The police in Canada have said they don't have the resources to search a landfill to recover the bodies of two Indigenous women murdered by an alleged serial killer, a decision that has left the daughters of one victim heartbroken and angry.
Last week, Winnipeg police announced that four Indigenous women Marcedes Myran, Morgan Harris, Rebecca Contois and a fourth woman who they had not identified were believed to have been killed by an alleged serial killer. Winnipeg police charged Jeremy Skibicki in their deaths.
The prospect that the remains of the victims won't be recovered has sparked disbelief and frustration from families.
They say they can't search because it's unfeasible. Cambria Harris spoke at a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday. Her family was devastated to learn that despite believing that her mother Morgan's remains were located at a nearby landfill, police would not conduct a search.
Our indigenous women and brothers and sisters have to come here again and we have to shout and we have to raise our voices begging for change and begging for justice for our people, and that is wrong. Harris said the victims needed a final resting place that wasn't a landfill.
Kera Harris, who joined sister Cambria in the nation's capital to meet with lawmakers and officials, called the situation unfair. These are people you are leaving in the landfill These are human beings. These women are deserving of a proper resting place and not to be left alone in a landfill in the dead of winter, she said. On Tuesday, chief Danny Smyth told reporters that investigators believe that the remains of Marcedes Myran and Morgan Beatrice Harris are in Prairie Green Landfill, close to seven miles north of Winnipeg not the Brady Landfill, where the remains of Rebecca Contois were found earlier in the year.
Smyth said that the city's forensic unit concluded in June that without a clear starting point to search, there was no hope of recovering the remains of the women. The size of landfill and the safety hazards played a role in police making the difficult decision not to search.
When investigators realized that the remains of Contois could be found at the Brady Landfill over the summer, they quickly shut the facility down, but not before 100 truckloads of garbage had been dropped off.
34 days had passed in the time between the victims bodies being dumped and police learning the other victims could be at Prairie Green.
During that time, 10,000 truckloads were dumped in the same area, said inspector Cam MacKid, who was in charge of the forensics division.
The garbage at Brady Landfill where the remains of Contois were found was not compacted or buried, said MacKid. The refuse is compacted by 9,000 tons of construction clay at Prairie Green. The police say they don't have a definitive location for the remains of the fourth victim, to whom the local indigenous community has given the name Buffalo Woman Mashkode Bizhiki ikwe This tragedy is ongoing. After meeting with Harris'family, Crown Indigenous relations minister Marc Miller said that public outcry over the spate of disappearances might be much greater if the victims weren't Indigenous.
It is an absolute shame that someone like me has to stand here and cannot guarantee that this will not happen again.