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The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION

Winnipeg police to focus search for woman's body in area identified by elders

By: The Canadian Press

Posted: 09/19/2012 12:13 PM | Comments: 0 | Last Modified: 09/19/2012 3:39 PM

WINNIPEG - Police say they will go ahead with a landfill search for the body of a woman believed to be the victim of an alleged serial killer, but they are scaling back the operation to an area identified by elders in a traditional aboriginal ceremony.

The original search planned for Tanya Nepinak's remains was extensive. It was to cover a section of the dump as long as a football field, 20 metres wide and buried beneath eight metres of garbage.

Winnipeg Police Chief Keith McCaskill said inconsistent and new information kept expanding the area to the point were an effective search was impossible.

"The family was hoping we could do this big search and that's devastating to them and ...it's not what we wanted, but at this stage we've got nowhere to start," McCaskill told a news conference Wednesday.

He said the smaller search is to begin Oct. 2.

Gail Nepinak, the missing woman's sister, said the family is happy the search is going ahead at all.

"We're happy. We're very happy. I thanked the chief. I'm happy he made the right decision," she said.

She credited public pressure for forcing police to act. She said aboriginal elders were involved in showing officers where to focus the search.

"We just had to do our ceremony and get them believing on our side — what we believe in. They listened to us and now they are going to start searching," she said.

"It's a smaller area that they are going to start searching now. We made it into a smaller area. That's why they are doing it. Because it got narrowed down."

McCaskill admitted the chances of finding anything are extremely slim.

Nepinak, 31, has been missing since last September. Shawn Lamb, 52, has been charged with second-degree murder in her death and in those of two other women.

Police had said the original search could have taken months and there was only a five per cent chance of finding Nepinak's remains.

About 90,000 cubic metres of material would have had to have been removed and another 10,000 cubic metres searched. The total cost was undetermined, but the initial excavation could have cost up to $500,000.

Lamb is also charged in the deaths of Lorna Blacksmith, 18, and Carolyn Sinclair, 25. Sinclair's body was found in March in a downtown garbage bin and Blacksmith's body was discovered, wrapped in plastic, near another bin.

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