The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations says the fourth victim of a Winnipeg serial killer has been identified as Ashlee Shingoose.
Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak says she has spoken with the woman's parents and offered her condolences.
"My heart goes out to all the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls," she said.
Police are scheduled to confirm the identity of the victim, who was given the name Buffalo Woman, at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
Woodhouse Nepinak said Shingoose left her home on St. Theresa Point First Nation in northeastern Manitoba because of overcrowding.
Shingoose was 31 when she was last seen near a homeless shelter in Winnipeg in March 2022, where she met serial killer Jeremy Skibicki, convicted last year of first-degree murder in the slayings of four Indigenous women, including Shingoose.
The chief is calling for an inquiry into the investigation of the women's deaths.
"Why didn't the police service help these families right off the bat, and why didn't the previous provincial government want to help these families right off the bat," Woodhouse Nepinak said.
Until now, Shingoose was only known as Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman, a name given by a group of Indigenous grandmothers.
The trial heard her remains had not been located. It was also learned that Skibicki met the woman sometime in March 2022 outside a homeless shelter and brought her back to his apartment before killing her.
Police provided few details about the victim. They released photos of a jacket believed to have belonged to her in the hope that it could help identify her. Court heard DNA found on a cuff on the jacket was the only evidence police had pointing to her identity.
More than 100 exhibits were taken from Skibicki's home in attempts to identify the woman.
The only sample a forensic expert was able to extract and the only one believed to belong to Buffalo Woman came from the cuff of the jacket. The expert told the trial that she was not able to confirm whether a person is alive or dead based on a DNA sample.
Skibicki told police he sold the Baby Phat jacket on Facebook Marketplace.
The trial heard that in 2023, police collected samples from Shingoose's parents.
A sample from Shingoose was sent to labs in February 2024 to gather more definitive information. It was determined her DNA was found on a cigarette butt collected from Skibicki's home, but was not a match for the sample from the jacket.
The remains of two of other victims, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, were recovered from a Winnipeg-area landfill earlier this year after a search was started in December. The remains of Rebecca Contois were found in a garbage bin and at a different landfill in 2022.
The trial heard Skibicki targeted the women at homeless shelters in Winnipeg and disposed of their bodies in garbage bins in his neighbourhood.
— With files from Alessia Passafiume in Ottawa.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 26, 2025.