I haven’t seen this description of where the 10 dumpsters are plus the search of his apartment in NY.
~snip
Farther south along Interstate 95, The Associated Press (News - Alert) traced the garbage truck’s path through downtown Newark before it headed to the Cherry Island landfill where workers saw Wheeler’s body falling out of the truck as it unloaded. Investigators have said they believe the body was in a bin early in the truck’s run.
The first stop was a bank in College Square shopping center. Two trash bins at the rear of a bank are just yards away from two surveillance cameras and in sight of several storefronts and a heavily traveled road.
Inside one was a pair of white latex gloves, similar to those used by police evidence technicians.
Eddie Baker, 55, and his wife, Traci, 44, said they have been scouring the garbage around the shopping center for the past three weeks looking for moving boxes. Baker said he had not seen anything suspicious, but that he had come across homeless people searching, and sometimes sleeping in, the bins.
From the bank, the truck headed to the library, where the bin is tucked in an alley between the rear of the building and a fence that partitions the alley from nearby homes. A locked chainlink gate prevents through traffic in the alley, and a surveillance camera guards the area, alerting workers to an AP reporter’s presence.
Asked whether staffers had talked to police, a man replied, “Not a lot to talk about, unfortunately,” before the closing the door.
Security cameras and lights overlook bins on the truck’s route behind a Toyota dealership. Those at a McDonald’s are in plain sight of a 24hour drivethru lane. Just down the street, a small bin is behind another restaurant, across the street from a 24hour emergency care center whose bins can be seen by residents of a sevenstory apartment building.
Behind a Goodwill thrift store, several containers are in a lighted area that, according to a sign, is under 24hour surveillance.
Whoever dumped Wheeler’s body would have found more privacy at a nearby retirement village and assisted living facility, where the bin is more hidden.
The garbage truck’s route is 10 miles from Wheeler’s home in New Castle. Investigators have searched the home, where yellow police tape can still be seen in the kitchen, but they have not identified it as a crime scene.
Wheeler’s lawyer Marin said he last spoke with his client on Dec. 27, and did not know what he may have been doing in Wilmington three days later.
Wheeler was suing to block Frank and Regina Marini of Hockessin from continuing to build a new house across the street from his duplex. Wheeler argued that the Marini house did not comply with construction standards for new homes in the historic district. A Delaware Chancery Court judge denied Wheeler’s application for a temporary restraining order on Dec. 13.
Late on Dec. 28, several smoke bombs of the type used for rodent control were tossed into the Marini house, scorching the floors, Chief Deputy State Fire Marshal Alan Brown said.
The Marinis said in a statement that they offered “heartfelt sympathies” to the families of Wheeler and his wife, Katherine Klyce. Police have given no indication whether they believe the property dispute had anything to do with Wheeler’s death.
“It is one facet of the investigation,” Farrall said.
In New York, police searched the condominium Wheeler and Klyce shared in a brick building on 124th Street in Manhattan, where they had lived for at least three years.
Building superintendent Jay Hosein said Tuesday that he saw Klyce last week, and that she seemed happy and cheerful.
“They were a very nice couple, very nice people,” Hosein said.
Efforts by The Associated Press to contact Klyce have been unsuccessful. Wheeler’s family issued a statement through Newark police Monday asking for privacy.
Wheeler had twins, a son and daughter, by his first wife. Klyce has two daughters from a previous marriage.
Elizabeth Thorp, a board member of the Deafness Research Foundation, of which Wheeler had formerly been CEO, said the circumstances of his death were “too surreal.”
She said he moved in a sophisticated crowd.
“This is not a guy who would end up in landfill or be murdered,” she said. “It’s a gigantic loss.”
I don't believe these would scorch the floors unless they were lit on fire, either intentionally or accidentally. From this statement, it sounds to me like they were lit and tossed into the house, like a variation on a molotov cocktail.
The smoke bombs used for rodent control are not readily available like the ones used for insect control. You can buy "bug bombs" at any grocery store and many other retail stores. Rodent fumigants are regulated by the EPA, and restricted to licensed professionals.
By the way the load was unloaded from the truck, they should be able to calculate approximately from which of the ten dumpster wheeler was put in!!!
Unless the truck was a compacter truck???
RIP John.
In this May 17, 1994 file photo, John Wheeler III touches the name of a friend engraved in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Wheeler's body was discovered Dec. 31, 2010 as a waste management truck emptied its contents at the Wilmington, Del.-area landfill. His death has been ruled a homicide.