Rain halts efforts at Susan Powell search site - Salt Lake Tribune
Topaz Mountain • Friday afternoon rains forced West Valley City police to shut down their search for signs of Susan Cox Powell, including efforts to sift through dirt dug in an area where cadaver dogs have indicated there are human remains.
A forensics team arrived here Friday morning and was looking for bone fragments or anything foreign to the area — such as clothing or jewelry — in the dirt before the rain hit just before 3 p.m. The team has the necessary equipment to protect the site from the elements and efforts are hoped to resume again Saturday morning.
Investigators on Thursday dug an area about 2 feet wide and 1 foot deep at the site, but did not discover any bones. Further excavation was to resume once the dirt had been sifted, but that process went much slower than expected Friday, said West Valley City Police Lt. Bill Merritt.
"Unfortunately we discovered is going to be an extremely slow go if we do it this way," said Merritt. "As is stands we are probably not even a quarter of the way through of the dirt that has been pulled out," he added.
Although the technicians are trained in the processes, they are not specialists like forensic anthropologists are. West Valley City police have put in a call to the state Medical Examiner's Office to see if they can get a forensic anthropologist out to the site who could more quickly determine whether there is something on the dirt or not.
Forensic teams are dealing with tiny pieces that all appear to be rocks, but could be something else, Merritt said.
"We have not held anything up that looks like it is going to be anything promising as of yet," Merritt said. "But at the same time, we need that trained eye to come out and confirm that."
An assembly line approach is needed and detectives have been asked to assist in the process, Merritt said. But even if manpower is increased, police still could be at the site for "a few more days," Merritt said.
Rain could cause further delays.
Once the sifting process is finished, continued excavation will resume at the site, which Bureau of Land Management archaeologist Joelle McCarthy has determined is less than 10 years old based on soil disturbance.
"Hopefully we'll start to find something [at the excavation site] the deeper we go," said Merritt said Friday morning. "If we don't find anything we are going to have to make a decision. But the dogs are continuing to indicate inside the hole. That leads us to believe that there is something down there."
Cadaver dogs have been able to detect remains buried as much as 12 feet deep, said Merritt.
Susan Powell's father, Chuck Cox, arrived here Friday afternoon and was taken to the dig site.
"I was able to see where they were excavating and what is going on," he said.
Cox said he feels his daughter is somewhere in a remote area, but not necessarily this one.
He said of the present search: "It's very logical and it needs to be done, so I have every confidence in what they are doing. I have always known this was going to take a lot longer than people give it credit for. This is by no means a simple case."
Next Page » 17 Sep, 2011--
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