Evansville police and the the Federal Bureau of Investigation have begun a search of a Pike Countylandfill in hopes of cracking the case in regards to a missing Evansville girl. A federal warrant to search the Advanced Disposal Blackfoot Landfill near Winslow was served on Monday morning. Evansville Police Sgt. Jason Cullum encouraged people to come forward if they have any information that could lead to an end of the two-month search for the special-needs teen who went missing from her Evansville home in July. Despite the ominous look of searching a landfill, Cullum said investigators are still moving forward with the thought that "she could still be alive." The Evansville Police Department remains the lead agency in the case, though the FBI has been involved since days after Beckerle was reported missing by her mother on July 17. Beckerle is wheelchair-bound, cannot speak and requires medication to control seizures. Cullum said the federal search warrant was needed for jurisdictional purposes. Law enforcement officers from the Pike County Sheriff's Office and the Petersburg Police Department will be at the front of the facility while the investigation is going on. Cullum did not provide a timetable of how long the search is estimated to take. Cullum says no other landfills have been searched in connection with Beckerle's disappearance, andthe Blackfoot facility has not been searched during the investigation. He says however, that the landfill has been on the radar for authorities for "several weeks."
