Spectators at Monday's regular meeting of the Caernarvon Township supervisors were shocked to hear that authorities had searched Lanchester Landfill for the body of a missing Coatesville teenager.
Chester County Solid Waste Authority Executive Director Bob Watts said Monday that detectives from the Coatesville Police Department first contacted him for assistance in early December.
According to reports published in the Daily Local News of Chester County, Coatesville police and Chester County detectives have been searching for a teenage boy missing since October. According to published reports, First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Carmody said evidence has led investigators to believe that Aaron "Head" Turner, 16, of Coatesville, may be deceased. Police have declined further comment on the case.
"The detectives came to me and asked, 'Can you authorize (the landfill search)?' " Watts said at Monday's meeting. "My board gave the go-ahead, and (we're) doing everything we can to help them out."
Detectives requested permission to search one day's worth of waste, Watts said. That search took a week to complete and cost the landfill an estimated $15,000. Watts said that detectives may want to search another day's worth of waste.
"It's a very difficult situation," Watts said. "This body could be anywhere."
According to Watts, the landfill search began Dec. 15. Removal of the waste was complete by the end of that week.
Watts said Coatesville police brought in cadaver dogs to search the area after Lanchester workers located the targeted area.
Lanchester Landfill uses GPS devices on its equipment, Watts said. The facility records the coordinates of where in the landfill each day's waste is located.
"There weren't any surprises, and there weren't any finds," Watts said.
Watts said after the meeting that he has read about similar searches in trade journals, but does not recall a search for a body ever taking place at Lanchester in the past.
The information about the search arose when, during his monthly report, host municipality inspector Joe Cutter blamed an increase in leachate collection levels on the fact that trash was disturbed as police searched for a body.
"You'll see in the report that the leachate counts are very high up there," Cutter told the board. "That's because of the big hole opened up there from the detectives looking for a body. All the rain coming down filled the hole with water."
Some residents were amazed at the turn of events.
"You read about this stuff in CSI, and you never expect it to happen this close," supervisor Gary VanDyke said.
Anyone with information regarding Turner's whereabouts may call Coatesville police at (610) 384-2300.