Winnipeg court heard victims' clothes, DNA found in serial killer's apartment

WINNIPEG – The trial of serial killer Jeremy Skibicki heard Thursday that police found physical evidence from the victims in his Winnipeg apartment, including jewelry, clothing, DNA and a blood-stained bathtub.

Const. Ian de Vries, who was part of the police search team, said they found bloodstains in Skibicki's bathroom belonging to one of the victims, Rebecca Contois.

Some spots were visible, while others were found using a spray that makes the spots fluoresce when used with a black light, he said.

“The bathtub was very fluorescent,” de Vries said. “So was the floor, the walls, and the outside of the door.”

He said the bloodstains found in the bathtub covered the entire area where it may have been emptied and flushed at the same time.

Skibicki is charged with first-degree murder in the 2022 murders of Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Mairan and an unidentified woman.

He has confessed to the murder, but his lawyers say he will not face criminal charges because of his mental illness.

King said the killings were racially motivated, Skibicki was a self-proclaimed white supremacist, and the four victims were indigenous.

Prosecutors say Skibicki kidnapped, assaulted, killed and dumped the bodies in trash cans of vulnerable women from homeless shelters.

GRAPHIC WARNING: The following details may disturb some readers.

Partial remains of Contois were found in numerous garbage cans near Skibicki, as well as in a local landfill.

Crown prosecutor René Lagimodière told the court that Skibicki assaulted Contois, 24, during sex. He then strangled her, suffocated her with a pillow and dismembered her in the bathroom.

CCTV footage presented in court shows a man dumping the bags into a neighboring rubbish bin.

When officers went to search the bin, it had already been emptied, the court heard. That led police to cordon off the area at the Brady Road landfill, where they eventually found the woman's body, de Vries said.

De Vries said police found a jacket and tuca belonging to Harris and Myran's earrings and a baseball cap in Skibicki's room. DNA belonging to both women was found, as was Mayran's blood on the blade of a combat-style knife.

The remains of Harris and Mayran are believed to be in another landfill.

Investigators said the whereabouts of the Buffalo woman's remains are unknown.

Skibicki told police he sold the Buffalo Woman jacket online. Police later found Baby Phat's reversible jacket and a DNA profile of the unidentified woman.

De Vries said there had been considerable but unsuccessful attempts to identify this DNA.

The court heard DNA samples from 16 women were taken from the flat and from a rubbish bin in the area. Nine of these samples were unknown.

Lagimodier told reporters outside court that the Crown does not currently believe there are many victims in the case.

One identified DNA sample belonged to the missing woman. Ashley Shingus was last seen in downtown Winnipeg in March 2022.

Shingush's family told local media last year that they had been asked to provide police with a DNA sample, but it did not match the Buffalo woman.

Police said in an email Thursday that Shingus is still believed to be missing.

The federal government has a victim support line for missing and murdered Native women and girls: 1-844-413-6649. The Hope for Health hotline, which supports Cree, Ojibway and Inuktitut, is also available to all Indigenous peoples in Canada: 1-855-242-3310.

This Canadian Press report was first published on May 9, 2024.

Brittany Hobson, Canadian Press