Here are some generalities about the search. All are my opinion, based on years of experience:
(1) Many searches conducted by LE are done out of simple application of good sense. If the spouse of a missing person is a gravedigger, LE would certainly want to examine the work that he did in his cemetery during the appropriate time. LE doesn't need a giant "Aha!" moment to get a search warrant. They need to use common sense and gauge their application for a warrant accordingly.
(2) Property owners rarely hire workers directly, and have nothing to do with the scheduling. The owner deals with a general contractor, who in turn sub-contracts with firms of the trade, who then again sub-contract labor to independent workmen.
(3) Colorado recognizes that building conditions are radically different in the mountains, and therefore has a separate method of applying National Building codes to what is commonly called "mountain construction". It is useless to sit as I do in Montana, and say: "Gee, I've never seen that before and I know my codes. What we see can't be right. It's against code."
Now, within those parameters, my further opinion is:
(a) The sight appears to be flat in some pictures, but when you study it, there is a steep slope down to the river's edge. When you look at the pictures taken by news people with telephoto lenses from across the river, it becomes obvious that there is fill dirt mounded very high between the lower part of the house and the river. In one picture of LE sifting dirt under the canopy and there is a mound of dirt in the foreground......that is a telephoto shot from across the river. What you see is only the very top of a large mounding of dirt below the level where LE is located.
(b) When I look at the overall array of concrete, It is going to be a multi faceted, rambling structure. When I look for utility stubs, etc. I don't see ones that I would associate with a house. If you were to tell me it's going to be a restaurant, I would believe you. That hole where the canopy was erected does not look to me like it was cut by LE yesterday. It looks like it was part of the concrete pour..........for a void in the structure for architectural effect or for a more utilitarian purpose, like a sump well for to prevent seepage from the river in high water events. My point is that I don't know what it is.
(c) My rough guess of how much concrete has been poured so far is a minimum of ten full truckloads. That wasn't all done in a day.
(d) At no time does any version of the building code allow structural concrete to be poured over fresh backfill, even freshly compacted backfill. Being a river bank site, the rock base was probably not deep. A bulldozer was probably used to level up the site and remove the topsoil to expose the base, then the pads were poured and THEN a landscaper would have come in to backfill to the pad edges and contour the property. It appears to me that the landscaper was about half done with that job.
Conclusion: In a recent prominent case on WS, there were pages and pages of debate over what LE's purpose was in sifting through a large landfill for weeks. I posted before they even started that I believed that when LE ran out of other places to look, they had to do it. They wouldn't have been doing their job if they didn't try it. As samples went into their mobile lab, speculation as to each piece's effect on the case was rampant. When the actual trial was held, the landfill search was never mentioned. Not one shred of usable evidence, but the absence of landfill evidence certainly contributed to proving a theory of body disposal that I certainly never saw coming. Having been once burnt, I am prone to sit back and let this thing unfold on it's own schedule. IMO
