Police searching for the body of Corrie McKeague have uncovered material at an incinerator plant in Suffolk which requires further tests to establish if it is linked to the missing RAF serviceman, it has been announced.
Suffolk Constabulary cannot confirm at this stage if the material, recovered from the Great Blakenham energy-from-waste facility, is linked to the 23-year-old, who has been missing for 10 months.
Specialist examination and forensic analysis will be carried out over the “coming weeks”, the force said.
Police have revealed there was some waste taken to Great Blakenham from bins in the Brentgovel Street horseshoe in Bury St Edmunds on the night Corrie went missing, but it was deemed unlikely he would be in there because of the nature of the commercial waste inside. It also did not tally with the route of his mobile phone signal.
The incinerated waste at Great Blakenham is known to contain meat waste and animal bones, police have indicated.
Police said they would search the facility in Great Blakenham, near Ipswich, after calling off a 20-week search at a landfill site in Milton, Cambridgeshire on July 21. The £1.2million search of 6,500 tonnes of waste ended with no trace of RAF gunner Corrie. Police described the search as “systematic, comprehensive and thorough”.
Corrie, from Scotland, had been based at RAF Honington near Bury St Edmunds for three years before his disappearance after a night out with friends in Bury St Edmunds on September 24 last year.
Despite a high-profile public appeal, police believe he may have ended up in a bin lorry.
He was last spotted on CCTV at 3.24am entering a refuse area off Brentgovel Street, since dubbed the ‘horseshoe area’.
Police said Corrie had a history of falling asleep in unusual places, including in bins.
A bin lorry was seen on CCTV near Brentgovel Street around the time Corrie was last seen, and it took a route which appeared to coincide with the movements of his phone. The bin lorry linked to the disappearance of Corrie was initially thought to have collected an 11kg (1st 10lb) load, but police said it was later found to be more than 100kg (15st 10lb).
The small amount of incinerated waste at Great Blakenham which police have been investigating has come from other bins in the horseshoe area.
Police said last month that they still believe Corrie is located in the landfill site, a situation which has angered Corrie’s mother Nicola Urquhart.
A Suffolk Constabulary spokesman said: “Police searching incinerated waste at the Great Blakenham energy-from-waste facility have recovered some material that requires further examination in order to establish whether it is in any way connected to the Corrie McKeague missing person enquiry.
“At this stage it cannot be confirmed whether or not this material is in any way linked to Corrie and so it will be subject to specialist examination and forensic analysis in the coming weeks.
“Police expected that it would be necessary to take items recovered from the search away from the site in order to examine them more carefully.
“Corrie’s family have been kept updated about the search. The search of the incinerated waste is now complete.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here