The family of missing RAF gunner Corrie McKeague is fearing the worst after new details concerning his disappearance emerged.
A bin lorry seen on CCTV around the time the 23-year-old disappeared in Bury St Edmunds has been found to be carrying a much heavier load than initially thought.
Suffolk police said the load was in excess of 100kg, rather than the 11kg initially reported.
McKeague, from Fife, vanished on a night out with friends on 24 September in Bury. He was last seen on CCTV walking into a horseshoe-shaped area in Brentgovel Street, with no sign of him emerging.
His mother, Nicola Urquhart, said the correct weight of the bin that was emptied the night her son went missing could “only mean one thing”.
“I can only pray that Corrie is found quickly and that we are able to get answers as to how this could have happened,” she wrote on a Facebook page titled Find Corrie.
The difference in the lorry’s load weight had prompted police to arrest a 26-year-old man, who was not the driver, on suspicion of perverting the course of justice by misleading officers over the discrepancy. He was bailed on 1 March and told on Tuesday he faced no further action.
Correcting the error had placed a “new emphasis on the search”, according to police.
Officers will continue searching a landfill site in Milton, Cambridgeshire on Wednesday, calling it the “next logical step”.
Forensic examinations previously found no traces of McKeague in the lorry.
Det Supt Katie Elliott said: “We now know the weight of the waste collection from the ‘horseshoe’ on the night Corrie went missing was over 100kg, when the original information we were given indicated that this was 11kg, and this makes our search of the landfill the next logical step to try to find Corrie.
“There was no intention to mislead the investigation,” she said. ”However, our discovery, through persisting with this through our inquiries and evidence-gathering, now puts a new emphasis on the search.”
The search of the landfill site will take six to 10 weeks, covering more than 900 sq metres (1,000 sq yards) up to a depth of 8 metres, police said.
