WARNING: This story contains sad details.
Three First Nations women living in Winnipeg have been identified as victims of a suspected serial killer, police say, but their loved ones say they are more than victims.
Mercedes Myran, Morgan Harris and Rebecca Contois were all killed in May, according to police.
Jeremy Skibicki, 35, has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with their deaths, although Harris and Myran's bodies have not been found.
Police allege a fourth woman, who has not been identified, was also killed by Skibicki, possibly around March 15. She is believed to be an Indigenous woman in her mid-20s, police said.
The women who have been identified are mothers, daughters, sisters and friends.
This is how they are remembered by those who loved them.
Mercedes Myran
Myran, 26, was reported missing in March this year, and was last seen in Winnipeg's North End.
After he was reported missing, his family members scoured the town looking for him, terrified of what they might find.
Myran was living on the streets before he disappeared. His grandmother Donna Bartlett said in an October interview that she feared Myran would be exploited, or even killed.
Now, Bartlett is left to grieve for his grandson, who he says is happy, smiling and trusting.
Morgan Harris
Cambria Harris said her mother, Morgan, was a mother of five and a "happy-go-lucky" and "goofy" grandmother.
"People love to be around him," Cambria said at a memorial for his mother on Thursday.
The family and search teams searched for Morgan for months after he went missing in early May, hoping they would find him, Cambria said.
No one had ever said anything bad about his mother, he said, and Morgan's death had rocked his family.
Rebecca Contois
Contois' family said they had experienced "deep sorrow" over his killing, as well as the deaths of three other women.
"The past few months have been incredibly tiring," the family said in a statement Friday via Candace House, an organization that works with victims and survivors of crime.
"We have experienced crippling grief. Pure devastation. I don't think we have ever cried a bucketful of tears, anxiety waking you up in the middle of a painful night, the kind of grief never experienced before."
Contois was a member of the First Nation band O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi, also known as Crane River, in western Manitoba, and grew up in Winnipeg. The 24 year old woman has a daughter.
He was reported missing in the months before May 16, when his partial remains were found in a dumpster behind an apartment building in Winnipeg's North Kildonan neighborhood. Following a search, more of his remains were found by police at the city's Brady Road landfill in June.
Darryl Contois—who had been looking for all three women at one point and knew Rebecca, but was not in direct contact with her—remembers her as a friendly but soft-spoken woman.
"He always had a heart for everything," she said at an event in May.
Post a Comment