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Authorities and their cadaver dogs first converged on the Broadhurst Environmental Landfill near Jesup, Ga., on Saturday after the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office received a tip late Friday, according to Capt. Toby McSwain.
Five law enforcement agencies are participating in the search. They took Sunday off.
The 2,500-acre landfill -- about 100 miles southwest of Hilton Head -- receives trash from more than 20 counties in Georgia and several counties in Florida and South Carolina, including part of Beaufort County.
The trash deposited there each day is compacted and covered with a foam-rubber material to absorb moisture. Dirt is then put on top of the foam.
McSwain said investigators would continue to search the landfill as long as it takes to cover all of the ground.
While it might seem like a fruitless effort because of the sheer volume of trash brought to Broadhurst and the amount of time that's elapsed since the island businessman and his attorney wife disappeared, the leader of a local canine search and rescue team says it's still possible for dogs to detect them, if they are there.
Most landfills keep track of where particular trucks dump, and even more commonly, where a certain day's trash is buried, said Dan Fuller, director of Beaufort County-based Urban Search and Rescue, one of four nonprofit networks of dog-handlers in the state specializing in finding missing persons.
Provided authorities are able to peel back the layers of trash, a specially trained dog can detect the scent of bodies buried deep in a dump, Fuller said.
"We should probably be thankful that we can't smell everything a dog can," he said.
For example, if a person wore a shoe for a month and then threw it away, he could return with a dog to the dump a year later and find the shoe, Fuller said.
Urban Search and Rescue -- which has 20 trained dogs, mostly from sporting and working breeds -- has not been asked to help in the search for the Calverts. He said authorities are likely seeking the help of a similar network that trains in Jesup, where the landfill is located.
Dogs can cover a large tract quickly, although the layering of trash will probably slow them down. On normal land, a dog can cover a square-mile in about an hour. It would take 200-plus searchers walking hand-in-hand almost a day to cover the area, and they'd be less accurate, according to Fuller.
He said it's good that the Sheriff's Office is enlisting the help of dogs to find the missing couple. Because the dogs and their handlers go through so much training, they're able to quickly home in on what they're searching for.
Last week, the Sheriff's Office used Belgian malinois to search island storage facilities and have previously used them to sniff for evidence on John Calvert's yacht and around the Harbour Town Yacht Basin.
The dogs' sense of smell is so keen they can detect bodies underwater by sniffing the surface. Decomposing remains fill with gas that bubbles to the surface, bringing human cells with them.
John Calvert, 47, owns four island businesses including the company that operates the yacht basin and another that rents out 125 vacation properties. Elizabeth Calvert, 45, is a business attorney at HunterMaclean in Savannah.
They were last seen two weeks ago in a business meeting with Dennis Gerwing, chief financial officer for The Club Group. The Club Group had provided some financial and administrative services to John Calvert's companies.
Authorities are presuming a worst-case scenario -- that the couple is dead -- but they don't have any evidence to prove that, according to law enforcement sources.
Gerwing, 54, died in an apparent suicide last Tuesday, about 10 hours before authorities publicly deemed him a "person of interest" who wasn't cooperating.
In two notes left near his body, Gerwing acknowledged stealing money from the Calverts. However, he did not write whether he played any role in the Calverts' disappearance.
Gerwing's inner thigh was slashed and he had several knife puncture wounds in his chest when he was found in a Sea Pines villa he had rented since his home, office and cars were searched.
Authorities have admitted the circumstances of the apparent suicide are odd.
