The ex-wife of a Winnipeg serial killer testified in court about the abusive relationship

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The ex-wife of a man who confessed to killing four First Nations women testified in Winnipeg Superior Court Thursday, recalling ludicrous details of their abusive relationship, including how he violently assaulted and sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions.

The 44-year-old Metis woman, who The Globe and Mail has not named because she is a survivor of sexual abuse, told Crown Court Justice Glenn Joyal that she met Jeremy Skibitsky in early 2018 at the Siloam Mission shelter for the vulnerable. in the city. He said he struggled with methamphetamine addiction and was homeless at the time.

The woman told the court that Mr. Skibicki approached her while she was alone and invited her to his apartment. “I really like it,” he told his friends that day.

The couple began living together and married in September of that year after Mr Skibicki publicly proposed to her in a pharmacy. “I felt stuck,” she said of the marriage. In September 2019, a court in Winnipeg granted a protection order against him.

But Mr Skibicki kept in touch with her and messaged her on Facebook before his arrest in 2022, she said.

According to an agreed statement by the Crown and the defence, Mr Skibicki killed an as yet unidentified woman identified by local elders as Mashkode Bijikiikwe, the Buffalo Woman, on or about March 15, 2022; Morgan Harris, 39, on or about May 1 of that year; Marcedes Mairan, 26, on or about May 4; and Rebecca Contois, 24, on or about May 15.

Although Mr. Skibicki, 37, has confessed to the killings, his trial, now in its second week, hinges on whether the defense can show he is too mentally ill to be charged with first-degree murder.

Mr. King Skibicki killed the four women in an elaborate scheme that involved stalking them in shelters, inviting them to his home to use drugs, sexually assaulting them, and then killing them before engaging in further sexual acts. only to dispose of their dismembered remains in trash cans, eventually ending up in Winnipeg-area landfills.

But his defense attorneys pointed out that he told police about borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder during nearly 20 hours of questioning.

During a videotaped interrogation in court last week, Mr. Skibicki admitted to police that he met at least three of his four victims — Ms. Harris, Ms. Mayran and Ms. Contois — at or around Mission Siloam. , the same shelter where he met his wife. (He said he killed his first victim, a Buffalo woman, shortly after meeting her outside the city's Salvation Army shelter.)

On Thursday, Mr. Skibicki's ex-wife said that during their relationship, he regularly had sex with her while she slept after taking medication for post-traumatic stress disorder.

She said she would wake up in the morning with bleeding and pain all over her body. “He had a fetish for sleeping beauty syndrome, that's what it was called,” she told the court, wearing glasses with pink lenses, which she said were caused by Mr. Skibicki's concussion.

Another fetish was treating her like a rag doll, she said. When Justice Joyal was asked to explain, he said it meant he had sex with “lame and lifeless” women.

At various times, Mr. Skibicki attacked his ex-wife with a knife or tried to suffocate her with a pillow, he said.

In court, Mr. Skibicki also showed pornography showing men having sex with dead bodies.

He was involved in her life wherever he went, she said. After an order of protection was taken out against him, he recovered from his drug addiction, but it interfered with his treatment, she said.

His mother helped him get out of the relationship in March 2021. But in the spring of the following year, he contacted her on Facebook using various aliases, she said.

On May 9, 2022, after he killed three of his victims, Mr. Skibicki told his ex-wife that he “may not be caught.” He told her he could face “three life sentences”, the court heard on Thursday.

She called him out on the social media app because she felt “something was terribly wrong.” But he was less revealing, saying that if he confessed to his crime, he would have to go on the run.

His last message to her was sent at 11:45 a.m. on May 17, hours before Ms. Contois was arrested after her remains were found the previous day. “There's a lot to do today,” the message said. “Bye baby.”

When cross-examined by the defense, the woman said she believed Mr. Skibicki was schizophrenic and had multiple personalities.

Defense attorney Leonard Tyler noted in his motion for the defense that he called her “crazy.” He also cited messages between the two to express his belief that a higher power was manipulating Mr. Skibicki for his actions.

Mr. Skibicki's trial was adjourned until Friday. It is expected to continue until June 6.