The eighth week of searching a landfill site in Cambridgeshire for missing RAF serviceman Corrie McKeague could be a crucial one, according to his mother Nicola Urquhart.
The 23-year-old from RAF Honington went missing after a night out in Bury St Edmunds seven months ago and all efforts to discover what happened to him are so far inconclusive.
He was last spotted on CCTV at 3.24am on September 24 entering the horseshoe-shaped area opposite Short Brackland, behind the Greggs and Superdrug businesses.
The current investigation points to the fact he may have ended up in a bin lorry that collected rubbish from the Greggs bakery and took it to the landfill site at Milton.
A large-scale search began on March 6 that has seen officers comb through hundreds of tonnes of landfill.
However, Mrs Urquhart said officers were surprised not to have found Corrie yet as they went straight for the area that was identified as having rubbish from that bin lorry placed there.
However, they are now widening the search area to look at areas nearby where the load from the bin lorry in question is likely to be.
'They were surprised they didn't find him where they were looking before, which is why they're now trying this area. I would say it's quite an important week,' said Mrs Urquhart.
She said she and the police were all confident the search so far has been so thorough Corrie could not have been missed.
'Any bits they've searched up until now I think it's fair to say he's definitely not been in,' she said.
She said this week's search would concentrate on looking further back in the landfill and preparatory work took place on Friday and Monday.
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'They know they're looking for Greggs rubbish and they've not passed Greggs rubbish yet,' Mrs Urquhart said. 'They've found the odd Greggs cup but they've not found what should be a substantial amount of Greggs-branded rubbish.'
She also suggested the search deadline could be extended.
A Suffolk Constabulary spokesman said: 'There is no set end date for the search as it stands. We always said it would take up to 10 weeks and we are regularly reviewing where we are with the search.'
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