The search for the remains of 15-year-old Ja’Derrius Minnieweather is now in its third week in the North Landfill in Zachary, near Baton Rouge.
East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore says the hot, humid conditions are making things very hard for the searchers, especially with what they have to wear during the search.
“They’re fully geared from head to toe,” Moore noted. “And you can imagine working that uniform and with breathing apparatus, they can only work 45 minutes at a time, and they have to rest for an hour and 45 minutes, have their blood pressure taken, have their temperature taken and then go back out.”
Moore says the searchers are sifting through thousands of cubic yards of material, including hazardous items.
“There are a lot of bones that have been collected here in south Louisiana (since) People kill things,” Moore says, referring to animals which are legally harvested. “There’s a lot of medical equipment that you have to watch out for (such as) needles for people who have in-home care.”
Investigators say Maurice Parms, 51, beat the teen to death and put his body in a dumpster, and those contents were subsequently dumped in the landfill.
Moore says the searchers are not giving up.
“It may be a point where we’ll be fruitless, but I don’t see that at this point. That’s a call that somebody else will make. But to each man and woman, they’re taking this job extremely seriously, as if they were their child,” says Moore.