Landfill search progressing for Ashlee Shingoose; Tanya Nepinak family hopeful for second search

The province is now in its fourth month of searching Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill for Ashlee Shingoose.

Shingoose, a 30-year-old woman from St. Theresa Point First Nation, was one of four women murdered by convicted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki.

Premier Wab Kinew said Tuesday that progress is being made, with searchers from the province, engineers and the Winnipeg Police Service on site.

“I can tell you that the debris that we’ve been seeing so far matches both the time — the date range — that we’re looking for, and we’re starting to get a clearer picture geographically of where the trucks would have been in the city. So that is progress,” Kinew told reporters following an unrelated press conference Tuesday.

“That said, we have to remember that there is a family here, the family of Ashlee Shingoose. You think about these parents, you think about her kids, and what they’re going through. It’s just important we keep that compassion for them in our hearts.”

The remains of two other victims of Skibicki, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, were discovered in the Prairie Green landfill just over a year ago. The remains of Rebecca Contois, the first victim to be discovered, were discovered in dumpsters on Edison Avenue and in the Brady Road landfill in the spring of 2022.

The premier has pledged that once the search for Shingoose is complete, the province will begin searching for Tanya Nepinak, who is believed to have been murdered by a different serial killer in 2011.

“Because Ashlee Shingoose was placed in the landfill more recently, we’re going to start there,” Kinew said in a November 2025 interview for Global’s investigative crime series, Crime Beat.

“And then hopefully we can deliver to her family the same news that we were able to do for Morgan and Mercedes’ families. And then we would move on to Tanya Nepinak. Tanya’s family, of course, deserve the same consideration as the other families. And they’ve been waiting a long time. So we want to get it right.”

Tanya Nepinak’s family hopeful

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Nepinak was last seen in September 2011. Shawn Lamb was initially charged with second-degree murder in her death. The charge was later stayed due to a lack of evidence, but Lamb was convicted of second-degree murder in the deaths of two other First Nations women, Lorna Blacksmith and Carolyn Sinclair.

Kinew says that search will prove to be more challenging because of the time that has passed.

“We are committed,” the premier said. “And the idea is, it shouldn’t matter where you’re from or who you are. I can’t guarantee that we’re going to find your loved one, but we should try.”

That news is something Nepinak’s family has waited a long time to hear.

“I want to bring her home, I want her to rest with the family,” Nepinak’s aunt, Sue Caribou, told Global News. “She should be there with them, not a pile of trash.”

Caribou keeps items to help her stay strong on her journey to bring Nepinak home, including a traditional drum, eagle feathers and a tobacco bundle.

“My aunty gave me this candle. That’s the light to find her and bring her home,” Caribou said. “All of these items give me the courage to bring Tanya home.

“Tanya has no voice, and I’m her voice. And if I don’t use my voice, I won’t be able to bring her home to rest with our family.”

Nepinak, a member of Pine Creek First Nation, was 31 years old when she disappeared. Caribou remembers her niece as a caring, loving young mother who brightened every room she walked into.

“She was like me, we were all clean freaks; we called each other, our place was spotless all the time,” Caribou recalled.

“I used to call her my $5 baby. I would give her my treaty money for the year – that’s what we get every year: $5. So I gave it to her and she would say, ‘Oh, thank you, aunty.’”

Caribou wrote a message on the back of a photo of Nepinak about the day she met with Kinew to discuss searching the Brady Road landfill for Nepinak.

“That was a happy day. That someone was willing to listen,” Caribou said.

But the absolute happiest day of her life, she says, would be the day they find Nepinak and bring her home to rest.

“I have a lot of hope this time that we’re going to bring her home, I’ve been saving my jig for Portage and Main,” Caribou said. “I’m going to do it, I’m going to bring her home, and I’m going to stop all this traffic when I do my jigging. I brought my love done home. That’s going to make anybody jig, if their loved one is out of the dump.

“I hope and I pray one day I’ll be doing my jig there because one day Tanya is going to be resting with my family.”

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