harris and Myran are believed to be buried at the Prairie Green landfill, just outside the city. 

A search of that site, which was initially deemed unfeasible by police and later became a political issue in Manitoba's last provincial election, is scheduled to begin later this year.

It's still unknown where Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe's remains are. A DNA sample from a jacket Skibicki told police he took from her is now in the police crime scene database — meaning if the DNA of someone found at a crime scene ever matches with the sample, officers will then be able to follow up, police said during the trial.

Victims' family members will be invited to read impact statements at a later sentencing for Skibicki. That date has not been set.

Support is available for anyone affected by these reports and the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Immediate emotional assistance and crisis support are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through a national hotline at 1-844-413-6649.

You can also access, through the government of Canada, health support services such as mental health counselling, community-based support and cultural services, and some travel costs to see elders and traditional healers. Family members seeking information about a missing or murdered loved one can access Family Information Liaison Units.