Police begin searching Saskatoon landfill in case of woman missing since 2020
Search for 22-year-old missing woman targets specific area of landfill
On a cold, damp morning, police began their search of the Saskatoon landfill Wednesday as part of their investigation into the 2020 disappearance of Mackenzie Lee Trottier.
The search is scheduled to last as long as 33 days.
With a large white tent where police will be working visible behind him, Mackenzie Trottier's father Paul Trottier said it's a place "nobody wants to be."
"I think anyone who would be standing in my position can understand the emotions that are involved," he said. "The enormous amount of work that's going on behind us is staggering."
The search will focus on a specific area of the landfill.
Saskatoon police Staff Sgt. Corey Lenius said excavators have spent the last couple of weeks removing the "overburden" above the area they need to search, which is about 930 cubic metres total.
"When you're speaking of a landfill, there's a lot of packing, the things that the landfill does, they're compacting. We have time, weather," Lenius said. "It's hard to say what condition anything that we're searching for could be in at this point, based on the time that's passed, based on all the environmental issues, and based on the work process that the landfill operates on."
Lenius said the investigation gave officers an indication of which garbage trucks to track, and police were then able to access those trucks' GPS tracking co-ordinates from the city.
With help from city landfill engineers, police were able to determine a "layer of interest" to investigate. Teams of 14 officers, plus dogs with special training on finding human remains, will rotate through, working every day to sift through the items in the area they're searching.
Lenius said the work will be "meticulous" and "draining."
Trottier, who was 22 when she went missing, was last seen on Dec. 21, 2020.
Her family has worked to bring attention to her case, including conducting an interprovincial poster campaign in 2021 and offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to her return.
Her father Paul said on Wednesday that while this search is about his daughter, it's also about all missing people.
"That's what I want people to remember," he said. "This is a family, this is a human being. All missing people, no matter what their past is, they're human beings, and they deserve our attention."
Métis-Nation Saskatchewan (MN-S) issued a statement endorsing the search.
"While a search of the landfill is deeply disturbing, MN-S is encouraged that the case has not been forgotten, as is often the situation with our missing and murdered Indigenous peoples," the statement said.
The police also smudged with the family before the search began.
Targeted search in Saskatoon
In Winnipeg, there have been calls to search the Prairie Green landfill for the remains of two Indigenous women — Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran — who are believed to be the victims of a serial killer.
That search, which is estimated to have a cost of $90 million, hasn't happened yet. But in March, the federal and provincial governments committed $20 million each toward it.
Julie Kaye, an associate professor of sociology at the U of S, said the targeted nature of the Saskatoon search may have sped things up.
"In terms of the particular case where they are searching the landfill, I think there's some uniqueness to that because they were able to sort of pinpoint a more targeted location," she said. "And so really … the monetary issue, the issue around how much it costs, is less forefront."
The cost of the search of the Saskatoon landfill, if it lasts for the entire 33 days, is estimated to be about $200,000, including both staffing and equipment, a Saskatoon police spokesperson said. The criminal investigation division has a reserve fund to cover such expenses.
Prior landfill search
Saskatoon police have experience searching the landfill, as outlined in a podcast they released last year about the disappearance of Kandice Singbeil.
Singbeil is a 32-year-old mother who went missing in 2015. At one point, police believed she may have been killed and her body placed in a downtown dumpster. It turned out not to be the case, but the podcast detailed how police approached the search.
They used cadaver dog teams from the Calgary Police Service, and forensic anthropologist Ernie Walker assisted with the search.
Calgary police and Walker will be helping with the search for Trottier, as well.
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With files from Jason Warick and Karen Pauls