“Relief” over the conviction of Canadian serial killer Jeremy Skibicki

Tearful cheers broke out in a packed Canadian courtroom on Thursday when a judge found a serial killer guilty of the premeditated murder of four indigenous women.

But in the stands, Jeremy Contois’ reaction was reserved.

His younger sister Rebecca was one of the women killed in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba two years ago.

“I feel a little relieved,” said Mr Contois, but he will not be able to put the matter behind him until the murderer, Jeremy Skibicki, is officially convicted.

In his oral reasoning, Chief Justice of the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Glenn Joyal rejected the defence’s argument that the accused was not criminally responsible for the murders.

Lawyers for 37-year-old Skibicki said he was suffering from schizophrenia at the time of the murders.

Prosecutors argued that Skibicki intentionally killed Ms. Contois and three other women in 2022. The act was calculated and racially motivated.

Warning: This story contains details that readers may find disturbing.

The murders and the trial that followed, which lasted several weeks, sent shockwaves through Canada’s indigenous community, which has long struggled with cases of violence against its women.

Skibicki, wearing a gray T-shirt and pants, did not react as Judge Joyal read the summary of his ruling.

A family member of Ms. Contois held a large photograph of Rebecca in his direction as he left the courtroom.

“Why did I lift up her photo? Because as First Nations people, we are not statistics,” Krista Fox said afterwards.

“Each and every one of us has a name and a family that misses us dearly.”

Skibicki’s victims are Morgan Harris, 39, Marcedes Myran, 26, and Ms. Contois, 24. The fourth woman has yet to be identified; indigenous elders gave her the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, which means buffalo woman.

Throughout the trial, a buffalo head on a red cloth lay on a table near the prosecutors in memory of the still unidentified victim.

In his verdict, Judge Joyal said the accused had failed to prove that he was not criminally responsible for the murders. He rejected the testimony of British psychiatrist Dr Sohom Das, who had said that Skibicki was motivated by delusions when he committed the murders.

The judge added that the “ruthlessly graphic” facts of the case were “largely undisputed” because the defendants had admitted the murders in police interrogations and in court before the trial.

Skibicki had pleaded not guilty due to a mental disorder.

The 100-seat courtroom was filled to capacity with families and friends of the four women when the verdict was announced.

Judge Joyal said the case has “undeniable and profound implications for the entire Manitoba community, Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.”

With Skibicki facing a life sentence, the focus now turns to the search for the remains of two of his victims, Ms. Myran and Ms. Harris, which are believed to be in a Winnipeg landfill.

After months of pressure from the families, an official search operation was scheduled for this fall.

According to court documents, Skibicki killed the women between March and May 2022; the last victim is believed to have been Ms. Contois.

He met at least two of them in homeless shelters in Winnipeg, a city of 820,000 in the prairie province.

Judge Joyal agreed with the prosecution’s view that he had deliberately targeted and exploited “vulnerable” women.

During the trial, the court learned that Skibicki had attacked, strangled or drowned the women and then performed sexual acts on them before dismembering their bodies and disposing of them in garbage cans.

The murders remained undiscovered for months until May 2022, when a man searching for scrap metal in a bin outside Skibicki’s apartment found partial human remains and called the police.

“She was obviously murdered,” the man said in the 911 call played in court.

Police were able to identify the remains as those of Ms Contois.

The following month, more of her remains were discovered in a municipal landfill.

During police interrogations shortly after his arrest, Skibicki surprised officers by confessing to killing Ms Contois and three other people.

At this point, the police had no knowledge of the other deaths.

Outside court, Ms Fox said she believed justice had been served for the other families because Ms Contois’ remains had been found.

Skibicki’s lawyers argued that he was unaware of the seriousness of his crimes due to delusions caused by schizophrenia. They argued that he heard voices telling him the crimes were part of a mission from God.

The prosecution argued that Skibicki was fully aware of his actions because they were “intentional, targeted and racially motivated.”

They proved this using a combination of forensic DNA evidence, surveillance footage showing Skibicki with the women in his final days, and testimony from his ex-wife, who described a history of physical abuse.

If Skibicki had been acquitted of criminal responsibility for the four murders, this would be a relative rarity in Canadian law.

According to Statistics Canada data published in the Globe and Mail newspaper, between 2000 and 2022, only one such verdict was reached in 8,883,749 criminal proceedings nationwide – that is, in 5,178 cases, or 0.06 percent.

The case has opened deep wounds in Canada’s indigenous community, which has long struggled with high numbers of missing or murdered women.

According to an investigation by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Winnipeg – a city close to numerous Indigenous communities – had the highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada between 2018 and 2022.

According to a 2019 study, Indigenous women across Canada are twelve times more likely to be murdered or disappear than other women.

Some indigenous women in the town remain missing, raising fears among family members that there were more victims in Skibicki.

However, prosecutors said they did not believe he had murdered any other women.

Although he is relieved by the guilty verdict, Rebecca’s brother Contois still wonders why his sister – who is also the mother of a young daughter – was murdered so brutally.

“Why did he have to do that?” he said. “I wish I knew.”