Possible human remains found in search of Winnipeg’s Prairie Green landfill
Posted February 26, 2025 4:34 pm.
Last Updated February 27, 2025 10:25 am.
Potential human remains have been discovered in search material at the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg, the Manitoba government says.
Search teams have been working to find Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, two slain Indigenous women whose bodies were long believed to be at the landfill.
The province says the Manitoba RCMP has initiated a found human remains investigation at the site, and steps for identification are underway. The Chief Medical Examiner has also been notified.
“The families of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran have been notified of this development and attended the site,” the Manitoba government wrote in a brief news release.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said he spent time with the families of Harris and Myran at the landfill when the discovery was made.
“I don’t think any of us are ever going to forget today,” Kinew told reporters.
“I think all of us who were there — family, searchers, people from government such as myself — are still in the state of ‘is this really happening.'”
Kinew said when the suspected remains were found, the search was paused. Two search teams and two forensic anthropologists were brought in to try to make an identification. The premier said the identification process could take weeks, and the search would continue Thursday.
“The search technicians are really motivated to get back in there … they want to help these families move ahead with healing,” said the premier.
“This thing that has been so public and so long in the making — now we’re at a stage where maybe we’re going to be able to move forward with healing and closure. And I hope this is ultimately a healing process, first for these two families, but I hope this is healing for Manitoba and healing for Canada.”
Jeremy Skibicki is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder in the killings of Harris, Myran and two other Indigenous women. At his murder trial, court heard he disposed of their bodies in garbage bins.
The remains of Rebecca Contois were found in a different landfill — the Brady landfill — and an unidentified woman, who an Indigenous grassroots community named Buffalo Woman, has not been located.
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs called the discovery of potential human remains “a painful but significant moment in our collective fight for justice.”
“While this discovery brings grief, it also reinforces our commitment to ensuring that no family is left without answers, and that justice is served for our stolen sisters,” newly elected AMC Grand Chief Kyra Wilson said in a statement. “We will continue to stand with the families and support them in their path toward healing and justice.
“The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has been clear from the beginning—this search is about human dignity. It is about affirming that Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people matter. That when they go missing, we look for them. That we do not let their final resting place be a landfill.
“We know this discovery will bring renewed pain, but it also reaffirms why we have fought so hard to ensure this search took place. The families deserve answers. They deserve to lay their loved ones to rest with the dignity and respect that has so often been denied to Indigenous women.”
The process of searching the landfill was many months in the making, with the previous Manitoba Progressive Conservative government and police asserting it was a project too dangerous and too expensive with no guaranteed results.
The search was spearheaded by the new government of Wab Kinew.
“The road to this moment has been long and filled with obstacles that should never have been placed in our way,” Wilson said. “For months, we were told this search could not happen. We were told it was too difficult, too dangerous, too costly. But today’s discovery proves what we have known all along: that when there is political will, when there is commitment, and when there is action—justice is possible.
“Let us be clear: It should never have taken this long. No family should have had to fight this hard to find their loved ones. And we will not stop demanding that governments do better.”
Winnipeg Police Service interim Chief Arthur Stannard said the force was aware potential remains were found.
“Our thoughts go out to the MMIWG2S+ community and all families who are awaiting word on their missing loved ones,” Stannard said.
The Prairie Green search entered its fourth phase in December 2024 when the first trucks carrying material from the search zone made their way to the on-site search facility, where searchers manually sifted through the refuse.
Two months earlier, in October, excavators began moving material above the targeted search zone at the landfill. During that stage, 18,900 tonnes of material — some of it with asbestos — were moved from layers above the zone of interest.
–With files from The Canadian Press
