‘They want their loved ones to come home, too’

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This article was published 29/03/2025 (375 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — When Charlene Williams visits a memorial bench near where her daughter was found dead in Winnipeg, she arranges flowers and prays that a killer or killers will be brought to justice.

The March 2021 homicide of Jana Williams, a mother who was six months pregnant with her fourth child, remains unsolved.

“Everyone that knew her wants justice for her,” Williams said. “I can’t have peace unless I know. I want to know who did that to her.”

Jana Williams’ body was found in a suitcase outside an Alfred Avenue apartment building next to the Red River, just east of Main Street. The discovery happened one day before her 29th birthday.

“She was such an outgoing person. She loved everyone, she always helped everyone,” her mother said.

Williams has sleepless nights, thinking about her daughter’s final moments and asking how could someone take another person’s life.

“It just seems like yesterday this happened. I think of how hard she fought for her life,” she said.

Williams held a march that concluded with a vigil at the memorial bench, which has depictions of hummingbirds, on March 5. Jana would have turned 33 that day.

After she was found, her unborn baby was given the name Hummingbird.

Wednesday’s announcement by Winnipeg police that Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman — the lone unidentified victim of serial killer Jeremy Skibicki — was confirmed to be Ashlee Shingoose brought a range of emotions for families of Indigenous women and girls who are missing or whose deaths remain unsolved.

The four victims — Rebecca Contois, 24, Morgan Harris, 39, Marcedes Myran 26, and Shingoose, 30 — were First Nations women.

“Stuff like this, it brings back so many memories,” Williams said, her voice wavering with emotion. “It just really gets me upset when I hear stuff like this because it happened to my own daughter.”

Jana Williams’ death is still being actively investigated, a police spokeswoman said.

Premier Wab Kinew has promised a search of the Brady Road landfill for Shingoose’s remains. The scope of the search has not yet been determined.

Remains belonging to Tanya Nepinak, who disappeared in 2011, are believed to be in the same landfill. She was not found during a six-day search at Brady Road by police in 2012.

The Crown stayed a second-degree murder charge against her alleged killer, Shawn Lamb, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the deaths of Carolyn Sinclair, 25, and Lorna Blacksmith, 18, in 2013.

All three women were First Nations.

Nepinak’s aunt, Susan Caribou, has advocated for searches of Brady Road and other Manitoba landfills. In an interview earlier this week, she also spoke of sleepless nights where she thinks about her niece and hopes she will be brought home.

“It’s such a roller-coaster ride for families that don’t have closure,” Caribou said.

Formal discussions regarding the search for Shingoose had not taken place as of Wednesday. It is unclear if Nepinak will be included in the search.

“Of course, this is a conversation that we need to have,” Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Kyra Wilson told reporters Wednesday.

Efforts by AMC and the Harris and Myran families led to a search of the Prairie Green Landfill, just north of Winnipeg. The search continues, after remains belonging to both women were found in mid-February.

Some of Contois’ remains were found by police at the Brady Road landfill in 2022.

Sandra DeLaronde, chair of Giganawenimaanaanig, formerly known as the Manitoba MMIWG2S+ implementation committee, said the community is thankful Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe was identified.

For families who are still looking for a loved one, the discovery creates hurt and trauma, she said.

“They want their loved ones to come home, too,” DeLaronde said at a sacred fire that was held to honour Shingoose on Thursday night.

“Manitoba, and Winnipeg, is known as ground zero for MMIWG, so it’s important to find opportunities for communities to come together to address the issues that create the harm.”

Giganawenimaanaanig said systemic and regulatory changes are still urgently needed to address the national crisis.

The organization wants to see all 231 calls for justice implemented from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Last year, the Assembly of First Nations said only two of the calls were fully implemented. The inquiry called the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls genocide in its report.

Indigenous women and girls are six times more likely to be a victim of homicide than non-Indigenous women and girls, a Statistics Canada study found.

Giganawenimaanaanig is leading efforts to pilot a Red Dress Alert system in Manitoba — the first of its kind in Canada — to notify the public when an Indigenous woman, girl, two-spirit or gender-diverse person is reported missing.

The pilot, which could lay the groundwork for a national system, is being developed. Sessions are being held across the province to obtain input from MMIWG2S+ families and others.

The federal government provided $1.3 million over three years to develop the pilot system.

Last year, the Manitoba government introduced a $20-million MMIWG2S+ strategy named Mino’Ayaawag Ikwewag, which means “all women doing well” in Anishinaabemowin.

It is a four-year, 10-pillar strategy with a “whole-of-government approach” to addressing the crisis, and programs focused on empowerment, prevention and safety.

Pillars include access to culture, education, healthy communities, justice and matriarchal leadership.

» Winnipeg Free Press