Each year, countless people are reported missing in the United States. In some of those cases, investigators determine the person may have been murdered — even when a body is never found. 

Here are some of the more well-known Arizona cases of landfill searches for missing bodies, and criminal murder cases in which the victim was never found: 

Christine Mustafa

When: 2017.

Where: Phoenix.

Phoenix mother of two Christine Mustafa was last seen in 2017. She was reported missing after not showing up to work for the first time in her 13 years of employment at Walgreens. 

Police searched for Mustafa’s body for nearly three months in a Buckeye landfill. However, her body was never found.

Prosecutors believe Robert Interval Jr., her boyfriend and father of her youngest child, murdered Mustafa to gain custody of their baby. Interval was convicted of second-degree murder.

RELATED: Trial without a body: Man accused of killing girlfriend found guilty

Jhessye Shockley

When: 2011.

Where: Glendale.

Jerice Hunter reported her 5-year-old daughter, Jhessye Shockley, missing in 2011 after she said she left their Glendale apartment for a brief errand and could not find her when she returned. 

Police suspected Hunter killed Jhessye and threw her body in the trash before reporting her missing. Police searched the Butterfield Station Landfill but could not find the child’s body. 

Hunter in 2015 was sentenced to natural life in prison for first-degree murder.

Brad Hansen

When: 1995.

Where: Ahwatukee.

Jeremy Bach, who was 13 at the time, told police he accidentally shot Brad Hansen, who was also 13. 

Law enforcement searched for Hansen’s body for two months in the Butterfield Station Landfill. The search cost nearly $100,000. 

Bach was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 22 years in prison. He was released in 2018. 

Cookie Jacobson

When: 1998.

Where: Tempe.

Cookie Jacobson’s husband reported her missing after returning home and finding her gone. Her son, 16 at the time, told police he found his 49-year-old mom dead in bed. Afraid he would be blamed, he told police he and his 13-year-old sister dumped her body into a garbage can. 

Police searched the Butterfield Station Landfill for two months, but her body was never found.

The two teens were arrested, but the case never went to trial and no one was ever charged in Jacobson’s death.

Brian Bleyl

When: 1981.

Where: Phoenix.

Brian Bleyl, 12, disappeared in 1981 while on his Phoenix newspaper route. His body was never found. 

Stephen Wilson was arrested in 1989 a year after police re-opened the case due to new information. During trial, witnesses claimed Wilson admitted to killing the child. 

A jury acquitted Wilson, saying the confessions to the witnesses presented during trial were not convincing and not enough for them to convict Wilson of murder. 

Charles Russell and Catherine Nelson

When: 2002.

Where: Tucson.

Phoenix couple Charles Russell and Catherine Nelson were reported missing in 2002 after they drove to Tuscon to buy a motorcycle and never returned home. Police found their truck outside of Tucson within a week of their disappearance, but could not find the couple. 

Brian Ferry was arrested for their murders in 2012 after police reopened the case.

A jury found him guilty but he was found dead in his Pima County jail cell a month later while awaiting sentencing. 

Baby Gabriel

When: 2009.

Where: Tempe.

Elizabeth Johnson left her Tempe house with her 8-month-old son Gabriel in 2009 to go to Texas. 

According to law enforcement, Johnson told her son’s father that she suffocated the baby and threw him in a trash bin in Texas. The baby’s body was not found after a landfill search. 

Johnson was arrested in Florida and extradited back to Arizona. However, she then told law enforcement that she gave her son to a couple in Texas but never identified them. 

She was sentenced in 2012 for unlawful imprisonment, custodial interference and conspiracy to commit custodial interference. She was released in 2014. 

Republic reporter Garrett Mitchell contributed to this article.

Have thoughts on Arizona’s legal system? Reach criminal justice reporter Lauren Castle at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Lauren_Castle. 

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