The search for the body of a missing teen believed to be in the East Baton Rouge North Landfill has stretched into its second week as law enforcement sifts through thousands of pounds of trash each day.
The search, spanning 0.64 acres of the 400-acre landfill, began last week after the Baton Rouge Police Department identified the zone where 15-year-old Ja’Derrius Minnieweather’s body might be with the help of the FBI Laboratory’s Technical Hazards Response Unit and Evidence Response Team Unit.
Minnieweather went missing June 5 and has since been presumed dead. Police have confirmed they believe his body was left in a garbage bin and picked up by a garbage truck to be dumped in the landfill
Since the work began last week and personnel from various agencies converged on the landfill, donning hazmat suits and protective gear, 57 tons of material have been searched in over 2,000 hours of work. Personnel searching the landfill must sift through tons of unknown trash, including needles, glass and a layer of soil that gets placed on each dump area daily.
While the Baton Rouge Police Department is the lead agency on the case, it has enlisted the help of 12 other law enforcement agencies, including specialty teams from the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Louisiana National Guard.
Maurice Parms, 51, was arrested for the first-degree murder of the teen on June 20 for allegedly beating him to death during an altercation. He allegedly then dumped Minnieweather in a garbage bin on the morning of June 5 where the garbage truck was scheduled to pick up trash at 6 a.m. according to Parms’ arrest warrant.
Parms is 6 feet tall, much taller than Minnieweather, who was only 4 feet 7 inches.
After witnesses described observing a tall man beating a smaller person while a child's bike was in the middle of the roadway, detectives were able to locate blood that had soaked into the ground. Detectives obtained a search warrant for Parms' truck, which tested positive for the presence of blood.