Family gathers to remember Morgan Harris on anniversary of charges against alleged serial killer

A year after Winnipeg police announced first-degree murder charges in the deaths of three First Nations women, the family of one of those women will gather outside the former home of her alleged killer to remember their loved one.

Melissa Robinson, whose cousin Morgan Harris is among four women police believe were killed by the same man, said her family will honour Harris's life Friday evening outside the North Kildonan-area home where he lived.

"It's important to gather, to remember. Morgan is loved," Robinson said.

"We don't want her to be remembered as the victim to a serial killer. We want her life to be remembered in a good way. By us coming together and remembering her … I think it'll help give us strength to continue on."

At a news conference on Dec. 1, 2022, police announced that Jeremy Skibicki had been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Harris,  39, Marcedes Myran, 26, and a still-unidentified woman who was later given the name Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman. 

Skibicki had been charged earlier that year with first-degree murder in the death of Rebecca Contois, 24.

Robinson remembers the day clearly.

The family had already gotten a call from homicide detectives, who wanted to talk with them, Robinson recalled on Thursday, when she was at Camp Morgan — an encampment named in Harris's honour and set up near Winnipeg's Brady Road landfill to push for a search for her remains, and those of Myran.

"What still sticks with me … is them letting us know that she was the victim of a murder," she said.

"I remember Cambria [Harris's daughter] asking, 'Well, where is she?'"

Five days later, police said they believed the remains of Harris and Myran, who were killed in May, had been taken to the Prairie Green landfill, just north of Winnipeg. 

Their families have been fighting to have it searched since.

A federally funded feasibility study done last spring found a search could cost up to $184 million and take up to three years.

There have still been no firm funding commitments from any level of government for a search, nor has a start date been set.