A MACABRE police search for the body of a missing Huddersfield woman will continue next week.
And the hunt for any evidence of Sarah Elizabeth Mournian could be pain-stakingly slow at a waste tip near York.
Although Kevin Newton has been charged with murdering 32-year-old Sarah, her body has not been found.
Newton, of Grisedale Avenue, Birkby, has been remanded in custody awaiting trial.
Officers arrived in force at a landfill site at Rufforth near York on Monday morning and have been carrying out an intensive search there since then.
The 125-acre site, operated by North Yorkshire recycling and waste management company Yorwaste, is called Harewood Whin and is next to Rufforth Airfield on the B1224 York to Wetherby Road.
A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said officers would probably be there this week and into next.
Yorwaste recycling and external affairs manager John Miller said: “The police are still on site. They started excavating on Wednesday, but they have just done trial holes.
“It is going to be slow progress. The original plan was that we were going to help, but they have hired their own machine driver.
“As far as results or timescales are concerned we have not heard anything so far. They may still be sorting out and discussing the ways and means.
“They have said they would like to basically excavate small areas at a time, take the material to one side, almost like a quarantine, and sift through it.”
The investigation is being carried out by detectives from West Yorkshire Police’s Homicide and Major Enquiry Team.
It is being led by Det Supt Andy Brennan.
Officers from West Yorkshire are travelling to York each day to take part in the search.
Sarah was last seen alive in Huddersfield on September 18 last year.
