Last November, I received an urgent call from FBI Special Agent Anna Brewer concerning three small boys that were missing for several days in the Detroit, MI area. One of the options that the FBI was exploring was the possibility that the children were killed and their bodies placed in a dumpster that was then dumped in a landfill. “
How can we find out where the dumpsters are, who the haulers are and where the landfills are?” Agent Brewer asked. “
And once we identify the landfill how would we go about trying to find the bodies?” she added.
I told her that the first thing they should do is contact the city or county solid waste agency, and that they most likely would know who the haulers are, the areas that they service and the locations of landfills and other solid waste facilities. I then sent her contact information at the following organizations:
- A waste business journal that publishes an atlas of thousands of landfills and solid waste facilities across the country,
- The association of state solid waste agencies that issue permits to landfills and most likely had complete inventories of facilities within their states, and
- The U.S. EPA’s Resource Recovery and Conservation Office that issued the Subtitle D federal standards for landfills and who may have additional information on various facilities.
I also posted an inquiry on the
SWANA Landfill Management Technical Division Discussion Group asking about experiences in searching for bodies in landfills and received dozen responses and offers of assistance, which I forwarded to the Agent. I searched the SWANA eLibrary for information on this subject, and found a presentation entitled
The Search for Lori Hacking that was given at SWANA’s Landfill Management Specialty Symposium by Bud Stanford from the Utah Salt Lake Valley Solid Waste Agency. This presentation, which I also sent to the FBI, discussed a successful search for the body of a young woman at the Salt Lake Valley Landfill in 2004.
A few days later Special Agent Brewer contacted me again let me know that they had ruled out the landfill scenario in this case, but that they were very appreciative for the information sent. She said: “
This information is exactly what we are looking for and it can be very useful to our child abduction investigations. I forwarded the information to our HQ in DC and they would like to invite you to come speak at our next conference. You do not know how much this means to us, thanks again; together we can make a difference!”
So in April, I spoke to 60 members of the
FBI Child Abduction Rapid Deployment (CARD) Team at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, VA. The FBI established the CARD Teams to provide a quick and effective response to all incidents of crimes against children, especially in the first few hours after a child is abducted. The CARD Teams consist of investigators who have in-depth experience in child abduction cases to provide on-the-ground investigative, technical, and resource assistance to state and local law enforcement.
At this meeting, I made a presentation
Finding a Body in a Landfill, and also walked them through the Search for Lori Hacking slides. In this presentation I made several points, which I learned from my discussions with the various SWANA Landfill Division members:
- The search for a body at a landfill could be a long, tedious and difficult process. In the Lori Hacking case, 4,500 tons of waste had been deposited in the cell thought to contain the body, and finding it took 70 days of hand sorting and raking by a 20 person team.
- It is important to move quickly and try to locate a body before it reaches the landfill. In a case in Pierce County, WA, the body of an infant child was found in a search of transfer trailers at an intermodal yard.
- If solid waste personnel are informed of an investigation and trained on what to look for, a body could be identified by spotters, gate attendants and equipment operators at a transfer station, waste-to-energy facility or landfill.
- There are important resources in solid waste agencies at the local, state and provincial level that could be helpful to law enforcement personnel carrying out such investigations.
The members of the CARD Team were very interested in continuing to work with SWANA on these issues. I invited them to our Landfill Symposium in Orlando at the end of October, and suggested we could hold a small workshop with interested attendees. At the end of the meeting, they told me that the case of the three boys from Detroit was still unsolved. However, in Lori Hacking’s case, her husband pled guilty to murder and was currently serving six years to life in prison. The CARD Team believes that the discovery of her body was a critical factor in obtaining his confession. I was glad to hear that the bad guys don’t always get away and I was proud to hear that SWANA members contributed their expertise to help make this happen.
I would like to learn more from SWANA members who have worked with law enforcement on an investigation. Please post your comments below.