Winnipeg court rules against accused serial killer’s plea for judge-alone trial

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A superior court in Winnipeg has rejected Jeremy Skibicki’s plea for a judge-alone trial, deciding on Friday that he will face a jury next week despite a constitutional challenge from his defence about potential bias in his trial for the killing of four women.

Mr. Skibicki, who has pleaded not guilty to all counts, is charged with the first-degree murders of four First Nations women. Police have alleged he dumped their bodies in two Winnipeg-area landfills in 2022.

For three days this week, defence lawyers argued before Court of King’s Bench Justice Glenn Joyal that there has been too much pretrial publicity for Mr. Skibicki’s case to be heard by a jury. The legal team presented polling data and provided expert testimony to suggest that the 12 jurors selected last week do not have the capacity to be impartial.

Justice Joyal said the court did not see the need for a judge-alone trial and the Crown hadn’t consented to one. “I’ve concluded, based on governing jurisprudence and the evidence before me, that this is not the clearest of cases requiring me to override the Crown’s discretion,” the judge said Friday, as Mr. Skibicki sat quietly, wearing a grey T-shirt and jail-issue sweatpants, his ankles shackled.

“Jurors, much like judges, are shaped by their lived experience, including the media they digest,” Justice Joyal said. “We believe jurors are able to rise to the heightened expectation required of their role in order to ensure a fair trial.”

The jury will begin hearing opening arguments on May 8.

This was the second time Mr. Skibicki’s lawyers had raised a formal motion for a judge-alone trial. The first attempt was dismissed in January after pretrial deliberations, during which the defence said that denying him the right to be tried in the manner of his choosing was arbitrary and unconstitutional.

But after a jury comprised of three men and nine women was selected late last week, Mr. Skibicki’s defence renewed its efforts to change the mode of the trial, this time relying heavily on the results of an opinion poll commissioned by the lawyers in February.

The Mainstreet Research poll, submitted as an exhibit in court, had surveyed 906 people in Manitoba during a four-day period. It found 81 per cent of respondents believed that, based on what they saw, read or heard about the case, Mr. Skibicki was guilty.

Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet Research, testified via video call about the veracity of the poll’s data. Christine Ruva, a psychology professor at the University of South Florida, spoke about the questions she formulated with the defence.

Both Mr. Maggi and Dr. Ruva were challenged heavily by the Crown.

Prosecutor Renée Lagimodière said important legal definitions, such as that for “self-defence” and “not criminally responsible,” were not provided in the poll. She also argued that Mr. Maggi’s firm did not have a stellar record of accurate polling.

Mr. Maggi said the poll was seeking a “snapshot of people’s perception” and was not gauging expert opinion. “People’s inherent biases will come out regardless of logic or details,” he said.

Defence lawyer Alyssa Munce argued Mr. Skibicki’s case is “unprecedented” for Manitoba, given the scope of media attention it has received, which she said ignited a national outcry, including rallies and election platforms last year.

“There is a reasonable probability that the potential jury pool was prejudiced,” Ms. Munce said.

Justice Joyal had noted his doubts. “So, the solution is what?” he asked the defence this week. “Get rid of jury trials in high-profile cases?”

Police have alleged Mr. Skibicki is a serial killer who murdered 26-year-old Marcedes Myran, 39-year-old Morgan Harris, 24-year-old Rebecca Contois, and an unidentified woman whom Indigenous elders have named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, meaning Buffalo Woman.

Ms. Harris and Ms. Myran, both from Long Plain First Nation, were killed in the spring of 2022 before their bodies were dumped at Prairie Green landfill, north of Winnipeg, police said.

Mr. Skibicki, 35 at the time, was arrested in May, 2022, after Ms. Contois’s partial remains were found in a garbage bin outside a Winnipeg apartment building. More remains were later discovered at the separate Brady Road landfill in the southern outskirts of the city. She was a band member of Crane River First Nation.

Police have not shared information about the whereabouts of Buffalo Woman’s remains, but have said she was Indigenous and in her mid-20s.