Villain - A Very Clever Canine

Bill Whitstine, of the Florida Canine Academy, trains dogs for arson detection work. Through over 600 hours of training, the dogs are trained to detect over 40 different fire accelerants. They are able to detect parts per trillion. 

Villain was a dog that Whitstine found at an animal sanctuary and he worked with her for over 13 years. The work they did together led to over 200 convictions in arson trials. 

At 4.25 on the video, Bill refers to a specific case where a very badly burned woman accused her partner of having thrown lamp oil over her and setting her on fire. She told police that she had run around trying to escape, while he threw the lamp oil. The police arrested the boyfriend, who claimed that the woman had set fire to herself.

In an effort to establish whether the lamp oil was confined to one place, the police brought in a mechanical sniffer, which detected not a drop of lamp oil anywhere. 

Then the police brought in Bill Whitstine and Villain. Villain immediately started "hitting on," spots all over the place and alerting to the presence of lamp oil residue. All of the samples collected tested positive for lamp oil residue at the state crime lab. One of the technicians at the lab stated that Villain could detect samples at levels lower than their best equipment could analyse.

Bill testified in court. To demonstrate Villain's skills for the jury, Bill placed single drops of gasoline on the floor and then brought in Villain, who went straight to those spots. Villain's work led to the conviction of the accused man because a dog's nose proved to be better than a mechanical sniffer. 

As one dog handler has said, sometimes the difference between solving a case and allowing a criminal to go free is a cold, wet nose. 

Cadaver Dogs and Other Clever Canines

A couple of times a week I have the opportunity to go walking with my lovely canine friend, a beautiful long-haired German Shepherd dog called Flora. Flora lives with two people who obviously love animals as they have four rescued cats as well as Flora, who came from a dog rescue centre. As a puppy, Flora was thrown from a car window by people who couldn't be bothered to find a proper new home for her. She has grown into a lovely, gentle, intelligent doggie, often sharing her big doggie bed with the cats.

Out walking, Flora will constantly look at my feet to make sure she is keeping pace with me. When we reach the park and her lead comes off, then she knows that I will throw the ball for her. Flora will fetch the ball and bring it back, but she won't drop it right away. She will wait, then drop it and as soon as I go to pick it up, she will grab it. She will also run behind me, darting left and right and showing me the ball, darting away when I reach for it. Such a clever dog. Flora would possibly have made a good sniffer dog as one of the qualities looked for is playfulness:   Flora invents games and loves interacting with people.

I'm convinced that Flora also senses things about other dogs. Mostly, she ignores them in the park or walking through the streets. There is a little Westie we often meet on our travels, with whom Flora gets on really well and the two dogs greet each other in a happy canine way with waggy tails and sniffy noses. However, occasionally Flora will bark at another dog. Coming out of the carpet shop the other day, where Flora had insisted on going in to see the man she knows, she suddenly started into her big bark. And Fora's big bark is very big! She was barking at a rather large brown dog that looked like a Staffie cross. The odd thing was that, to my eyes anyway, the other dog wasn't showing any signs of aggression. My guess is that Flora sensed something about that dog and that dogs like Flora can sense things that we humans cannot observe with our ordinary senses.

Dogs in criminal investigation

Dogs have been used for a very long time now in criminal investigation. They are trained and used, successfully, to detect drugs, explosives, contraband at airports, as well as missing people and dead bodies in disaster zones and in cases of suspected murder.

The newest area of work undertaken by dogs in criminal investigation is that of the "cadaver dog," also referred to as an Enhanced Victim Recovery Dog. These dogs undergo rigorous training by organisations like the FBI and many are trained in the USA at the place known as "The Body Farm."

This is from Illinois Search and Rescue Dogs 

Like all search dogs, cadaver dogs go through extensive training before they can become certified and operational. Cadaver dogs are first trained to recognize a wide spectrum of odors associated with human remains, depending on their specific use. Cadaver dogs for use in a disaster situation focus on more recent decomposition odors, while cadaver dogs that work with law enforcement are also trained to recognize older decomposition odors and smaller odor sources. Only actual human remains are used to train the dogs, no pseudo scent is used in the training process. 
All K-9s are first taught to give a trained final response or indication upon detection of the odor. They are taught to only give this response when they locate the strongest source of the odor. A large amount of time is spent on making sure that the indication is solid before the K-9 is ever taught to actually search for the odor in a scenario-based problem. Cadaver dogs that are trained in water recovery are taught to give this final indication while working from a boat on a body of water.

