Corrie McKeague: Incinerator waste examined in search for missing airman
Police believe his body is still on a landfill site that was searched for 20 weeks, but are turning elsewhere for clues.
Wednesday 2 August 2017 10:26, UK
Detectives searching for missing RAF gunner Corrie McKeague are examining material taken from an incinerator.
Police checked the site at Great Blakenham, near Ipswich, for clues into the serviceman's disappearance.
Mr McKeague, 23, was from Fife but based in Suffolk. He vanished after a night out with friends in Bury St Edumnds on 24 September 2016.
The incinerator investigation was ordered after police believed to have cost £1m in Milton, Cambridgeshire, despite believing the military man's remains are somewhere on the site.
They had sifted through 6,500 tonnes of waste over 20 weeks.
A Suffolk Police spokesman said it "cannot be confirmed" if the material recovered from the incinerator "is in any way linked to Corrie".
They stressed: "Police expected that it would be necessary to take items recovered from the search away from the site in order to examine them more carefully."
An officer leading the case said previously there was "nothing to support any theory other" than Mr McKeague falling asleep in a bin. He had a history of falling asleep in unusual places, including bins.
A waste lorry was seen on CCTV near Brentgovel Street in Bury St Edmunds around the time he was last seen, and it took a route which appeared to coincide with the movements of his phone.
The lorry was initially thought to have collected an 11kg load, but it was later found to be more than 100kg.
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Mr McKeague's girlfriend April Oliver announced in June that the missing serviceman had become a father with the birth of their daughter.