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Authorities end search of landfill for 6-month-old boy’s remains

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Police have called off the search of a massive landfill in Corona where they suspect the body of a 6-month-old boy is buried.

Culver City police said Monday that despite an intensive three-month investigation, they were unable to narrow a location within the El Sobrante Landfill where they suspect the remains of Jacsun Manson are.

Jacsun’s parents — Adam Manson, 34, and Kiana Williams, 32 — have been charged with one count each of child abuse resulting in the infant’s death. They have pleaded not guilty, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court records.

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Prosecutors allege Manson and Williams were doing drugs while staying in a South Los Angeles motel with their baby son on New Year’s Eve when they found their child dead.

They placed the boy’s body in a suitcase and tossed it in a dumpster near the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza mall in Los Angeles, prosecutors said.

The parents were arrested Jan. 3 on suspicion of vehicle theft, and Jacsun was not with them at the time. Police began looking for the boy on Jan. 25 after he was reported missing by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.

Manson and Williams remain behind bars in lieu of $5 million bail. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of 10 years in state prison, according to the district attorney’s office.

Police said in a statement that they made the decision to end the search for Jacsun with a “heavy heart,” but noted they couldn’t pinpoint a location within the landfill “to a point that would make continuing the search reasonable.”

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Authorities brought out cadaver dogs early in the search but quickly discovered how challenging it would be to find the infant’s body in a massive landfill.

“There’s no way we could even pinpoint a place to start,” said Culver City police Lt. Troy Dunlap, adding that more than a month’s worth of trash had been piled up before authorities learned the boy’s body was likely there.

Police consulted with experts from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Waste Management before deciding to suspend the search.

“This case definitely hit home for a lot of parents here at the Police Department,” Dunlap said. “Everyone wanted to recover the body to provide some final closure to the family.”

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @Hannahnfry

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