Inside the desperate ‘needle in a haystack’ search for a retired teacher’s body scooped up by a garbage truck and dumped at a tip as new details emerge her baffling death
- Police find clue in search for missing woman Lesley Trotter
- Officers are searching tonnes of rubbish to locate remains
- Ms Trotter’s body believed to have been dumped in rubbish bin
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Police have made a breakthrough as they continue to shift through thousands of tonnes of rubbish in the search for the body of missing woman Lesley Trotter.
Officers from Homicide Investigation Unit, Scenes of Crime, Disaster Victim Identification Squad have spent seven days scouring the Swanbank refuse site looking for Ms Trotter’s remains.
She has been missing for nearly a month, with her family last speaking to the 78-year-old on March 27.
Police have now searched 12.7 per cent of the rubbish that was quarantined according to aerial drone mapping and have found a clue that they’re on the right track.
Police believe they are on the right track in the search for missing woman Lesley Trotter (pictured) as they scour thousands of tonnes of rubbish in the search for her body
‘Police have located paperwork belonging to a resident who resides in a nearby street from Ms Trotter’s Maryvale Street residence, which indicates current search efforts are concentrated in the right area,’ a spokesperson said.
Detective Superintendent Andrew Massingham confirmed earlier in April that there was ‘strong evidence’ that Ms Trotter’s body was collected from a wheelie bin near her home on Maryvale St in Toowong.
They believe her body was then compacted in a rubbish pit.
‘Ongoing investigations can reveal that on the morning of Tuesday, the 28th of March this year, the body of a female we believe was Lesley Trotter was located in a general waste wheelie bin,’ he said.
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‘It was evident she was deceased. Due to the positioning of the body, we can’t rule out foul play.
Aerial drone mapping indicates 12.7 per cent of the rubbish that was quarantined has been searched and police found paperwork belonging to a resident who resides in a nearby street which they believe indicates they are in the right area (pictured: Swanbank refuse site)
Detectives confirmed earlier in April that there was ‘strong evidence’ that Ms Trotter’s body was collected from a wheelie bin near her home on Maryvale St in Toowong and believe her body was then compacted in a rubbish pit (pictured: Ms Trotter)
‘Later that morning that bin was collected by a rubbish truck.’
Despite homicide detectives being called in, Superintendent Massingham said he couldn’t rule out that Ms Trotter’s rubbish sorting habits had something to do with her death.
He said that ‘Ms Trotter would often go to wheelie bins out the front of her residence or the neighbouring properties and remove recycling trash from general waste bins and transfer those into the correct bins’.
Superintendent Massingham said Ms Trotter’s habit was ‘well-known’ by other tenants, with police investigating whether this had caused any ‘angst’.
The search through the rubbish is expected to take several weeks, weather permitting (picture: detectives comb through the rubbish looking for remains)
Police have spoken to neighbours as part of their investigations.
The search through the rubbish is expected to take several weeks, weather permitting.
Officers were forced to temporarily halt their search due to wet weather and high winds earlier this week.
