Ex-wife of Winnipeg serial killer talks about unstable marriage, sexual abuse

WINNIPEG – The ex-wife of confessed serial killer Jeremy Skibicki has opened up about her abusive marriage to the man in the second week of her murder trial.

The woman told the court she met Skibicki at the Siloam Mission for the homeless in Winnipeg in February 2018 when he was struggling with drug addiction.

Skibicki was with two other people, he said, and the group invited him back to Skibicki's home.

“He said he really liked it … referring to me,” the 44-year-old said on Thursday.

Skibicki, 37, faces four counts of first-degree murder in 2022 for the murders of four Indigenous women.

He confessed to killing 24-year-old Rebecca Contois; Morgan Harris, 39; Marcedes Mairan, 26; and the unidentified woman was referred to by indigenous leaders as Mashkode Bijikiikwe or Buffalo Woman.

His lawyers argue that he will not face criminal charges due to his mental illness.

Crown prosecutors say the killings were racially motivated and that Skibicki preyed on vulnerable women in shelters.

The court heard he beat, strangled or drowned the women and dumped their bodies in bins in the neighbourhood. Two women were dismembered.

Dressed in a dark dress and tinted glasses, Skibicki's ex-wife spent nearly two hours detailing their volatile relationship. He asked not to be named.

After their first date, she started staying at Skibicki's house because she was using methamphetamine and had nowhere to go.

The violence started early, he said.

“He used to keep me (in his house) and spit and laugh at me,” the woman said softly. “I sat naked for several days.”

Once, she said, Skibicki tried to suffocate her with a pillow.

I said, “Go ahead, but people know where I am.”

The violence eventually became sexual, she said. She was prescribed sleeping pills for post-traumatic stress disorder and Skibicki forced her to take the pills every night, she said.

“Jeremy likes it when I'm on the meds… he'll have sex with me when I sleep.”

Crown prosecutor Chris Vanderhooft asked how the woman knew she had been sexually assaulted. She said she would wake up sick and bleeding.

“He told me he was doing it, too,” he added.

The two got married in September 2018. Skibicki proposed to the crowd at the pharmacy, she said, and she accepted because she felt stuck.

Once Skibicki attacked him with a knife, and on another occasion he suffered a concussion.

A year after their marriage, the woman filed for an order of protection against Skibicki, seeking drug addiction treatment.

Police arrested Skibicki in 2022 after a scrap metal prospector found partial remains of Contois in a dumpster. Most of the woman's remains were found in a landfill the following month.

During police questioning, Skibicki confessed to killing three other women.

The court heard the Buffalo woman was killed in March of that year. The rest of the women were killed in May.

The ex-wife said she received Facebook messages from Skibicki at the time. On May 9, he apologized if he went to prison.

“He told me he couldn't tell me what he did. But if he admitted what he did, he would run away,” she said.

Defense lawyers were expected to arraign the woman in the afternoon.

This Canadian Press report was first published on May 16, 2024.

Brittany Hobson, Canadian Press