Missing Quinton Simon: Chatham County investigators search landfill
Georgia police officials said Tuesday they had reason to believe Quinton Simon's body was discarded in a "specific dumpster" and transported to a local landfill by "regular means."
EXCLUSIVE DETAILS: Georgia authorities and the FBI initially focused on a specific set of trailer park dumpsters in their search for Quinton Simon's remains – and police now say the likelihood of locating the boy's body is slim, Fox News Digital has learned.
The one-year-old vanished Oct. 5. Detectives believe he is dead, and they named his mother, Leilani Simon, 22, as the prime suspect.
As the investigation enters its second month, authorities are now saying that they may never recover little Quinton's body.
Chatham County Police Chief Jeff Hadley said at an Oct. 13 press conference that they believe Quinton's remains were discarded in a "specific dumpster at a specific location" and taken by "regular means" to the Waste Management landfill.
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Little Quinton Simon went missing in Savannah, Georgia, Oct. 5 and his mother, Leilani Simon, remains the prime suspect in his death. Police and the FBI conducted an exhaustive search of these dumpsters at the Azalea Mobile Home Plaza near Simon's home. (Facebook/Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
For the last two weeks police and FBI agents have scoured the landfill without success in a search that may have started at the Azalea Mobile Home Plaza in Savannah, Fox News Digital has learned.
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Within 48 hours of Simon reporting her son missing, more than a dozen police officers and FBI agents descended on the trailer park, which has about 200 homes.
General view of the Azalea Mobile Home Plaza in Savannah, Georgia, on Friday, October 28, 2022. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
Residents told Fox News Digital that FBI agents knocked on almost every door and showed them photos of Simon, Quinton, and his grandmother Billie Jo Howell and three other people. They also asked the locals whether they had seen a particular car. The park is 2.8 miles from Simon's home.
Janene Hawkins, who has lived at Azalea since 1997, said three male FBI agents and one female questioned her and a neighbor.
MISSING GEORGIA TODDLER QUINTON SIMON LIKELY DEAD; POLICE NAME MOTHER AS 'PRIME SUSPECT'
"They showed us the pictures of the adults and the baby, and they asked us if we seen the people, if we know these people," she recalled. "They asked me if I’d seen anybody dumping big stuff down in the dumpster."
Leilani Simon, mother of Quinton Simon, posing for an undated photo. (Chatham County Police Department/ Facebook)
There are five large green dumpsters at the edge of the trailer park. Sanitation picks up the refuse three time a week and dumps it at the Waste Management landfill.
Four other residents told Fox News Digital that they had been interviewed by the FBI and asked similar questions.
Another resident, Shannon Teal, said she had returned from a month-long stay at the hospital 36 hours after Quinton's disappearance, and the complex was swarming with FBI agents and police at that time.
A Google map shows that the Azalea Mobile Home Plaza, where police have searched for little Quinton Simon's remains, is 2.8 miles from the home of Leilani Simon. (Google maps)
Her home faces the dumpsters and has a camera affixed to the roof, owned by the management company. The camera is trained on the dumpsters to deter illegal dumping.
"Chatham County and the FBI had been out here looking through our dumpsters and was trying to obtain video from the camera, but my WiFi was down, and they couldn't pull any video off it," she said.
"It's terrifying, and it just scares the crap out of me that someone would hurt a baby and leave it here," she added.
Investigators continued searching for Quinton Simon's remains Wednesday at the Chatham County Waste Management landfill, as a photo of the missing child watched over them. (FBI)
After investigators wrapped up the Azalea probe, the management office posted "No Trespassing" signs at the entrance to the property, residents said.
The Chatham County Police Department referred Fox News Digital to the FBI for comment. The agency didn't immediately respond.
MISSING GEORGIA TODDLER QUINTON SIMON: POLICE LINK BABY TO ‘SPECIFIC DUMPSTER,’ PORTION OF LANDFILL
The toddler's babysitter, Diana McCarta, told Fox News Digital that she believes the child may have accidentally drowned in the family's pool.
Missing Georgia boy Quinton Simon with his grandmother, Billie Jo Howell, who had custody of him when he vanished. (Facebook)
In a statement Wednesday, Chatham Police called the landfill search "more grueling than anyone could imagine."
"We knew going into this landfill search, the odds of recovering Quinton's remains were low," the department wrote. "Most landfill searches do not end in a recovery due to many factors including volume of trash to search and compression of the debris, however, we stay focused."
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The statement said that Simon remains the sole suspect in her son's death.
Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.
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