WARNING | This story contains details of violence against Indigenous women.
Experts say there doesn’t seem to have been anything explicitly preventing Winnipeg police from reinterviewing a serial killer sooner in their mission to identify his unknown victim — but there’s a range of possible reasons that could help explain why it took so long to do it.
At a news conference last month announcing police had determined the woman previously only known as Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe was 30-year-old Ashlee Christine Shingoose, Deputy Chief Cam Mackid told reporters police drew that conclusion in part because of information gleaned from a second interview they did in December with the serial killer convicted in her murder — more than 2½ years after he first spoke to police.
“Unfortunately the way our legal system works, once we interview someone once, we don’t get to ask them any further questions until they go to court, unless there’s new charges,” Mackid said March 26, adding there were “legal concerns” and police didn’t want to “do anything that might jeopardize” his convictions.
Jeremy Skibicki confessed in May 2022 to killing the woman now known to be Shingoose, who was from St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation, and three other First Nations women: Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26 — both originally from Long Plain First Nation — and Rebecca Contois, 24, a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation. He was convicted last summer of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
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Police said they believe Shingoose’s remains were taken to Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill in March 2022, and put in the same area where Contois’s partial remains were found shortly after she was killed. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has promised to search that landfill for Shingoose’s remains.
Harris’s and Myran’s remains were recently found during a search of another landfill.
During Skibicki’s initial police interview, he only knew the names of some of the women he killed — and initially misidentified the woman now known to be Shingoose as someone who was still alive — leaving detectives struggling to solve the mystery of who she really was.
When police did reinterview Skibicki in December, it led them to test DNA from a pair of pants seized during the investigation, and he identified Shingoose as the victim from a series of photographs, allowing investigators to finally confirm her identity last month.
Police declined this month to provide more details about what Mackid meant by his comments on why Skibicki wasn’t reinterviewed earlier, saying in an email any decisions about that interview “were made through direct and extensive consultations with Manitoba Justice.”
Legal expert David Milward said while he found the police explanation for why it took them so long to talk to Skibicki again “baffling,” it’s easy to second-guess decisions made in something as complicated as a homicide investigation.
“The police do have to be given some leeway and some understanding on something like this,” said Milward, a law professor at the University of Victoria.
“But at the same time, I’m not sure if, you know, ‘Oh, we didn’t want to jeopardize, there was some sort of legal constraint, we could have jeopardized [the case]’ — I’m not convinced that that was necessary as a justification.”
He and other legal and policing experts say they’re not aware of any rules or law that would have stopped police from interviewing Skibicki again sooner in their mission to identify his unknown victim. In fact, detectives often interview suspects more than once.
However, they also say it’s not uncommon for officers to avoid reinterviewing if it’s not needed to prosecute, because of the risk it poses.
“The prosecutor would be, I think, concerned … if the investigation was still going on behind the scenes, without them being looped in, while they’re trying to prosecute a case,” said Michael Arntfield, a criminologist and professor at Western University who worked for 16 years as a detective with the London Police Service in Ontario.
“If they say they can’t interview him, that to me sounds like they’ve taken direction either from the Crown or from superior officers to not potentially interfere with the prosecution.”
Skibicki unexpectedly confessed to killing the four women when he was brought in for questioning after Contois’s partial remains were found.
He ended up giving detectives details about how and when he killed each woman, and what he did with their remains. Police later corroborated some of that information, with evidence including surveillance footage, DNA and computer history.
Experts say in cases where police already have the evidence they need to get a conviction, a second interview doesn’t stand to do much to help the prosecution — and could instead end up helping the defence, depending on how the interview plays out.
“There’s just no predicting how that will unfold and what will come out, and what the impact of what comes out will be on the person’s trial,” said Robert Diab, a law professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C.
A person’s answers in a second interview could, for example, call into question things said or done earlier in the investigation, or create a new avenue of defence for the suspect, Diab said.
And depending on how far away the trial is, a second interview could also risk making the case exceed strict timelines governing how long a person can wait to be tried in Canada, if it creates the need to speak to more witnesses or secure court time that’s not readily available.
