Michael BLACK
Michael BLACK
AdelaideNow can reveal hi-tech ground-penetrating radar equipment is being used to search the backyard of Pfennig's former house on Holly Rise, Hackham West, in Adelaide's outer southern suburbs.
There are more than a dozen police officers from the Major Crime and Forensic branches involved in the search.
Louise was 10 when she was abducted from her family's Hackham West home on January 4, 1983. Her body has not been found.
Known paedophile Raymond John Geesing was convicted of the crime, despite no body being found. He was later acquitted on appeal.
Pfennig was jailed for life with a 38-year non-parole period in 1992 for the murder of 10-year-old Murray Bridge schoolboy Michael Black.
Michael was abducted on January 18, 1989, from a reserve near Murray Bridge. Pfennig placed the boy's belongings upstream to give the impression he had drowned while swimming, but his body was never found.
Pfennig has also admitted abducting and sexually assaulting another boy, 13, in late 1989.
Lands Title Office records show Pfennig owned the Holly Rise property from 1977 until he was taken into custody.
The Louise Bell investigation was re-opened last year because of better DNA technology, police said.
The radar equipment being used at the Hackham West search site has been loaned from the Australian Federal Police, who are assisting in the operation.
Similar equipment was previously used to search a Salisbury North backyard in the infamous "bodies in the barrels" murder investigation.
Police say they could be working at the site for several days.
Major Crime officer in charge Superintendent Grant Moyle said the search had been ordered after police re-examined evidence from the 1983 investigation and subsequent investigations in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
"We are searching for any evidence that might relate to Louise Bell or any other offences that might have been committed," he said.
"It's a big commitment. We have examined closely the extent of investigations that were conducted in 1983, when Louise Bell went missing. It is a result of that, that we felt for thoroughness we needed to fully examine the backyard more than they did in 1991."
In the mid-1990s, Louise's father, Colin Bell, said his daughter's disappearance was "completely out of character''.
"She was a fairly timid girl and slightly immature for her age and fairly shy,'' he said.
By Claire Campbell ABC
Dieter Pfennig will remain in a prison cell for the rest of his life after he was sentenced to 35 years without parole for the murder of 10-year-old Adelaide schoolgirl Louise Bell in 1983.
Added to Pfennig's previous sentence for an unrelated murder, it makes a combined total of 60 years in prison without being eligible for parole.
Louise Bell was last seen alive in January 1983 when she went to bed at the family home in Hackham West in Adelaide's south.
Her body has never been found.
Her disappearance prompted a police search of then unprecedented proportions, with her disappearance becoming one of South Australia's most puzzling cold cases.
Pfennig, 68, was last month found guilty in the South Australian Supreme Court of her murder.
Justice Michael David told Pfennig his was "the most evil" of crimes and it was in no way "ameliorated by the passage of time".
"The shock and anxiety that your offence caused the South Australian community cannot be compared to the distress that must have been suffered by the parents and family of Louise Bell," he said.
"The effect of my sentence will be that you most certainly spend the rest of your days in jail."
Pfennig will not be eligible for parole until he is aged 103.
Prosecutor Sandi McDonald had urged Justice David to hand down the toughest penalty possible.
"This man is entitled to no mercy," she said.
"Your honour should impose a non-parole period that would make it clear to the community, and to this man, that he has no expectation of any life outside of custody.
"It would be completely and utterly inappropriate to impose the mandatory minimum."
A woman who described herself as Louise Bell's "last teacher" said outside court she was "utterly relieved that justice had been done".
"He [Pfennig] got what he deserved and the judge was amazing," she said.
"It just shows that you won't get way with horrible things that are done."
Ms McDonald said police had also made two unsuccessful attempts to find out the location of Louise Bell's body since the Pfennig verdict last month.
But Pfennig's lawyer Grant Algie told the court that his client could not advise where her body was buried because he maintains he is not guilty of the offence.
Mr Algie had asked Justice David to hand down the minimum non-parole period of 20 years.
Pfennig is already serving a life sentence with a non-parole period of 38 years — later reduced to 25 years due to a sentencing legislation change in SA — for murdering Murray Bridge boy Michael Black in 1989 and later abducting and raping a 13-year-old boy.
Another man, Raymond John Geesing, was initially tried and convicted of Louise Bell's murder but that conviction was quashed on appeal in 1985.
Pfennig was arrested and charged with the murder in 2013 after advances in DNA technology led to a breakthrough during a review of the cold case.
Justice David told Pfennig during sentencing that he was not punishing him for his previous crimes against Michael Black and the 13-year-old boy.
"You've already been punished for those," he said.
"Also, I'm not punishing you for not accepting my invitation to tell the authorities the whereabouts of the bodies of Louise Bell and Michael Black."