A review of Suffolk police’s investigation into missing Corrie McKeague has concluded it was “thorough, methodical and detailed” – and he is most likely to be in the landfill that is currently being searched.
Suffolk Constabulary confirmed today that it had received the report into the missing RAF Honington airman but said it would not be made public due to operationally sensitive material.
Corrie, who was 23 when he was last seen in Bury St Edmunds in the early hours of Saturday, September 24, 2016, has been the focus of a major search operation for more than a year. The appeal to find Corrie has been shared hundreds of thousands of times and attracted celebrity support.
Since April, much of the focus of the investigation has been on Milton landfill in Cambridgeshire in the belief Corrie was taken there in a bin lorry. The search was called off in July after 20 weeks without finding Corrie, but resumed on Monday, October 23.
The recent review was conducted by the East Midlands Special Operations Unit with the aim of identifying whether any other lines of inquiry should be pursued to uncover new information to find Corrie.
A spokesman for Suffolk police said today: “The report concludes that police have conducted a thorough, methodical and detailed investigation and explored all reasonable lines of inquiry with no new further leads needing to be pursued.
“The review also concludes that Corrie is most likely to be in the Milton landfill site and the review also supports the continued search of the eastern end of cell 22 at the Milton landfill site which began on Monday October 23.”
Corrie’s mother Nicola Urquhart said the report’s finding were what she had expected.
“I don’t want to criticise the police, I’m really grateful that they are continuing to search the landfill and I’m pleased it’s been so thorough,” she added.
“I’m just waiting to see what happens in the next four to six weeks of the search. If they don’t find Corrie then there are further questions. He cannot just disappear and vanish into thin air. He has to be somewhere.”
Mrs Urquhart says she believes “cell 22” in the landfill site is the most likely place for Corrie to be found.
Suffolk police’s initial search of the landfill involved more than 6,500 tonnes of waste and cost £1.2million.
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