Bre McAdam
Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Speaking at a news conference at Saskatoon police headquarters, Paul Trottier emotionally thanked the 44 officers who searched the city’s landfill for three months through rain, wind and extreme heat to find his missing daughter Mackenzie Lee Trottier.
Many of those members attended Tuesday’s announcement that her remains were partially found on July 30, and fully recovered on Aug. 1.
An autopsy found her cause of death to be “undetermined” and the Saskatchewan Coroners Service is investigating.
“Today, we have the answers we were searching for,” Paul said.
“Mackenzie is home. Thank you everyone for that.”
The landfill search, which began on May 1, was initially planned to last a month. It was extended at the end of that month.
“This is one of the best examples of a large-scale search that I’ve been involved in in 40 years,” Saskatchewan’s forensic anthropologist, Dr. Ernie Walker, told the packed room.
“I really want to again thank my colleagues — and they are my colleagues — because whether you like it or not, the Saskatoon police service now has more experience in this kind of operation than any other unit I can think of in the country, and maybe even in North America.”
Mackenzie, 22, was last seen leaving her family’s home in Saskatoon’s East College Park neighbourhood on Dec. 21, 2020. For nearly four years, little else was released publicly about where she might have gone or who was involved.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Staff Sgt. Corey Lenius said it’s believed Mackenzie was at a home in the 1300 block of Avenue B North (the Mayfair neighbourhood) — “a place where she frequented with the suspect” — before she died.
“One person had always stood out as being involved in Mackenzie’s disappearance,” Lenius said.
The male suspect died of a drug overdose in December 2023, “before investigators could obtain the evidence required to prove their involvement.”
Police said they will not release his name, age or relationship to Mackenzie. In 2021, a photo was released of a man believed to have information in her disappearance. Police confirmed he is not the suspect.
“We can’t lay charges on someone who is deceased, so therefore I don’t think we would ever disclose the name,” Lenius said. Evidence recovered from his cellphone led to the search of a specific area of the landfill, Lenius said. While police had access to the suspect’s electronic data before his death, they executed a warrant for a further search in December 2023.
A new, tech-savvy investigator who became involved in the case looked at the data and concluded they could access more, Lenius said.
The data showed the suspect had been searching for the next garbage pickup date for the Avenue B North address.
Based on that information, police used GPS coordinates to track the garbage truck that picked up the bins from the specific block to where it unloaded at the lan Police then conducted a targeted search through approximately 5,000 tonnes of debris in an area that began as 930 cubic metres of material and expanded as the search went on, Lenius said.
Landfill searches are extremely complicated and rarely successful, Walker said. Loads don’t always stay where they were initially dumped, as heavy equipment can push garbage around to try to even it out, he noted.
“We know the surface area we’re looking at; what we didn’t know was the depth, and it varies.”
This case was unique because of the way garbage disposal is handled in Saskatoon, Walker said.
During what he called a “meticulous” search, Walker said officers showed him any items that were potentially important, including thousands of bone fragments.
Chief Cam McBride said the projected cost of the search is around $1.5 million.
According to police, the investigation is concluded and there are no other suspects.
