The search of a San Antonio, Texas, landfill for the remains of baby Gabriel Johnson was called off today after investigators were unable to find any clues suggesting the baby was there.
Authorities spent 16 days combing through 4,200 tons of trash at the Tessman Road Landfill, where they believed the remains of the baby might be.
San Antonio police believed the body of the baby might be in the landfill because of text-messages the baby's mother, Elizabeth Johnson, sent to the baby's father, Logan McQueary, saying she had killed Gabriel in a San Antonio motel.
In one of the texts, Johnson tells McQueary she would e-mail McQueary "the exact location of dead Gabriel's little blue body, if the garbage don't come first."
Johnson said she put Gabriel's dead body in a diaper bag, which happened to be one of Gabriel's only possessions not found by police in the hotel room where the baby was last seen alive.
Police are viewing the failed recovery at the landfill as a "bittersweet conclusion."
"The good news is, we have no homicide at this point," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said at a press conference this afternoon, My San Antonio reports. "The bad news is, the case remains open."
