Police to search landfill for baby's body

SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Police in San Antonio say they plan to search a landfill for the body of a 9-month-old boy who vanished the day after Christmas.

Gabriel Johnson's disappearance now is being investigated as a homicide, rather than a missing person's case, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said Saturday at a news conference.

McManus did not say what caused police to reclassify the case.

The baby last was seen with his mother, Elizabeth Johnson, who was charged with kidnapping, child abuse and custodial interference.

Johnson allegedly told the boy's father Logan McQueary of Tempe, Ariz., that she killed Gabriel, put him in a diaper bag and threw it in a San Antonio trash bin, police said. She later told a television station she gave the boy to a couple at a San Antonio park.

Police said they planned to search San Antonio's Tessman Road landfill as soon as heavy rain let up, the San Antonio Express-News reported Sunday.

"Hopefully nothing will turn up in the landfill," McManus said. "Hopefully we'll find him alive."