More details released Monday in upcoming search for Kelsey Berreth’s remains
Authorities held a news conference Monday afternoon to provide brief details about the search for Kelsey Berreth’s remains that starts Tuesday morning.
Commander Chris Adams, of the Woodland Park Police Department, spoke with the media for several minutes near the area that has been staked out for the search.
“Based on the information we received from our expert that has done (this type of search), he’s broken it down into a primary search area and we’re going to be searching that area,” Adams said. “The excavator will take the trash out, put it in lines, and then we’ll have searchers go through each piece and search for it.”
Adams said an excavator and a front-end loader will be used to move trash, and 10 investigators will sift through it by hand, piece by piece, five days a week for at least 35 days.
The primary search area contains 4,320 cubic yards of trash and the overall search area contains 686,805 yards of refuse.
A pool of 40 law enforcement officers from local and state agencies will participate in the search, Adams said.
“If the body was burned, we’ll be looking for teeth, bones, things like that,” he said. “The body would have been left here three months ago, but that’s not too long to find that kind of evidence.”
Adams said cadaver dogs won’t be used.
“We don’t want the dogs to get hurt, stepping on broken glass,” he said. “And with a dump, there’s human decomposition within the dump anyway, just from household trash, and the dogs can alert on that.”
Adams said the evidence gathered so far has led investigators to the landfill.
“It will be a slow, methodical search,” he said. “We don’t want to miss anything. I think we owe it to Kelsey and her family to be as thorough as we can.”
Adams said the possibility remains that Berreth’s remains were placed in a river or other waterway, but investigators are focusing on the landfill for now.
The media was allowed on the landfill properly for an hour to record video and take photographs of the area. Adams said no further media access will be granted during the search.
Waste Management, the operator of the landfill, declined comment on the matter.
