Missing Toronto man's family hopes landfill near London, Ont. is not his final resting place

TORONTO -

Some five months after he was presumed murdered, the search for the body of a Toronto man is taking on a new dimension — an excavation of a southern Ontario landfill that’s expected to take months.

The family of Nathaniel Brettell says they want to know why it took so long to start the search of the Green Lane Landfill near London, but they’re heartened that the Toronto Police will at last be looking.

“He certainly didn’t deserve this ending,” Brettell’s cousin Tom Penwarden told CTV News Toronto.

Brettell, 57, lived with Asperger’s syndrome and other disabilities that made him a target for bullies in his life, Penwarden said.

“I would go so far to say a man who spent most of his life being treated like garbage by many people, that he would have his final resting place be in a garbage dump, that would be the final cruelty that we could not accept,” he said.

That’s what may have happened to Brettell, Toronto Police said Tuesday, adding that they have been granted a search warrant for the Green Lane Landfill site in Southwold.

Brettell went missing in January from his Etobicoke rooming house on Westona Street. Officers looking for him on February 2 were attacked by a man with a butcher’s knife.

“On entering the common area, they were set upon by this male armed with a knife, with no notice at all,” recalled Jon Reid, the president of the Toronto Police Association.

“Fortunately for these officers, they were well-trained and were able to defend themselves and take him into custody,” he said, adding the incident put in sharp focus the dangers that front line officers face.

A 34-year-old man named Ahmed Al-Farkh was charged with attempted murder by the officers. Police found blood in Brettell’s apartment and concluded that he had been murdered — but there was no sign of the body.

Police say they have reason to believe the body is at the landfill, and a judge has evidently agreed by granting the search warrant. Al-Farkh was charged with second-degree murder in Brettell’s case.

CTV News Toronto has confirmed Al-Farkh’s online writings. He describes a life on the “streets of the 6ix seeking harmonious mystic certainty” and recounts his time in the City of Toronto homeless shelters.

Other passages show his aspirations to be among the Freemasons and the Illuminati. His lawyer said he had no comment today.

With so much time passing since the alleged murder, the odds of success of such a search are long, said retired Toronto Police Detective Mark Mendelson.

Each day brings an estimated 50 truckloads of trash to the landfill. The officers’ only hope, he said, is if the facility has clear records.

“If the owners of the landfill were careful as to where refuse was being dumped on certain weeks and days, they may be able to narrow down a number of acres,” Mendelson said.

Penwarden wishes the force had been able to get in sooner.

“I don’t know why it took four months to get in there. Emotionally, the tough part of it is, that every day that goes by may not help us,” he said.

The search of the landfill will begin on July 5, and is expected to take months. A TPS statement indicated it will include multiple units, including the homicide and K9 units. Police are still asking the public for tips.