JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Police confirmed Wednesday that investigators are searching the Trail Ridge Landfill for evidence in the disappearance and possible murder of a 22-year-old woman.
Family and friends of Brittany Foote said that she went missing March 18 after moving to Jacksonville last summer from Maryland.
Detectives have been meticulously searching the Trail Ridge Landfill near Maxville for clues in her disappearance. A backhoe picked up garbage and spread it out so detectives could search through it.
"She needs to be found. She does not deserve to be back in that dumpster -- human trash," said Suzetta Christensen, Foote's friend. "She needs to get out of there."
Foote was living with her boyfriend, 29-year-old Courtney Lamar Davis, who was arrested last Thursday evening on charges of possession of a firearm by an out-of-state felon. Court records say the arrest stemmed from an incident on March 21. Davis has not been charged in Foote's disappearance.
But Foote's family believes that Davis might know something about where Foote is.
"The police then got in touch with my family. Supposedly Courtney had a cousin with him. His cousin claimed Brittany and Courtney were arguing and he heard two gunshots in the bedroom," one of Foote's family members said.
Davis (pictured below) was not in jail Wednesday afternoon, but was listed as in the hospital under guard. Police did not say which hospital, why he was hospitalized or when he was admitted.
In response to the family's fears of foul play, JSO released a statement that authorities are looking into the accusations brought forth by the family.
JSO also recently searched a dumpster on Dunn Avenue, but investigators, unable to find anything, turned their attention to the landfill.
Similar searches at landfills have become vital in uncovering evidence.
In 2009, 7-year-old Somer Thompson's body was found in a Georgia landfill after her disappearance in Orange Park because of quick thinking by Clay County detective Bruce Owens.
"Time was of the essence," Owens said. "I knew that Tuesday morning collection was being conducted by outside companies that are contractors in the county, and if a truck was seen, then it would probably be best to go ahead and follow it to the next location, so they could search it, or follow it to the landfill, so they could isolate it from the normal dump … and so they would have the opportunity to search."
Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler said that without Owens' quick thinking, the child's body likely never would have been found.
In 2004, JSO searched another Georgia landfill for the body of a murdered baby, but that search came up empty.