Officials call off search for baby

By VIANNA DAVILA

SAN ANTONIO — Nearly three months after Arizona baby Gabriel Johnson went missing, San Antonio police called off the landfill search for his remains after finding no evidence of foul play, Police Chief William McManus said Friday afternoon.

“The good news is, we have no homicide at this point,” McManus said at a news conference. “The bad news is the case remains open.”

Law enforcement authorities, with the help of countless volunteers, searched through 4,260 tons of trash and debris over 16 days at a San Antonio landfill.

But since the excavation originally began Feb. 9, McManus said, authorities have “found no evidence of a homicide,” or anything related to the baby, who was 8 months old when he went missing in December.

McManus said the baby's mother, Elizabeth Johnson, refuses to cooperate with authorities.

The landfill area was targeted because authorities believed debris at the dump site may have come from a trash bin at a hotel where Elizabeth Johnson had resided.

Gabriel was last seen with Johnson Dec. 26, shortly after the young mother arrived here from Arizona. Gabriel's father, Logan McQueary, has said Johnson texted him the next day that she had killed the baby and later told him she put the baby in the trash.

Johnson then went to Florida, where she was arrested Dec. 30 on kidnapping, child abuse and custodial interference charges. She has since been extradited back to Arizona.

Authorities have contacted McQueary to notify him of the search's end.