It was a happy cry: Parents of Ashlee Shingoose express relief daughter has been identified

Her parents knew. Albert and Theresa Shingoose believed their missing daughter Ashlee Shingoose was Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe or Buffalo Woman before the police did. Albert said they cried tears of joy when the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) confirmed her identity through DNA earlier this week and revealed her remains were in the city’s Brady Road landfill. “My wife and I, we looked at each other, and we cried,” Albert told a news conference in Winnipeg Thursday. “It was a happy cry.” The couple from remote St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation, about five hours northeast of Winnipeg, looked tired and sad. They were surrounded by Indigenous leaders and support workers as they laid bare their pain. “It was good to hear where my daughter is now,” Albert said. “Now we all have to work hard to bring her home. “We need you to get that landfill (search) going.” Ashlee’s parents were supposed to speak at the WPS news conference Wednesday that publicly identified the 30-year-old mother of three, but bad weather delayed their flight into the evening. Ashlee had been missing since March 11, 2022. Her father made several trips to Winnipeg to look for her. Theresa and Albert Shingoose at a news conference in Winnipeg hosted by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. Photo: Veronica Blackhawk/APTN. He and Theresa also gave police samples of their DNA. Their daughter was the first of four, vulnerable First Nations women to be murdered by Winnipeg serial killer Jeremy Skibicki between March and May 2022, police said. The other victims were Morgan Harris, 39, Marcedes Myran, 26, and Rebecca Contois, 24, who were all mothers and street-involved. Theresa knew Ashlee was at risk in Winnipeg, where her daughter fled to a women’s shelter in 2016 with her three children. “She was making it good. Then after I kind of noticed she was talking to – I would say – the wrong kind of friends. And she started taking drugs and drinking. “Then she lost her kids (to the child welfare system).” Ashlee was “good” and “sweet”, and her mother says she prayed for her. “I’m not scared to say that I put my daughter in the hands of God,” she said, while looking down. Albert even attended Skibicki’s trial in Winnipeg one day last summer where he announced his daughter was Buffalo Woman. He was then hustled out of the courtroom by police and sheriff’s officers. Solving 4 murders “This investigation was certainly one of the most complex investigations in the history of our service,” said Cam Mackid, WPS deputy chief of investigations, at the news conference Wednesday. It began on May 16, 2022 with the discovery of Contois’ remains in a garbage bin behind Skibicki’s apartment block. Police charged Skibicki the next day for killing Contois and he implicated himself in the deaths of Harris, Myran and Ashlee. As his trial heard, Mackid said investigators reviewed more than 7,500 hundred hours of surveillance video … and more than 560,000 digital artifacts located on electronic devices belonging to the serial killer. “The investigation also involved over 60 interviews, 25 different types of judicial authorizations and the seizure of over 5,000 physical exhibits, of which over 130 were submitted to the RCMP lab for forensic examination,” he added. Winnipeg Police Chief Gene Bowers speaks to reporters in Winnipeg. Photo: Kathleen Martens/APTN Investigators formed two separate task forces, Mackid said. One to probe Skibicki’s life and the other to look into Ashlee’s past. “These efforts didn’t identify any additional victims nor did they identify Buffalo Woman, nor did they establish any links between (Skibicki) and any long-term missing person files, including historical (missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls) files,” Mackid said. “There was evidence that linked (Ashlee) to Mr. Skibicki’s suite, and at that time she was a missing person – a long-term missing person – so we were obviously very interested in looking at her as being Buffalo Woman.” Tips from the public did not pan out, he added. Despite police being unable to identify Buffalo Woman – a named bestowed by Indigenous Elders –  or find her body, Skibicki, then 37, was convicted on four counts of first-degree murder on July 11, 2024. Identifying Buffalo Woman Mackid said a Dec. 17, 2024 “post-conviction interview” with Skibicki indicated Buffalo Woman’s remains were in the city landfill. Further information from the killer led police to test additional exhibits that “positively identified Buffalo Woman” on March 11 and March 24, Mackid said. “This news was delivered to the Shingoose family in person (in St. Theresa Point on March 25) by detectives and a family support and resource advocate” from the WPS. Police Chief Gene Bowers said members of the homicide, missing persons and forensic identification units worked non-stop to identify Buffalo Woman. He acknowledged the controversial decision police made in 2022 not to search the Prairie Green Landfill for the remains of Harris and Myran hurt the victims’ families and the community. “We’ve had time for reflection – almost nearly three years,” Bowers noted. “While we cannot undo the past, we can learn from it. “Today, we know what needs to be done.” Ashlee Shingoose, in an undated photo, has been identified as the fourth victim of Winnipeg serial killer Jeremy Skibicki. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew indicated the police would be involved in the “humanitarian search” of the Brady Landfill, unlike the one at Prairie Green. Bowers, who was only recently sworn in, asked the Indigenous community in Winnipeg to trust his leadership going forward. “I guess, we would just ask (that) you give us a chance,” he said. “I’m committed to reconciliation, I’m committed to searching Brady for Ashlee’s remains. “I’m standing here today in front of everybody in the community giving you my word that that will happen.” Bowers later updated reporters on his efforts to apologize to the victims’ families for not searching. He said he’d met with or spoken to some, but not all of them. Donna Bartlett, Myran’s grandmother, confirmed she received a phone call from Bowers. “I told him I would accept his apology – personal – but not from WPS,” she told APTN. “He said if he was in charge, there would have been a search back then.” Mackid said recovering the victims’ remains would have been preferred to collecting evidence and testing it for DNA. Meanwhile, the premier said the search continues at Prairie Green because it is uncovering important items. Continue Reading