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Search for buried body about to intensify
By JOY DAVIS-PLATT, Times Staff Writer BROOKSVILLE -- Sheriff's officials will soon step up efforts to find a human body they believe lies buried on 20 acres west of Brooksville. For more than two weeks, since a man confessed to helping bury the body some years ago, searchers have used ground penetrating radar and cadaver dogs to try to find the remains on the heavily overgrown property off California Street. Searchers will begin using dogs trained to detect human remains that have decomposed far beyond the point that cadaver dogs normally look for. Also, the ground penetrating radar used will soon become more sophisticated, searching 4-square-foot sections much more precisely than equipment used to this point. "These dogs have been used in disasters like the World Trade Center, earthquakes and situations like that," sheriff's spokesman Lt. Joe Paez said. "But these dogs are able to find material that has decomposed to the point of just bone material." As for the radar equipment, Paez said it is the same type of sensitive machinery used by the county to detect possible sinkholes on Mariner Boulevard. "The greater clarity and higher resolution will help us to avoid so much digging," Paez said. "That will greatly minimize the time we spend on this." In fact, said Paez, about 120 man hours have been dedicated to the search so far. That figure does not include the crews from nearby Sumter Correctional Institution in Bushnell used to clear the site, engineers who operate radar equipment, or detectives. No human remains have been found on the Pointview Road site yet, but investigators say their source is credible. The focus of the search is several acres off the narrow dirt road, dotted with homes and trailers. Few details have been released about the case. Detectives have said only that someone living out of state recently called and reported that a body had been buried. The caller led detectives to another person who confessed to burying the body on the wooded property where goats graze. The Sheriff's Office is not releasing the man's name but said he used to live in Brooksville and now lives in the Carolinas. He was in town helping detectives with the search, but Paez said he has since returned home. The man is not believed to have killed the person buried, Paez said. The Sheriff's Office refused to release information about the dogs used in the search, other than to say they were led by volunteers from Orlando and Gainesville. The current property owner has no involvement in the case, Paez said. - Information from Times files was used in this report.
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From today's Hernando Times |
