Aunt of Tanya Nepinak wants search of Winnipeg landfill

Locating the remains of First Nations women Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran in a Winnipeg-area landfill last month was cause for celebration, says the aunt of a woman who has been missing since 2011. The women were two of four female, First Nations victims murdered in the spring of 2022 by convicted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki. Their remains were thrown in the garbage and trucked to two area landfills: Prairie Green just north of Winnipeg and Brady Road within city limits. “I was so happy for the families,” says Sue Caribou, a Winnipeg-based advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. “I am so happy for the families.” But Caribou is also sad that the same search effort wasn’t put into finding the remains of her niece Tanya Nepinak in the Brady landfill. Nepinak is believed to have been murdered in Winnipeg in 2011 and disposed of in the garbage where her remains were picked up by a city garbage truck and deposited at the dump. The Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) searched a portion of the landfill for about two weeks in 2012 before calling off the dig. No one was convicted in her death. Caribou says her niece, a 31-year-old First Nations mother of two, deserves the same justice as the Skibicki victims. Read More: Supporters hold birthday walk for Tanya Nepinak 13 years after her disappearance “I really believe there’s a chance human remains will be there,” Caribou said in an interview. The ability for the Harris and Myran families to properly bury their loved ones is a bittersweet development for Casey Abraham, whose mother Sharon Abraham was murdered by Vancouver serial killer Robert Pickton. Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2007 after being charged with murdering 26 women in B.C. between 1997 and 2007. He was eventually convicted of killing six women. “I’m happy for them, but also sad because I was never able to bring my mother home,” Casey told APTN. “There’s a lot of conflicting feelings there.” Police identified the DNA of Sharon – along with the DNA or remains of 32 other mostly Indigenous victims – after a search of Pickton’s pig farm. “There were no remains of her,” Casey said. Prairie Green landfill is a privately run facility located in a rural municipality north of Winnipeg. Photo: APTN file Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has said the search at Prairie Green is continuing and will expand to Brady Road to look for the remains of Ashlee Shingoose, whose remains have yet to be found. Shingoose, who was Skibicki’s first victim, was recently identified by the WPS as the person behind the Mashkode Bizhiki’kwe or Buffalo Woman name bestwowed by Indigenous elders. Caribou feels the search team could look for the remains of her niece at the same time. But no official decision has yet been made. “I go every year and play my drum and sing to her,” Caribou noted, adding she held a pipe ceremony at the landfill for Nepinak last weekend that was attended by about 50 supporters. Continue Reading