When Waterloo Regional Police spent six weeks searching the Waterloo Regional Landfill for the body of Catherine Todd, were they looking in the wrong spot?
Todd, a 48-year-old Kitchener resident, was last seen on March 18.
A second-degree murder charge was laid a few days later against James Parise of Kitchener.
As police searched for Todd’s body, they also asked the public to keep an eye out for a cream loveseat missing from her apartment.
Before long, police said, they had information suggesting the loveseat – and perhaps Todd’s remains – were buried at the landfill.
Officers began combing through one section of the landfill – assigned to overtime duty at first, then as part of regular daytime shifts.
After six weeks of searching and nearly $280,000 in costs accrued, police decided to end the search.
By that time, they had searched through approximately 3,000 tonnes of garbage.
“There was some disappointment when the search was unsuccessful, but I think there’s a pride in that we did the best that we could to bring closure for the Rodd family and for the community,” says Insp. Kevin Thaler.
Although garbage trucks dump at the landfill in a specific pattern which police believed they could use to find evidence in the Todd case, Thaler says officers may have been searching outside the area where the evidence actually was.
“It can be a matter of metres in either direction,” he says.
Thomas Schmidt, the Region of Waterloo’s commissioner of transportation and environmental services, says the remains could have been narrowly missed, but says landfill staff believed they had located the right section.
“To our knowledge, the area that was searched is the area that garbage went to,” he says.
Thaler says police discussed the issue with Todd’s family before stopping their search.
The charges against Parise continue to move through the court system. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for February.
