COLD CASE FILE--REALLY, REALLY COLD CASES

By Robert D. Calkins, 

 If you think you got away with your crime, you should be very, very nervous. Oh, what’s that? “They never found the body,” you say?  Well stand by. Even the coldest of cold cases are getting warmer these days thanks to a partnership between dogs and technology.

I recently attended a week-long class to help my otherwise proficient cadaver dog tune his nose into the extraordinarily small amount of scent that percolates up from very old clandestine graves. As part of the class we also learned to partner with ground penetrating radar (GPR) to narrow down what the dogs find.

Over the years I’ve found that cadaver dogs don’t sniff the ground and say “dig here.” That’s not the dogs’ fault. Scent from decomposing remains will percolate up where the soil composition allows, and that might not be directly over the body. I’ve seen dogs alert yards away from a known burial- too far to just start digging.

Even more challenging is that the amount of scent which comes up is of a much lower level than what we normally teach our dogs to find. Most cadaver dogs look for a “point-source,” and with clandestine graves there just isn’t one. Dogs must be taught to alert in a general scent pool which, on any other day, would be considered cheating.  

Given those two factors, the best we can expect from our dogs is perhaps a slight change of behavior or a hesitant alert within a general area. Maybe the area is a few feet square, or maybe it’s 20 to 30 yards across. I don’t know about you, but I’m not digging a hole that’s 20 yards across and six feet down.

That’s where the ground penetrating radar comes in. With someone trained to interpret the display screen, GPR can finish what the dogs start, locating the disturbed earth around a secretly buried body. GPR can’t cover acreage like a dog, but once the dog narrows things down, GPR takes over and pinpoints useful places to dig. 

I also learned something cool about basic geology. If you scrape away the top six inches of earth from around a suspected burial, the disturbed earth of the grave will be completely visible to the naked eye even if the body itself is further down. You’d think the earth would compact and go back to its prior state, but the change is visible literally for decades.

Putting this all together: 1) A dog locates the general area of a suspected burial site. 2) Ground penetrating radar narrows the search by looking for anomalies in the soil. 3) Workers scrape away the top six inches of soil in likely spots and the disturbed earth of the burial is visible to the eye. 4) Only then do you dig for real.

So there you go. If you think you got away with that murder, my friend, make the most of your remaining days of freedom. There’s a whole group of much-improved cadaver dogs around the western United States, and we’re coming after you.  

 

Robert Calkins Bio:

Robert D. (Bob) Calkins has been a volunteer search and rescue (SAR) dog handler in Kitsap County, Washington, for more than dozen years. He and his dogs have responded to everything from routine lost hiker cases, to homicides, to the horrific 2014 mudslide in Oso, WA that claimed more than 40 lives.

In 2015, Bob began writing stories for all ages based on his experiences with search dogs. His first book, “Sierra Becomes a Search Dog,” is intended to be read aloud to children who can’t yet read for themselves. Once the little one is asleep, adults can sit down with “Digger,” a very grown-up murder mystery about sweet dogs and serial killers.  

Bob lives in Olalla, Washington with his wife Mary Ann, his third search dog Ruger and Rocco, a knucklehead puppy in training.  

 

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