A new search operation will commence on Monday at a Winnipeg landfill to locate the remains of First Nations women, as per information obtained by CBC News. The province has recently trained its personnel in readiness for the search at the Brady Road landfill in the southern part of Winnipeg. This search aims to find the remains of Ashlee Shingoose, one of the victims of Jeremy Skibicki, a convicted serial killer serving multiple life sentences for the murder of four First Nations women in Winnipeg in 2022.
Following the completion of this search, the province has announced its intention to search for Tanya Nepinak, a woman who went missing over a decade ago, at the same landfill. The government refrained from providing comments on Friday. Nepinak disappeared on September 13, 2011, after leaving her Winnipeg residence where she resided with her mother, stating she was going to a nearby restaurant to get pizza.
Despite Shawn Lamb being previously charged with second-degree murder in Nepinak’s case, the charge was later dismissed, and Lamb was convicted of manslaughter in the killings of Carolyn Sinclair and Lorna Blacksmith in 2012. Police conducted a six-day search for Nepinak’s remains at the Brady Road landfill in 2012 but were unsuccessful in locating her.
In August, the province initiated a “test phase” for a new search at the landfill, which involved excavation to determine the search process and ground-penetrating radar tests to pinpoint the location. A search at the privately operated Prairie Green landfill, near Stony Mountain, concluded in the summer after the discovery of the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, who were also victims of Skibicki.
During Skibicki’s trial, it was revealed that he targeted women at Winnipeg homeless shelters and disposed of their bodies in garbage bins. He was also found guilty in the death of Rebecca Contois, whose partial remains were found at the Brady Road landfill by Winnipeg police in June 2022. Shingoose, initially known as Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe or Buffalo Woman, was only identified after the trial through interviews with Skibicki and DNA evidence, leading authorities to believe her body was taken to the landfill.