Judgment in unusual trial of admitted Winnipeg serial killer coming Thursday

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

The fate of a Winnipeg man who has confessed to killing four women but denies criminal responsibility will be decided Thursday after an unusual trial for the admitted serial killer. 

Jeremy Skibicki's lawyers argued he was driven by delusions linked to schizophrenia and hearing voices that made him believe he was on a mission from God, which prevented him from realizing his actions were morally wrong when he killed the women over a two-month period in 2022.

However, prosecutors said Skibicki knew what he was doing, arguing he preyed on vulnerable Indigenous women at Winnipeg homeless shelters before committing four deliberate and racially motivated murders.

Brandon Trask, an assistant professor who teaches mental health and criminal law at the University of Manitoba, said the case will likely "help essentially situate where the line is" for when mental health concerns constitute "such an extreme" that a person doesn't know what they were doing or that it was wrong.

Skibicki has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Rebecca Contois, 24, Morgan Harris, 39, Marcedes Myran, 26, and an unidentified woman community leaders have given the name Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman. Police have said they believe she was Indigenous and in her 20s. 

Contois was a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation, also known as Crane River. Harris and Myran were both members of Long Plain First Nation. All four women were killed in Winnipeg between mid-March and mid-May of 2022.

WATCH | Winnipeg serial killer seen with victim at shelter before she died:

Manitoba Court of King's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal is scheduled to deliver his ruling at 10 a.m. after hearing weeks of evidence in the high-profile trial, which took place in May and early June.

That included surveillance footage, DNA evidence, computer history, testimony from Skibicki's ex-wife, and messages and letters he sent after the killings.

It also included a videotaped police confession from 2022, where Skibicki surprised police officers when he suddenly admitted to killing all four women, performing sex acts on their bodies and disposing of their remains in garbage bins near his North Kildonan apartment.

Both Crown and defence lawyers enlisted psychiatric experts to assess Skibicki. An expert for the prosecution testified he believed the accused made up his delusions, and that Skibicki was actually motivated by racism and a homicidal necrophilia, or an arousal to having sex with people he's killed.

Under Canada's Criminal Code, the rare verdict of not criminally responsible requires two criteria: that a person had a mental disorder at the time of an offence, and that it made them unable to appreciate what they were doing or that it was wrong.

If the judge finds that was proven in this case, Skibicki would then be diverted to the Criminal Code Review Board.