Crews Search Landfill in Case of Missing Boy

Yavapai County Sheriff personnel and FBI forensic investigators search a land fill near Dewey, Arizona for clues in the disappearance of Sylar Newton. (Image source: YCSO)

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona authorities searching for a toddler missing for a week have been combing through a landfill in hopes of finding some evidence that will lead to the boy and in fear that they might find him dead.

Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said Saturday that deputies, FBI agents and forensic specialists have looked through 200 tons of waste material at the Gray Wolf Landfill for anything that might help them find 2-year-old Sylar Newton. They plan to look through more next week.

So far, no evidence related to the case has been found at the landfill.

Sylar and family members were camping July 25 at the Beaver Creek Campground in Rimrock, about 40 miles south of Flagstaff, when Sylar was reported missing.

Deputies were still searching for him Saturday, looking for evidence at the landfill and investigating family members. No suspects have been named.

D’Evelyn said there are custodial issues involving the boy, his adoptive family and the boy’s biological mother, and that some of them have taken lie-detector tests. He did not know the results of those tests.

He said the possibility that a wild animal may have gotten to Sylar was ruled out after a tracker with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service searched the area surrounding the campground, found no evidence of large predatory animals and said that such an attack would have left a lot of blood behind.

Searchers, with the help of bloodhounds, aircraft and sonar gear, have conducted repeated grid searches of the campground, a rough area with lots of brush and rocks and some nearby waterways.

“It’s been a tough go,” D’Evelyn said. “The frustration is just not being able to find this little boy.”