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Landfill search for Nepinak turns up no evidence

By: Aldo Santin

Posted: 10/11/2012 9:47 AM | Last Modified: 10/11/2012 12:52 PM | Updates

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Tanya Nepinak

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- Difficult landfill search begins

The search for Tanya Nepinak’s remains at the Brady Road landfill ended without success.

The Winnipeg Police team spent seven days at the landfill, working through the Thanksgiving long weekend, ending the search Tuesday afternoon without finding any evidence of the woman missing for more than a year.

"This is a very complex investigation and we were faced with a very complex search," Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen said during this morning’s news briefing. "Unfortunately, the results of that search are not what we all hoped."

Nepinak, 31, was last seen Sept. 13, 2011. At the end of June, police charged Shawn Cameron Lamb, 52, with Nepinak’s death and that of two other women who went missing but whose bodies were subsequently found.

Sources told the Free Press that Lamb had confessed to killing all three women. He had disposed of their bodies in the same fashion – wrapping them in plastic and placing them in or near a trash bin in the city’s West End. The bodies of Carolyn Sinclair and Lorna Blacksmith were found at the trash bins where it’s alleged Lamb had placed them but it was believed that Nepinak’s body was taken to the landfill by a private waste hauler truck.

Police originally believed they were able to pinpoint where Nepinak’s remains were placed at the landfill. However, by mid-September, investigators realized their initial information was too vague and possibly incorrect. While they believed she was somewhere in the landfill, the site was too large for a meaningful search.

Police agreed to conduct a scaled-down search, however, based on the advice of a group of aboriginal elders who had obtained a sense of where her remains could be found following a spiritual ceremony.

That site was far off the original location and police admitted chances were extremely unlikely the remains could be found but were searching just the same out of respect for the family and the local aboriginal community.

"We were open and upfront from the get-go that the chances were incredibly slim but despite that, when we received this type of information, we have to be open-minded," Michalyshen said.

The search began Oct. 3, with a team of six forensic identification officers working 10-hours days. Using rakes, the Ident officers clawed through debris pulled out of the ground by a backhoe. A safety officer was on site to monitor for potential hazards. Two supervisors, who designed the search, were also on site. The original plan was to stay for three to five days.

"There was nothing really nothing fancy about what we were doing," Michalyshen said of the search technique used at the landfill.

Weather conditions were not ideal – blowing snow, rain, hail – but Michalyshen said while that made the work uncomfortable, it was not a factor in not being able to find Nepinak’s remains.

The landfill had been searched for human remains once before but this was the first time police were looking for a body that was believed buried for several months.

Michalyshen said that while police did not find Nepinak’s remains, investigators learned a great deal about the technique of searching a landfill that will prove valuable if the need ever rises again.

Michalyshen said he could not provide a cost estimate for the search at this time, adding however that none of the officers involved worked any overtime – the officers involved would have been paid their salaries regardless of what they were doing. Additional costs were incurred for the use of equipment.

Michalyshen said that while the landfill search is over, police remain open to any tips that could pinpoint where Nepinak’s remains might be, adding that officers could return to the landfill if future information is considered credible.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

History

Updated on Thursday, October 11, 2012 at 11:46 AM CDT: updates with search concluded

12:52 PM: updates with full writethru

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