OREGON CITY, Ore., Aug. 24 (UPI) -- What was anticipated to be a slow and methodical search of suspect Ward Weaver's suburban Portland, Oregon home in the first hours Saturday yielded results with the discovery of human remains believed to be those of one of two young girls who disappeared from the area last winter.
Oregon City police and the FBI announced late Saturday afternoon that what appeared to be a body had been discovered in a shed in the yard of the single-story house Weaver had been renting not far from the apartment complex where Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis went missing last winter.
"We have discovered what appears to be human remains in the outbuilding behind the house," Oregon City Police Chief Gordon Hurias told reporters. "The medical examiner has responded to the scene; we do not know what remains these are."
Although Hurias said it would be several days until the remains were identified, they were thought to likely be those of one of the two missing 13-year-old girls who were neighbors and classmates at a nearby middle school.
Ashley disappeared on Jan. 8 as she headed to catch her school bus. Gaddis vanished in a virtually identical fashion on March 9.
"We were told to go home to our daughters (the girls' mothers) and to be with them right now," Ashley's grandfather, Don Martin, told television station KATU as he attempted to remain stoic. Nonetheless, tears escaped down his cheeks as he and other relatives left the scene outside Weaver's home.
Earlier in the day, crime-scene technicians set up shop Saturday at the home of Weaver, a self-described suspect in the baffling disappearances. He was arrested Aug. 13 for allegedly raping his own son's 19-year-old girlfriend. He was being held on $1 million bond although he denied having anything to do with the disappearances.
Weaver's son, Francis,19, told police when he reported the alleged attack on his girlfriend that his father had admitted to him that he had murdered the two missing girls and had been getting ready to skip town and move to Mexico.
FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele told reporters that investigators had gotten their ducks in a row to the point that they were ready to begin a complete inch-by-inch search of the 1,200 square-feet of property, presumably including a cement slab Weaver said he laid as a foundation for a hot tub about the time the girls went missing.
A city work crew arrived at the home on South Beavercreek Road Saturday afternoon with a cement saw and jackhammer to dig up the ominous cement slab. FBI Special Agent Charles Mathews said imaging equipment would be used Sunday, if necessary, to search for signs of more remains buried in the yard.
Mathews said "quite a bit" of the property remained to be searched.
"The primary search was focused on the shed," he said without revealing what, if any, information the task force had that led them to zero in on the shed.
The search began Saturday morning after tents and a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire were erected on the property, and a trio of tracking dogs trained to find both living and deceased victims were released in the yard. After the dogs -- a Labrador retriever, a German shepherd and a golden retriever -- completed their hunt for scents on the brown, dead lawn, evidence vans from the Oregon State Police and FBI were brought in to begin the human end of the search, which was being carried out by about 40 investigators from the FBI, state police and Oregon City Police Department.
"We'll be searching every inch of the property over the course of the next few days," Tents are in place as well as the fence as security measures," Steele said. "The investigation as well as the search itself is very sensitive and it's important to protect the investigation if this case ever goes to prosecution."
Weaver, 39, quickly came to the attention of authorities because of his criminal record and frequent domestic violence calls at the house. In a June interview with The Oregonian, Weaver stated candidly that he knew Ashley personally because she was a friend of his daughter's, and that he was considered a suspect in the case, although he denied having anything to do with the disappearances.
According to Steele, the FBI does not consider individuals to be suspects until they are formally charged with a crime, but Weaver's background holds some alleged unsavory and chilling details.
Steele declined to say why a 40-officer team of FBI, Oregon City and state police investigators had decided to search the property at this time, but earlier media reports said that they were waiting for Weaver to be formally evicted so that a warrant would not be needed to enter the vacant residence.
(Reported by Hil Anderson in Los Angeles)
