ROANOKE - It's an image police and an entire community won't forget. "If Aveion was brought to landfill we will find it," said Roanoke Police Captain Greg Staples.
Four train car loads of trash, 25 people going through it with garden rakes looking for the body of a little boy on the day he would have turned three. "It's very emotional to think today of all days Aveion would have turned three that we are searching a landfill for someone who should be enjoying birthday cake with their friends," Staples said.
Roanoke detectives Holly Willoughby and April McCadden had a feeling something wasn't right when they answered the call Aveion Lewis was abducted. "I had a feeling it was going to be something that needed additional manpower," Willoughby remembered.
Her feeling was right. Police say Aveion's step-father told them three men beat him up and took the little boy. But, it was a lie. Aveion was dead before the 911 call was ever made. It was heartbreak for the people hoping he'd be found alive.
"It was difficult. It was very difficult," she said. "I guess it was searching for him... I always felt like we were going to find him."
But there was also relief. "I think the finding of Aveion was a relief to a lot of people in the community because we could put him to rest," said McCadden.
Willoughby agreed. "That was very difficult. As a mother you can't imagine how somebody could think so little of a child as to throw it in the garbage," she said.
The image is far from complete. Investigators now have to follow the two people charged in Aveion's case head to court.
The Roanoke Police Department will be honored at our Celebration of Heroes breakfast March 31st.
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