‘I think it was God who called me’ – Winnipeg Free Press

An admitted serial killer used shelters as hunting grounds in a methodical plot targeting Indigenous women to sexually rape and kill them, a judge was told Wednesday.

“This case is about one man’s cruel and hateful acts perpetrated against four vulnerable Indigenous women,” prosecutor Renee Lagimodiere told Chief Justice Glenn Joyal in an opening statement outlining her case against Jeremy Skibicki.

“The Crown’s theory is that the defendant devised a calculated plan in which he thought carefully about what he would do to them and then did those things,” Lagimodiere said.

Skibicki, 37, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder for the May 2022 slayings of three Indigenous women — Morgan Harris, Rebecca Contois and Marcedes Myran — as well as an unidentified fourth woman who was murdered. in March 2022. has been named Buffalo Woman (Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe) by indigenous leaders.

Skibicki “preyed on these women in the shelters and invited them back to his home, where he assaulted them, often sexually, and killed them,” Lagimodiere said. He “performed vile sexual acts with their bodies and then disposed of their remains as if they were trash.”

Skibicki has admitted that he “committed an unlawful act” by killing the women, but claims he should not be found criminally responsible on the grounds of mental disorder.

Skibicki was arrested on May 17, 2022, a day after a man searching for scrap metal around 5:30 a.m. found Rebecca Contois’ head in a plastic bag in a dumpster on Edison Avenue, a short distance away. from Skibicki’s suite on McKay Avenue in North Kildonan.

“She’s a human…a human woman,” the man said in a 911 recording played in court.

Winnipeg Police Service Detective. Sergeant. Greg Allan, one of two officers who questioned Skibicki for nearly 24 hours, said Skibicki showed no signs of mental distress nor did he suffer hallucinations while he was in custody.

“We had no concerns about his mental health,” Allan said.

Skibicki was sitting in the prisoner’s box flanked by two sheriff’s deputies, drinking a glass of water as he watched his police interrogation on a large video screen mounted on the wall.

Investigators had confronted Skibicki with surveillance video evidence and shoe print evidence placing him at the location where Contois’ remains had been found when, four hours into a more than 20-hour interview, he asked to see a Orthodox priest “to confess my sins” and admitted. him to kill Contois and three other women.

“At this point, I want to express that you have done a very good job, you are obviously not stupid,” Skibicki told investigators. “I really just want to see how far I can take things, because the criminal justice system is a joke… I killed four people.”

Skibicki, who earlier in cross-examination spoke to a legal aid attorney, declined a second offer to speak to an attorney and said, “I’m going to plead guilty to all of this.

In the video, Skibicki sat cross-legged with his hands resting in his lap as he casually told investigators how he killed and disposed of the women, identifying two of them, Contois and Harris, by name.

Skibicki said he met the victim identified in court as Buffalo Woman outside the Salvation Army. Skibicki said he took her to her house and attacked her as she prepared to leave, believing she had stolen some of her property.

“I started to strangle her. “I thought she was dead, but she wasn’t,” she said. “When he was undressing her she became aware. The last thing she said was screw you.”

Skibicki said he sexually violated the woman’s corpse before disposing of her body in a nearby open-air dumpster.

Skibicki said that about a month later he met Harris, whom he had met previously, outside Siloam Mission. She said that she had excluded him from the mission and invited him to her house. Skibicki said she filled the bathtub with water while Harris went outside to smoke.

“I wasn’t going to let her smoke that, but I was thinking… this would be her last cigarette, so I let her enjoy it,” Skibicki said.

Skibicki said he tried to push Harris into the bathtub and when she resisted, he put her in a headlock.

“She collapsed, with her head in the bathtub,” he said. Harris fought back and Skibicki choked her.

He said he had sex with Harris’ corpse several times before disposing of her body in a dumpster behind a nearby Midas Muffler store.

Skibicki said he dismembered Contois and the victim, now known as Myran, with a combat knife. When investigators asked him if he had any experience in butchery or hunting and what knowledge he had about cutting up bodies, Skibicki laughed and said, “Instinct.”

“I started to strangle her. I thought she was dead, but she wasn’t… When he was undressing her she became conscious. The last thing she said was screw you.”–Jeremy Skibicki

He said he met Myran on a back road between the Salvation Army and the Siloam Mission and invited her to his home.

Skibicki said he told the woman he was interested in a relationship, but that she was “just using me as a place to stay.”

He said they were having sex and that she “didn’t let me finish” when he “started getting a little rough with her.”

When Myran tried to leave, he strangled her. She admitted to having sexually raped her corpse several times.

Skibicki said he realized he couldn’t pick up Myran’s body and throw it in a dumpster.

“That was the first time I cut up a body,” he said.

For 12 hours, Skibicki dismembered Myran in a bathtub filled with water and Pine-Sol.

“It took us a long time to cut the body into pieces,” he said, later adding that he did not remember where he disposed of his remains.

Skibicki said he first met Contois on a bus a couple of months before her death and that she began staying at his house. She left for a while and when she came back she said she loved Skibicki, she said.

“I was pretty sure I could get away with it, but I got careless.”–Jeremy Skibicki

“I knew she was just tricking me to get what she wanted. That’s probably one of the reasons I did what I did, because I saw through it,” she said.

Skibicki said he and Contois were having sex when she wanted him to stop and they began fighting.

“I strangled her… I strangled her to death.”

Again, Skibicki sexually raped Contois after killing her, and then put her body in a bathtub and dismembered her.

Skibicki described the killings as “mercy killings” and said they were “directed by God,” telling investigators that he was driven by a white supremacist ideology and that he did not believe “that races should be forced to live together.”

“I think now was (the victims’) time,” he said. “I believe… that it is necessary to take extreme and desperate measures for the survival of my people.”

“I think it was God who called me,” he said. “It was something I decided to do because I thought he was right.”

Skibicki said he probably would have killed more women if he hadn’t been caught. Police arrested him on May 18, 2022 for Contois’ death. He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Harris, Myran and Buffalo Woman on December 1, 2022.

“I was pretty sure I could get away with it, but I got careless,” Skibicki said.

“I wanted to (stop), but I don’t think I could have.”

Skibicki said he came up with the idea to put the victims’ remains in the trash after reading about the Shawn Lamb case and scheduled the disposal to coincide with scheduled trash pickups.

Lamb was sentenced in 2013 to 20 years in prison for the murders of Carolyn Sinclair, 25, and Lorna Blacksmith, 18.

Skibicki described other measures he took to avoid detection, including making sure no one knew the victims had been with him and attacking women without a social media presence.

Skibicki told police he aborted his plans to kill at least one woman because of her social media presence.

The trial resumes Thursday with testimony from police officers who are expected to tell the court about evidence seized at Skibicki’s home and elsewhere.

[email protected]

Agreed Statement of Facts

Dean Pritchard
court reporter

Someone once said that a journalist is just a well-dressed reporter. Dean Pritchard doesn’t have a good suit. But he knows a good fight.

Read full biography