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Highlands Today

Landfill Search For Baby Shut Down

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By Joe  Seelig | Highlands Today

Published: December 6, 2007

SEBRING — The Highlands County Sheriff's Office and other local officials decided Thursday to call off the landfill search for a baby or fetus disposed of into the trash by a Lake Placid woman.

Sheriff's Maj. Mark Schrader said late Wednesday the search had been pretty much "shut down at 4 p.m."

"It would be limited to "minimal personnel;" he said, "about two or three people."
However, by Thursday, sheriff's Capt. Randy LaBelle said the search was over with nothing new being found.

For more than a week teams of cadaver dogs from many surrounding counties worked closely with the sheriff's office, landfill staff and volunteers, looking for the baby reportedly had by Silvia Zanchez, at her Sarasota Street home, on Nov. 23.

No more dogs would be employed in the landfill search, Schrader said.

Schrader said he was limited on what he could discuss, but no body had been found.

This week Zanchez was charged with identity theft and unauthorized possession of an identification card, regarding her employment at Lake County Farms, and her being in the country illegally. Both charges are third-degree felonies.

She had not yet been charged in connection with the possible illegal disposal of human remains.
"Charges will be forthcoming," Schrader said. "We're coordinating that with the state attorney's office in regard to a death investigation."

The major part of the search is over but detectives are still diligently working on the investigation side of it, Schrader said.

Zanchez had bail set at $150,000 but was being held for immigration officials because of her illegal alien status.

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