Landfill Search for Body of Missing Baby Gabriel Johnson Imminent

Investigators in San Antonio Texas are revving up for a landfill search for the body of Baby Gabriel Johnson, whom some are calling Gabriel McQueary, reflecting their aversion to the criminal behavior inflicted upon his person by Elizabeth Johnson- his mother and a jailbird in Estrella Jail (in Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona). Johnson ran away with Baby Gabriel from their Tempe Arizona home to San Antonio Texas in December 2009, which is where Baby Gabriel was last seen on the day after Christmas.

The landfill search is based on this brutally-cruel text message from Johnson to McQueary on December 27 2009 (edited for typos): "You will never see Gabriel again. I made sure of that. And you can spend the rest of your pathetic life wondering about him. You will never find me. I'm already boarding a plane. Out of the country. When I'm safe, I'll e-mail you the exact location of dead Gabriel's little blue body- if the garbage doesn't come first. This is what liars like you deserve."

Republic Services owns and operates the Tessman Road Landfill, which is situated at 7000 IH-10 East in Converse, Bexar County. Landfills are designed, engineered, and planned out. "Things are so well engineered that we can hone in on a date and a neighborhood," said spokesperson Peg Mulloy for Republic Services to CBS5. A specific cell of trash in the landfill can be located. Mulloy confirmed that based on information from police, Tessman waste managers have designated a potential cell to search- ABC15 reports that police have cordoned off the cell. Mulloy told CBS5 that the landfill is being managed to optimize the police search.

San Antonio police said on Monday January 27 that the decision to go ahead with the search of Tessman Road Landfill for the body of Baby Gabriel hinges on the results from one more tip to follow up. Last night, Tuesday, the police did not discuss whether or not the follow-up had produced results that would delay or halt the landfill search. If the follow-up proved futile, the landfill search could begin within a couple of days.

Mark Palmer, the Executive Director of child advocacy group Jessica's Law Now, said that investigators should have searched landfills as soon as they learned about Johnson telling the father that she had dumped Baby Gabriel's into garbage. "Once they did locate her [Johnson], they should have gone back and started looking at not only the dumpsters and all of the areas that she was in, but also a radius that she covered and that would include landfills," said Palmer.

Two Investigations. While the Texas investigation assumes Baby Gabriel is dead and his body is buried in landfill, the Arizona investigation assumes that Baby Gabriel is alive- and may be disguised as a girl. The San Antonio police operate the first investigation; the Tempe police operate the second. Elizabeth Johnson is a murder suspect in the first; she is a kidnapper suspect in the second. Tammi Smith, the 'person of interest' who had hoped to adopt Baby Gabriel, is suspected of conspiracy to commit custodial interference in the second investigation- a felony that Johnson was charged on along with three other felonies.

While San Antonio investigators prepare to search landfill for Baby Gabriel's body, dad Logan McQueary holds out hope that his infant son is alive and is preparing to follow the kidnapping trail that Johnson took with Baby Gabriel. Although Johnson first confessed that she had killed Gabriel, she later said she had given him away.

Source: KPHO, CBS 5 News affiliate San Antonio Landfill Ready for Police Search; KPHO Child Advocate: Landfill Search Long Overdue;

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