A Texas search and rescue team began Monday searching an eight-foot-deep landfill the size of a football field to find a missing two-year-old girl whose father was discovered by a dumpster carrying a stroller.
Nadia Lee was last seen at her father’s home in Pasadena, Texas, on October 15 before her father Jyron Charles Lee, 26, was caught on surveillance footage pushing a stroller around a dumpster, authorities said.
Nadia’s disappearance is being treated as a homicide by the Houston Police Department. Authorities say Jyron took Nadia out of foster care on October 14.
He has since been arrested and charged with murdering his wife and Nadia’s mother, Nancy Reed, 22, by strangling them in a hotel room in Clear Lake, Houston.
The operation to search the landfill in the coastal town of Alvin will be carried out by EquuSearch, a Houston-based search and recovery group that will use two chain hoes and a bulldozer, its founder Tom Miller told local news outlet KHOU.
Miller – who founded EquuSearch in 2000 after his daughter Laura Miller was kidnapped in 1984 at the age of 16 – said his team will consist of “18 people who will literally cut open every pocket”.
A spokesman for the Houston Police Department confirmed Wednesday that the search is ongoing and that no additional charges have yet been served on Jyron.
Nadia Lee, 2, was last seen at her father’s home on October 15. On October 21, Houston police said they were treating her disappearance as a homicide
Jyron Charles Lee, 26, is Nadia’s father. He was arrested by Houston police and charged with the murder of his wife and Nadia’s mother, Nancy Reed, 22
The landfill in Alvin, Texas is the size of a football field and 8 feet deep. Each bag will be opened, the Texas search team said
Jyron and Reed had five children together, family members told ABC13. The outlet reported that two of those children were present at the incident in which their mother was strangled.
The argument arose over the way Reed disciplined her other child, the Houston Chronicle reported.
On Monday, Jyron remained in the Harris County Jail on $250,000 bail and police said he may face additional charges over the disappearance of his daughter Nadia.
“It’s heartbreaking. It really is,” Nadia’s grandmother, Nora Reed, told ABC13. “My heart is breaking in half. I just hope we find the baby, we find Nadia.’
‘Why would he do such a thing and why would he do it in front of his children?’ She added. “My heart is just broken.”
The Houston Police Department works with EquuSearch, which was founded by Tom Miller in 2000 after his daughter Laura Miller was kidnapped in 1984 when she was 16
In an Oct. 21 news conference, Houston police said they would treat Nadia’s disappearance as a homicide.
Miller said that Jyron checked Nadia out of foster care on October 14 and never brought her back.
He said Jyron claims the child was with him at his apartment on October 16 when he was taking out the trash, but when he returned the child was gone.
Miller said during the conference that his team spent hours last month searching a bayou and wooded area near Jyron’s home.
“We obtained intelligence as well as physical evidence and digital forensic evidence to determine foul play was involved,” HPD Sergeant Blake Roberts said.
He also said authorities collected DNA from Lee’s home.
Investigators believe the 2-year-old was killed at Charles’s apartment and then moved, ABC13 sources said.
Miller said during the conference that his team spent hours last month searching a bayou and wooded area near Jyron’s home
“I don’t think this will result in a positive outcome that we would like,” Miller said during the conference. “One of my biggest fears is that there might not be a result.”
It is currently unclear to what extent Jyron, who is in custody, is cooperating with the search.
Last week his defense attorney Porscha Brown asked a judge to restrict who can visit him without her permission and include Quanell X, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Quanell X is an activist and leader of the New Black Panther Nation in Houston. He is known for extorting confessions from the accused and for collaborating with law enforcement.
Brown said Quanell X visited the defendant on October 27. The missing child was not mentioned in their files at the court.