Authorities believe they have found the remains of 15-year-old Je’Darrius Minnieweather at the East Baton Rouge Parish landfill, ending a grueling 36-day search for the teenager.
Minnieweather was reported missing June 5. Baton Rouge Police Chief T.J. Morse says investigators are “very, very hopeful” the remains belong to the teenager, but DNA testing will be needed to confirm their identity.
Fifty-one-year-old Maurice Parms is charged with killing Minnieweather. Investigators allege Parms beat the teenager to death during an argument when Minnieweather confronted Parms over his treatment of a 16-year-old girl Minnieweather had known for years.
Detectives say Parms then placed Minnieweather’s body in a trash can that was picked up and transported to the landfill on June 22.
Video showing the body being dumped helped investigators identify a specific area of the 400-acre landfill to search.
Over more than five weeks, law enforcement crews sifted through approximately 4,000 tons of material. Investigators found more than 4,000 animal bones before discovering what they believe are Minnieweather’s remains.
East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor Sid Edwards praised the search crews for their determination, saying the odds of finding the teenager were stacked against them.
“Someone told me that the success rate of finding someone in a landfill is 12% or less nationally,” Edwards said. “They didn’t count Baton Rouge, they didn’t count these people up here and all their agencies in Baton Rouge, they didn’t count that.”
District Attorney Hillar Moore also credited a photograph of Minnieweather displayed at the search site with helping motivate crews to continue the painstaking search.
“The work that these men and women did and the clothing they had to wear and in the conditions they had to do, were unbearable, but they did it, because they did for it a reason and that reason was because every morning they saw the picture of Je’Darrius and they knew what their mission was and what they were doing this for.”
Morse says DNA testing could take one or more days. Investigators will continue searching the area for additional evidence.