Manitoba man admits to killing four First Nations women, will face judge-only trial

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A man accused of killing four First Nations women admitted to the crimes in a Winnipeg superior court on Monday, but his defence lawyers intend to argue he was not criminally responsible because of mental illness.

The last-minute confession by Jeremy Skibicki prompted the Crown to agree to a judge-alone trial, where the question of his intent and mental capacity in the killings will now be the focus.

The 12-member jury selected for the trial late last month is being dismissed. Opening statements are expected on Wednesday.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Glenn Joyal questioned defence attorney Leonard Tailleur on the unexpected development.

“Am I correct in assuming that, for the record, that you – on behalf of Mr. Skibicki – Mr. Tailleur, are admitting that Mr. Skibicki caused the deaths of all four victims?” Justice Joyal asked Monday. “And that he caused them unlawfully?”

“Yes,” Mr. Tailleur responded.

Mr. Skibicki has been charged with the first-degree murders of 24-year-old Rebecca Contois, 26-year-old Marcedes Myran, 39-year-old Morgan Harris and an unidentified woman whom Indigenous elders have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, meaning Buffalo Woman.

Police have alleged he dumped the women’s bodies in two Winnipeg-area landfills in 2022.

Over the past year, revelations about the killings ignited a national outcry. Rallies and protests were held across Canada to support a search of the landfills. The issue also became a central part of the 2023 Manitoba election, with former premier Heather Stefanson running billboards ads against the search and Premier Wab Kinew promising to fund it.

This past Friday, after three days of arguments from the defence about there being too much pretrial publicity for Mr. Skibicki’s case to be heard by an impartial jury, Justice Joyal rejected the plea for a judge-alone trial because he believed jurors had the capacity to rise above any potential bias.

At the time, the Crown had not provided its required consent for a judge-alone trial and vehemently opposed a change.

But on Monday, Crown attorney Christian Vanderhooft said his team’s legal strategy has shifted, given that there is no longer a need to prove that Mr. Skibicki caused the women’s deaths.

Now, the prosecution’s plan is to prove that Mr. Skibicki is criminally responsible for the killings, Mr. Vanderhooft added.

“Our decision today to proceed by judge alone is not a reflection of our faith in the jury system or a comment on the propriety of judicial independence,” Mr. Vanderhooft told the court. “Rather, it is a consequence of the Crown’s role at all times to continually assess our case and make sure a trial can proceed and conclude in a timely way.”

The defence of being not criminally responsible, referred to as NCR, is a fundamental principle of the Canadian justice system. Before an NCR verdict is established by a court, an accused person must prove to be suffering from a mental disorder or some other incapacitation during the time of the offence, preventing their ability to form the intent required to commit a crime.

An NCR verdict does not constitute an acquittal and often leads to court-ordered treatment in a mental-health facility as part of the sentencing. A review board usually determines how long an accused person should remain detained until they are no longer a threat to the public.

Mr. Skibicki, with his ankles shackled, wearing a grey T-shift and jail-issue sweatpants, shook Mr. Tailleur’s hands after the brief hearing in downtown Winnipeg on Monday. Last week was the second time Mr. Tailleur had raised a formal motion on his client’s behalf to receive a judge-alone trial. The first attempt was dismissed in January after pretrial deliberations.

Outside the court, families of the victims hugged each other. “This is exactly what we wanted. It is all about justice,” said Melissa Robinson, Ms. Harris’s cousin.

“This man has killed four of our women and he will be held responsible,” she added, as Ms. Harris’s daughter Cambria watched with tears in her eyes.

The relatives planned to visit Camp Morgan, one of the two encampments in the city with red-dress emblems erected near the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in the victims’ honour, before returning to court on Wednesday morning.

“We’re not worried about the NCR defence,” Ms. Robinson said. “The good will always prevail.”

Winnipeg police have said Ms. Harris and Ms. Myran, both from Long Plain First Nation, were killed in the spring of 2022 before their bodies were dumped at Prairie Green landfill, north of the city.

Mr. Skibicki, 35 at the time, was arrested in May, 2022, after Ms. Contois’s partial remains were found in a garbage bin outside an apartment building. More remains were later discovered at the separate Brady Road landfill in the southern outskirts of the city. She was a band member of Crane River First Nation.

Police have not shared information about the whereabouts of Buffalo Woman’s remains, but have said she was Indigenous and in her mid-20s.

The Manitoba and federal governments each committed $20-million to an effort to search Prairie Green landfill in late March, but have not indicated a timeline. The province has also provided $500,000 to support the victims’ families during the trial, while Ottawa has granted $200,000 toward culturally sensitive mental-health support.