For those of us who believe this idiot took the easy way out and put YYZ's remains in bags and disposed of them in a trash bin or trash bins, here is an article featuring the expert who developed the landfill search technique. He explains how it is done so it is not an overwhelming task. The article is very recent.
Landfill expert weighs in on search for Kelsey Berreth's body
Landfill expert weighs in on search for Kelsey Berreth's body
Lee Reed developed the technique for searching landfills for human remains and evidence linked to crimes, and the company he works for now is probing the Midway Landfill in Fountain for the body of Kelsey Berreth, the Woodland Park mother believed to have been slain on Thanksgiving Day.
Reed, who served 34 years in law enforcement in Texas, now assesses landfills for NecroSearch International, based in the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Highlands Ranch.
“We have a methodical and calculated way to help identify where law enforcement is looking in the cell of the landfill,” he said.
As a law enforcement officer in Texas, Reed worked on the case of another woman whose body was thought to be in a landfill. “We went out there for a day, looked around, but eventually found her on the side of the road, where she had been murdered,” Reed said. “I thought, ‘There’s got to be a way to search a landfill.’ So I started studying it, riding trash trucks out there to the landfill.
“I figured out a way to determine where in the cell the item is by using algorithms. There are only two officers in the nation who do this. The other one is in Michigan, and I trained him.
“Most people don’t realize that when you talk about a cell that is 20 feet deep, 100 feet wide and 100 feet long, when you start unpacking that, you’re taking down about an 80-story building, straight up,” he said.
Search warrants released in Kelsey Berreth murder case
Reed does the initial assessment, projecting where the body is in the cell, how much trash must be removed to reach it, how long it will take, the cost and the equipment needed.
Most searches use a crew of 10 working eight hours a day. “That’s the benchmark we use,” Reed said.
“This one is my 51st search, and I’ve been successful on 40. I’ve done thousands of assessments. And if the probability of finding anything is zero, I say it’s not worth the expense.”
A lack of log sheets and an outdated transfer station can hinder the chance for success, he said.
NecroSearch, founded in 1988 as a nonprofit, does searches only for law enforcement agencies.
“The ground tells us where the grave could be, not necessarily how the body decomposed ... .”
While his expertise is landfills, the NecroSearch staff of 55 includes botanists, archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists, geophysicists, hydrologists and entomologists. “We have search experience and a drone expert who is also a photographer for National Geographic,” he said.
Landfill architecture is the source of a degree in some universities. The subterranean structure is built in layers of liners, clay and gravel, which must be moved before a search commences, Reed said.
“I’m old enough to remember when you just took your trash out there, pushed dirt over everything and dug another hole. Each person in America creates 4.8 pounds of trash every day.”
Reed looks back fondly on the days when people recycled unknowingly. “We had glass bottles that were re-used. Think about it — things were made to be fixed, not to be thrown away. Most of the trash in landfills today is plastic bottles of all types. I’ve pulled out newspapers that were 20 years old. They were white as ever; that’s how tight a landfill is.”
A landfill is “very compressed, air- and water-tight, so it will not pollute the water table,” he said.
Remarking on a retirement venture that sprang from an old case in Texas, Lee chuckled. “I never thought I’d be remembered for my law enforcement career as the guy who could pull trash,” he said.
