No garbage dumped since June in area where Manitoba women's remains may be, AMC says

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

The group overseeing efforts to determine whether it's possible to recover the remains of two women from a landfill just north of Winnipeg says it's been told no garbage has been dumped in the targeted section of the facility since June.

Members of the landfill search feasibility study committee were told by the owner of the Prairie Green landfill in a meeting earlier this month that waste hasn't been dumped in the area of interest to Winnipeg police since June, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and the committee said in a news release on Tuesday.

The landfill search committee, which includes the AMC, came together last year after Winnipeg police said they would not search the Prairie Green landfillfor the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran because ofthe passage of time and the large volume of material that had been deposited at the site.

The news was surprising to Cambria Harris, Morgan Harris's daughter, who is frustrated such important information was withheld.

"We all thought that they were still dumping on top of the remains because when the police did their PowerPoint presentation [in December], they never said that they shut it down for that specific cell," she said in an interview on Tuesday.

Police have said homicide investigators learnedon June 20 that Harris's and Myran's remains had likely arrived at the Prairie Green landfill34 days earlier, but they didn't make that information publicuntil December.

Around 10,000 loads of debris and 1,500 tonnes of animal remains were deposited at the site during those 34 days, police said.

News that landfill operators stopped working in that area in Junemeans there is less wasteto remove for a proper search if it is determined to be feasible, the AMC newsrelease said.

Cambria says she desperately wants the search to be done as soon as possible.

"I want to bring my mom home. I want to give her a proper burial.I don't care if people say that she's smashed into smithereens at this point. I don't care if she's ashes. Give her to me so that I can give her a proper ceremony," she said.

The landfill search committee has submitted a proposal to the federal government to fund a study to search the landfill and anticipates completing the study by the end of March, the release said.

6 month since garbage last dumped in area where Manitoba women's remains may be

2 years ago

Duration 2:26

Waste hasn't been dumped in the area of interest to Winnipeg police since June, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and the committee said in a news release on Tuesday.

Police have charged Jeremy Skibicki with first-degree murder in the deaths of Harris, Myran, Rebecca Contois and an unidentified woman whom Indigenous leaders have named Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman.

Contois's partial remains were found in June at a different landfill on Brady Road in Winnipeg.

The committee is pursuing requests to search both landfills, but is currently focusing on Prairie Green.

Support is available for anyone affected by details of these cases. If you require support, you can contact Ka Ni Kanichihk's Medicine Bear Counselling, Support and Elder Services at 204-594-6500, ext. 102 or 104,(within Winnipeg)or 1-888-953-5264 (outside Winnipeg).

Support is also available via Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Liaison unit at1-800-442-0488or204-677-1648.