Serial killer victim Ashlee Shingoose's parents remember their daughter as a loving person

The parents of a woman recently identified as the previously unknown victim of a Winnipeg serial killer remembered their daughter Thursday as a loving person whose kids meant the world to her — and whose remains they now hope to recover from a Winnipeg landfill as soon as possible.

"[The most] loving, kindest person that you ever would meet — I'll put it that way," Albert Shingoose said of his daughter, Ashlee Shingoose, at a news conference a day after she was publicly confirmed to be the woman previously known as Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman — a name given to her by Indigenous community members before she was identified.

"She'd do anything to keep her kids. She wanted her own place, and to look after her own kids. That's what kind of a person she was."

Ashlee Shingoose was confirmed this week to be among the four First Nations women killed by Jeremy Skibicki between March and May 2022, along with Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26 — both originally from Long Plain First Nation — as well as Rebecca Contois, 24, a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation.

While the first of Skibicki's victims was unidentified for years, DNA results identified Shingoose, 30, as that woman this month, after Skibicki gave investigators new information in a December interview, police said Wednesday.

Skibicki was convicted last July of four counts of first-degree murder in the women's deaths after a weeks-long trial that heard he targeted vulnerable First Nations women at Winnipeg homeless shelters before killing them and disposing of their remains.

Investigators believe Shingoose's body was placed in a garbage bin behind a business on Henderson Highway in the North Kildonan area and taken to Winnipeg's Brady Road landfill.

Shingoose's mother on Thursday described how difficult it was not knowing where her daughter was until now.

"But I prayed all the time. I talked to the Creator. I said, 'if it is your will, then it will be,'" Theresa Shingoose said, her oldest daughter and two granddaughters standing behind her as she spoke.

"And I've been thinking about these other people that are lost. I pray for them too … because it's so hard to lose your daughter, not knowing where she is.

"I thought I wouldn't be able to say anything because the pain is so strong, but I want to thank everybody."

Ashlee Shingoose's father had long held suspicions that his missing daughter may have been the unidentified victim in the case — and said when police came to their home this week to tell them the news, he and his wife looked at each other and cried "a happy, happy cry."

Raymond Flett, chief of their home community of St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation, said Thursday he remembered the young woman from his time as a high school principal in their community.

WATCH | Ashlee Shingoose's dad speaks about struggle to bring her home: