SPRINGFIELD, Neb. (AP) — Wearing masks to protect against blowing dust and the pungent odor of decay, workers picked through a Nebraska landfill in search of the body of a 4-year-old boy who has been missing since January.
The landfill search began two weeks ago after Brendan Gonzalez's father led investigators to a trash bin containing dried blood matching his son's DNA.
Authorities said the contents of the bin, at an apartment complex near Offutt Air Force Base just outside Omaha, had been emptied at the landfill Jan. 7, the day after Brendan disappeared.
The father, Ivan Henk, had been staying with Brendan and his mother, Rebecca Gonzalez, in the days before the boy disappeared, Gonzalez told police. She said Henk had taken the boy outside to play that morning, and a short time later, she discovered they and her car were gone.
Henk, 25, was arrested later that day after leading police on a high-speed chase.
During a court hearing April 29, Henk shouted that he had killed Brendan, yelling that the boy was the anti-Christ.
Henk is serving a one-year sentence on an unrelated charge. He hasn't been charged in his son's disappearance.
By Friday, volunteers at the landfill had dug a crater about 20 feet deep and 75 feet wide in a mountain of garbage along a dirt access road. Plattsmouth Police Chief Brian Paulsen said they were consistently finding trash from January dates near when the boy disappeared.
Chief Deputy Sarpy County Attorney Tricia Freeman said a search dog may also have picked up the scent of human remains where workers began digging Friday.
"I have a 4-year-old," Freeman said. "If I knew he was out here, I'd want to know that people did everything they could to find him."