Hunt for Mackenzie Trottier could draw on lessons from earlier landfill searches
Saskatoon police detail techniques in podcast on Kandice Singbeil
The search for Mackenzie Lee Trottier is going to narrow dramatically on Wednesday when the Saskatoon police shift their focus to a section at the city landfill about the size of an NHL hockey rink.
Trottier's parents last saw their 22-year-old daughter four days before Christmas 2020 in Saskatoon when she left the house and hopped in a ride-hailing vehicle
Since she was reported missing, the search has extended across the country.
But police said in a news conference earlier this month that this focus changed in late 2023 "when a substantial amount of data was collected which identified a specific area of the landfill."
"Over the course of the investigation there were several devices that were seized, and extraction of information from those devices has led us to the point where we are confident in the location that we're searching," deputy chief Cameron McBride said.
Why police are confident about the location, and exactly how they'll do the search, could be laid out in detail in Episode 4 of the Deals, Debts and Death podcast created by senior members of the police communications team.
The podcast, released in December 2023, outlines the search for another missing woman, Kandice Singbeil, a 32-year-old mother who vanished in 2015 from downtown Saskatoon.
At one point, police believed she may have been killed and her body placed in a downtown dumpster, eventually ending up in a private landfill outside the city.
It proved not to be the case, but the episode detailed how police approach the daunting task of sifting through debris at the sprawling landfill.
The science of searches
The landfill search for Singbeil benefitted from a decision by the city back in May 2014.
It announced an ambitious plan to spend $1.2 million to put barcodes on 66,000 black garbage bins. Each barcode linked the cart to an address.
The project also included equipping garbage trucks with real-time GPS and cameras.
This meant the city could determine exactly when and where garbage was picked up, and where it ended up at the landfill.
In the podcast, Det. Sgt. Tyson Lavallee described how police came across a concerning piece of video a week into the 2015 Singbeil investigation. At the time, they were focusing on videos from cameras in an area near a downtown apartment building.
"One of those videos included a view in the back alley behind the Traveller's Block. And, at one point during that week, we became aware of a person in the back alley appearing to carry something large in a white sheet … and throw it into a dumpster," Lavallee said.
"If there was any possibility that Kandice was under that sheet, investigators soon realized … they're going to have to search a landfill."
Thanks to the GPS and cameras, police could pinpoint where the bin was picked up, and approximately where it ended up at the landfill. This system is used by the city dump, and the private landfill.
"I know exactly on that cliff face, where he dumped," he said.
"So, that turned something that is the size of a football field to something that is maybe closer to, I don't know, a tennis court."
Lavallee said police then put together the search team.
"World-renowned forensic anthropologist Dr. Ernie Walker agreed to offer his services and expertise. He had experience seeking out and identifying human remains during a 2010 Saskatoon landfill search, and in 2002, he was involved in a massive land search during the high-profile Robert Pickton case out of Port Coquitlam, B.C.," Lavallee said.
"Cadaver dog teams from the Calgary Police Service were acquired to help."
A command post from the province to serve as home base was brought in, and 20-person teams from the Saskatoon Police Service's public safety unit were organized to physically search for Singbeil.
The police service's forensic identification unit was on hand to take samples and document evidence.
Still a missing-person search
The search for Mackenzie Lee Trottier mirrors the search for Kandice Singbeil.
In Singbeil's case, the downtown surveillance video sent police to the landfill. Data on seized devices are sending police to the landfill to look for Trottier.
In both instances, the GPS information significantly narrowed the search area.
In their most recent news release, police say they'll allocate their own officers but also draw dogs from the RCMP and Calgary Police Service.
And, once again, police will be using forensic anthropologist Ernie Walker.
Trottier's parents Paul and Gina were at the most recent news conference. They spoke of their hopes and fears and how, said Paul, "We've been waiting 1,215 days to hear her voice again."
Deputy chief McBride said police are not giving up hope.
"On one hand we would like to find nothing and then we'll continue looking," McBride said.
"On the other hand, we may find her and then we'll proceed down the next course of the investigation. I must stress that Mackenzie is still considered a missing person and will be until we have direct information otherwise."
Police say they've set aside the entire month of May for the landfill search.
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