WINNIPEG — A man who admitted to killing four women in Winnipeg but claimed he was too mentally ill to be held responsible has been found guilty of first-degree murder. Defence lawyers had argued Jeremy Skibicki was suffering from schizophrenia at the time of the slayings in 2022 and should be found not criminally responsible and detained in a hospital. But Crown prosecutors said he had the mental capacity and awareness to commit and cover up the killings.
People in a packed courtroom cheered and clapped when the verdict came down Thursday. Skibicki showed little emotion. A first-degree murder verdict carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Court of King's Bench Justice Glenn Joyal said he completely agreed with the psychiatrist who testified for the Crown in the trial. The judge said he found Skibicki didn't have a mental disorder that impacted his ability to know that the killings were morally wrong. He said the "shocking and unsettling" case is emblematic of the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada.
The weeks-long trial heard Skibicki targeted the Indigenous women at homeless shelters, strangled or drowned them and disposed of their remains in garbage bins. Court heard disturbing details about the killings of the women: Morgan Harris, 39; Marcedes Myran, 26; Rebecca Contois, 24; and an unidentified woman an Indigenous grassroots community has named Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman. Contois was from O-.