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“It is not out of the realm of possibility, in many cases, that the whole trial can be jeopardized,” Diab said.
“So it’s out of an abundance of caution that the Crown and the police don’t want to derail the certainty and the plans that are set in place by conducting an interview that could give rise to a lot of, you know, uncertainty and unpredictability.”
On top of that, suspects also have to “be apprised of their rights to counsel, and can presumably refuse to be reinterviewed or terminate the interview at any time,” criminologist Arntfield said.
Even after a person’s been convicted, a second interview could, in theory, uncover new evidence that could be used to reopen avenues of appeal.
However, Diab called that more of a “remote possibility,” considering the facts of Skibicki’s case — something the University of Victoria’s Milward said he agrees with.
“They just had him solid,” Milward said. “So I didn’t see any possibility that … interviewing him after this would suddenly lead to some sort of putting his previous conviction in danger.”
Law Prof. Diab said there’s also no guarantee that an earlier reinterview would have gotten the same results it got in December — police may not have had all the information they have now, and Skibicki may not have been willing to speak to officers, for example.
“Sometimes it just takes time for circumstances to come together, you know, for enough information to come to light,” Diab said.
Crown attorney Chris Vanderhooft, one of the lawyers who prosecuted Skibicki, said in an email that after a suspect has been interviewed by police and processed, they can’t be rearrested for the same charge — and any subsequent interview would be voluntary, “and not something police would normally do in a particular case.”
Vanderhooft said it’s also “highly unusual” for police to interview someone about their crimes after they’ve been convicted. As Winnipeg police tried to identify Shingoose, “they took care to make sure any post-conviction interview was conducted in a way that would not cause any issue that could lead to any legal problem, and we certainly consulted with them in that regard,” he said.
Vanderhooft would not say what those potential legal problems were, and said he couldn’t answer questions about what “privileged legal advice, direction or requests” prosecutors gave police about their interview with Skibicki.
Trying to weigh the kinds of considerations that come up in a case like this is what Arntfield called “the tough part” of being a detective.
It can be a stressful balancing act between “the frustration of wanting to resolve this and identify this murdered individual,” and the overarching need to ensure “due process is followed and this person is successfully put away and can’t hurt other people,” he said.
Grand Chief Kyra Wilson, who’s been closely involved with victims’ families in the case as the current head of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and in her past role as chief of Long Plain First Nation, said she wonders if there’s a way for the justice system to do a better job balancing those kinds of elements, with victims and their families more at the forefront.
“Right now what we see is, you know, a whole system that is set up to prioritize conviction, which I do believe should definitely be a priority,” Wilson said.
“But we also, I believe, can support victims and support families together as well. I don’t think that one is more or less than. We can do that together and make sure that we are prioritizing both of those.”
Wilson said she hopes to sit down soon with Winnipeg police and victim family members to get more information about detectives’ efforts on the case.
It’s understandable that police can only share limited information during an investigation, she said, but after that process is over, and “maybe in this case with the conviction, you can share with the families some of that process so they understand, you know, why certain decisions were made.”
Wilson also hopes to get more details about police efforts to identify the other women whose DNA was found in Skibicki’s apartment during the investigation. While some samples were identified — including Shingoose’s DNA — others were not.
But even with some details still unknown, Wilson is glad to finally have the answer about Shingoose’s identity that so many people waited so long for.
“Maybe it took a lot longer than we would have liked, from a community perspective. But we don’t know the inner workings or process for Winnipeg police,” she said.
“I know that our community is grateful that they received some of those answers — especially one of our families now, the Shingoose family, has some closure.”
Support is available for anyone affected by these reports and the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Immediate emotional assistance and crisis support are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through a national hotline at 1-844-413-6649.
You can also access, through the government of Canada, health support services such as mental health counselling, community-based support and cultural services, and some travel costs to see elders and traditional healers. Family members seeking information about a missing or murdered loved one can access Family Information Liaison Units.