And yet, Gerry McCann, father of missing Madeleine McCann has stated on several occasions that cadaver dogs are unreliable.

In this video, Kate and Gerry are being interviewed by Sandra Felgueiras. At 4.50 Sandra asks about the sniffer dogs, Eddie and Keela and their alerts. Kate McCann launches into a spiel about people being helpful, but Sandra brings them back to the subject of the dogs. Gerry states that evidence shows that the dogs are unreliable, that when they are scientifically tested....

Now, does Gerry seriously think that the FBI does not train or test these dogs scientifically? Or South Yorkshire police? Eddie, cadaver dog, was trained by Martin Grime of SYP and also completed training at "The Body Farm." in the USA. They don't train or test scientifically at "The Body Farm."?

Elsewhere, as in the following video, which doesn't want to embed, at 0.50, Gerry McCann states "..when the dogs came that was actually something that happened at our request."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXenTtj26E 

Well, no actually, it wasn't. When the British investigator Mark Harrison arrived in Praia da Luz, he made extensive searches of the local area, read through all the files and concluded that the police should be looking for a body. He then recommended bringing in Eddie and Keela and showed the PJ a video of the dogs at work. (See Chapter 16 of Gonçalo Amaral's book on this site)

The book "Death Scent," is a work of fiction by S.V. Wolf, based on the work of her own dog, Titan.

The real Titan, Wolf said, was responsible for the recovery of a 12-year-old who had been abducted and murdered, an Austin man who had committed suicide and had been missing for two years, a baby who had been buried for more than 30 years, and a murdered woman who had been buried in her own backyard for seven years, just to name a few.

A baby who had been buried for more than 30 years! Well, that puts paid to another of Gerry McCann's utterances, that cadaver odour is only detectable for up to 30 days! You see, those dogs are unreliable!

When Gerry was searching for ways to discredit the findings of the two dogs in  the holiday apartment and various other places and on items only related to himself and the missus, the McCanns' lawyers attempted to use the case of Eugene Zapata, as an example of someone wrongly incriminated by cadaver dog evidence. Unfortunately Zapata confessed and admitted that the dogs had alerted in the right places. 

Until Eddie and Keela went to Praia da Luz, it was said that Eddie had never given a false positive alert. In Praia da Luz, Eddie and Keela only alerted to places and items related to the McCanns apartment, their rented car and their possessions.

Video by HiDeHo4 on her YouTube channel.

And finally, now that Jimmy Savile is being seriously investigated for sexually abusing children, it may be time for there the investigation into abuse at the Haut de la Garenne children's home in Jersey to be re-opened. Jimmy Savile had denied ever visiting the home, but not only has a photo been produced of Savile at the property, but at least two adults, who spent time there as children, have come forward alleging abuse by Savile. 

Watch this video and remember that Eddie dog had never given a false positive alert prior to these two cases, Madeleine McCann and Haut de la Garenne.

Haut de la Garenne may have closed its doors many years ago, but we know from other cases, such as that where cadaver dog Titan (mentioned above) found the remains of a baby who had been buried for 30 years, that cadaver dogs can detect the smell of death many years after the event. 

Cadaver dogs are trained to detect the odour, which indicates that a dead human body has been in that place at some time. The odour lingers long after the body has been moved from that site. When an odour is detected it means that particles of the substance have entered the airways. Those particles can persist in an environment for years, becoming embedded in any porous surface, such as floor boards. 

Jimmy Savile visited Haut de la Garenne children's home and is alleged to have abused children there. If this is true, how did he get away with it and how many of his friends and associates used that children's home as their play-away island resort with a captive selection of children available, like choosing goodies from a sweet shop? 

Time to have a very close look at Haut de la Garenne and its list of visitors. For the sake of the children who lived there and survived and those who died there, the truth must come out. It is never too late to do the right thing by the victims.