WINNIPEG – Ashlee Christine Shingoose had her name and identity restored Wednesday, three years after she disappeared and died anonymously at the hands of a serial killer.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew also promised her family there would be a search of a Winnipeg landfill for her remains.
“I cannot promise you that we will bring her home, but I can promise you that we are going to try,” Kinew told a news conference.
Police confirmed the 30-year-old Shingoose from St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation was the fourth victim of Jeremy Skibicki in 2022 and that her remains are believed to be at the Brady landfill.
It’s the same landfill where the partial remains of another Skibicki victim were found. The remains of the two other women were recently discovered at the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg.
“Please start the search as soon as possible,” Shingoose’s mother, Theresa Shingoose, said in a statement read by St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation Chief Raymond Flett. “I need to bring her home.”
During Skibicki’s trial last summer, Ashlee Shingoose had not been identified and was referred to as Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, a name given to her by an Indigenous grassroots group.
Court heard Skibicki targeted his victims — all Indigenous women — at homeless shelters in Winnipeg and disposed of their bodies in garbage bins in his neighbourhood.
He admitted to the four slayings but argued he was not criminally responsible due to a mental illness. A judge convicted him of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison.
Police were close to identifying Shingoose at the time, but a conclusive match remained out of reach.
Deputy Police Chief Cam Mackid said investigators received new information in December during a prison interview with Skibicki. The details established that Shingoose’s remains were taken to the Brady landfill, he said.
They also revealed other information that led investigators to seek further forensic testing.
Police had found the remains of Rebecca Contois in a garbage bin and at the Brady landfill in May 2022. The remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran were recovered from the Prairie Green site earlier this year.
“My heart goes out to all the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls,” said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak.
She said Shingoose left her home on the reserve in northeastern Manitoba because of overcrowding.
The chief called for an inquiry into the investigation of the women’s deaths.
“Why didn’t the police service help these families right off the bat, and why didn’t the previous provincial government want to help these families right off the bat?”
Police initially refused to search the Prairie Green landfill for Harris and Myran over safety concerns. The former Progressive Conservative government also said it wouldn’t support the search and touted its decision during the 2023 provincial election campaign.
Kinew, however, promised a search. After his NDP won the election, the province and the federal government put up $20 million each to fund it.
Wayne Ewasko, interim leader of the Progressive Conservatives, apologized in the legislature earlier this month, saying the party had lost its way.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 26, 2025.
Note to readers:This is a corrected story. A previous version said Shingoose was 31.
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