The attorney representing missing 5-year-old Jhessye Shockley is questioning why police are choosing now to begin searching a huge landfill south of Phoenix for the girl’s body.

Attorney Scott Maasen is asking why police would wait weeks and weeks to begin searching if they already had information the child’s body was in the landfill. Glendale police announced Thursday they would begin combing through piles of garbage on Feb. 6 at the Butterfield landfill in Mobile.

The search could last several weeks and could cover an area measuring about 180 by 200 feet, and more than 20 feet deep. The young girl was reported missing in mid-October. But police now think she’s dead after Shockley’s older sister told police she had seen the girl locked in a closet.