After sifting through 3.6 million pounds of trash at a South Georgia landfill over the past week, the FBI and Nassau County Sheriff's Office said Friday they found several items of interest in the disappearance of Joleen Cummings.
Our News4Jax partner reports Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said the search of the Chesser Island Landfill would end at the end of the day, believing they have found the only relevant evidence they were likely to find. The items found would be sent to a lab for analysis.
He described the search conditions as brutal, with teams working with respirators as heat-index temperatures reached 116 degrees. Medical personnel on site treated some of the searchers for heat exhaustion.
Leeper said they have evidence showing that Kimberly Kessler, a co-worker of Cummings, knows where her body is located. Kessler, who was arrested driving Cummings' stolen SUV, is sitting in the Duval County jail and not cooperating with investigators.
Cummings disappeared two months ago and was last seen the evening before Mother's Day.
The landfill search was prompted by surveillance video showing a trash bag dumped by Cummings' former coworker, Kimberly Kessler, who Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper has called a suspect in the case. That video was recorded about the time of Cummings' disappearance.
Kessler has been charged with stealing Cummings' SUV and is being held in the Duval County jail.
Leeper said they waited to search the landfill because they wanted to exhaust other leads first.
You can read a longer version of this story on News4Jax.com.
