Glendale PD to search landfill for Jhessye Shockley

GLENDALE, AZ - Glendale police have announced they will be launching a search at a landfill south of the Valley in an effort to locate the body of a 5-year-old girl missing since October.

During the course of their investigation into the disappearance of Jhessye Shockley, investigators from the Glendale Police Department determined a search of the landfill in Mobile, Arizona is necessary.

According to police, the search will be launched some time in the next few weeks.

Glendale police Sgt. Brent Coombs said landfill searches are very time and labor intensive, and it is likely that their search will exceed several weeks in duration.

Jhessye's grandmother, Shirley Johnson, recently contacted ABC15 about the possibility of a landfill search, saying, "We had to suffer through Christmas knowing AZ has allowed GPD to let my child lay in the dump like she is trash. This confirms it. If this was a dog they would be [searching].”

Johnson also said, “The police wouldn’t let a dog stay in the trash like that this long.  It just shows they are treating Jhessye like a piece of trash and they have been since day one.”

Police in December said they believed Jhessye's body had been placed in a trash receptacle in Tempe, prior to her reported disappearance on Oct. 11.

"She was taken all the way to the city of Tempe, not alive, and placed in a large trash receptacle. That is ultimately picked up and goes to a transfer station, then removed to a landfill," Coombs said.

Coombs said the trash from that location is eventually taken to Butterfield Landfill south of the Valley.

"We do believe Jhessye is there," he said. "This is an active homicide investigation."