To some, canine forensics is still a bone of contention.
When it comes to cold cases, few are hotter than those associated with the
notorious Barker Ranch, the last hideout of the Charles Manson Family before
their arrest in October 1969, following a fierce Los Angeles murder spree.
Rumors have lingered for decades that buried bodies of other Manson victims
– perhaps runaway teens who encountered the gang somewhere in the desert
– may lie in clandestine graves on the rugged desert barrens near the
ranch house on Death Valley National Park’s southwestern fringe. Despite
past digs, no bodies were ever found.
Manson follower Charles D. (Tex) Watson denies there are other victims buried
at the Ranch. Watson, who is serving a life sentence for seven counts of murder,
claims on his website (http://www.aboundinglove.org/)
to know of no one buried there by the Manson Family:
“The only runaways I knew at Barker Ranch . . . were picked up by the
California Highway Patrol. There are only two faithful members of the old Manson
family left. It stands to reason that if there were bodies buried at Barker
Ranch, at least one of the rest would have come forward with reliable information
during the past forty years.”
Results of a recent search by human remains detector dogs (HRD) and two scientists
from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, seem to dispute Watson’s claim.
When Buster, a 5-year old pure bred black Labrador Retriever who belongs to
Mammoth Lakes, California police detective Paul Dostie, was turned loose behind
the ranch house last year, he alerted on several potential grave sites. Locating
old graves is a game to Buster. He darts through the brush, nose to the ground,
searching for scents related to human decomposition. When he yelps once and
lays down, it means he’s found one. It also means he gets a reward –
a favorite toy to play with.
Later, five other human remains detection dogs alerted on one of the spots
Buster found, and four alerted on a second Buster site. For confirmation, Dostie
called in human remains scent experts from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Human remains detector dog, Buster.
(Photo by Paul Dostie.)
The main house at the abandoned Barker Ranch in Death Valley, where the Manson
Family was apprehended in 1969. It is suspected that other murder victims may
lie buried in clandestine graves near the house.
(Photo by Paul Dostie.)
THE OAK RIDGE BOYS
In February 2008, Oak Ridge senior research scientists Arpad Vass and Marc Wise
accompanied Dostie to the Ranch. Vass is also affiliated with the Body Farm,
a University of Tennessee research facility devoted to studying the decay of
human remains in various environments and conditions – information useful
in murder investigations.
Using instruments capable of detecting chemical evidence of decomposing human
bodies, including a gun-shaped air sniffer and an infrared spectroscope to read
molecular profiles, the sites found by the dogs were confirmed. The instruments
and the dogs agreed that the sites contained scents produced by decaying human
remains.
“We detected human decomposition products in some, not all, of the locations
where Buster alerted,” Vass said. Vass’ research indicates that
over 450 chemical compounds are emitted during the decomposition cycle. Some
of the more interesting and unique chemicals are fluorinated compounds. Vass
believes these compounds form during a person’s life from the fluoride
added to drinking water and are slowly released after death.
When four of the sites were excavated in May, however, no human remains were
found. Does this mean the dogs and the instruments were wrong? Not necessarily.
Both Dostie and Vass suspect there could still be bodies buried out there, that
it’s not always as easy as smell-dig-find.
“Odor from a decomposing body does not always migrate straight upward,
particularly in the desert environment like that at the Ranch,” Vass said.
The hard, crusty layer below the surface tends to block odor raising from below,
deflecting it laterally through the loose, fine gravel lens that exists a meter
or so down. No one really knows how far odor can traverse this way, but Vass
believes it could travel as much as 10 meters or more sideways before finding
a way to the surface.
“Shrub root systems break through the crust, and that’s typically
where the odor is coming up, around the shrubbery,” he said. “That’s
where Buster tended to alert.”
That’s also where they excavated. If the researchers are right about
the odor deflection, it’s possible the holes were dug some distance from
where the bodies may actually lie, which would explain smell-dig-no find.
Plants also absorb some of the compounds emitted during human decay, which
is another reason why HRD dogs sometimes alert either on or near vegetation.
This is one of the liabilities of all HRD canines. The dogs may be well-trained
and alerting where they should, but it’s not always where the body is.
“The dog is trained to pinpoint where the largest scent source is, which
may not be near the body,” Dostie said. Bodies can also be wrapped or
enclosed in some kind of material, blocking scent from reaching the surface
directly, forcing odors to leech laterally.
Vass said because odors from decomposing human bodies don’t always rise
straight up, HRD canines have gotten a bad reputation over the past several
years.
“They’ll alert somewhere, you excavate the site, and you don’t
find anything – but you may have missed the body by two or three meters,
or more,” he said. “Their ability to detect these sites, while poorly
understood, uncharacterized, and un-standardized, is nevertheless impressive.”
WAR OF THE NOSES
The current lack of strict standards and training protocols is one controversy
swirling around canine forensics.
“Poor certification or no certification, sloppy training, and agency
misuse of dog resources are some of the problems we see,” said Adela Morris,
of the Institute for Canine Forensics (ICF), a California organization Morris
formed to promote research and education of forensic evidence and human remains
detection dog teams.
Because there are no strict training or certification standards, some agencies
like the FBI have only a few dog teams that they use and trust, Morris said.
David Latimer, president of the World Detector Dog Organization and owner of
an Alabama company called Forensic and Scientific Investigations, believes things
are improving, that the trend is slowly moving toward double blind, third party
certification testing of dogs.
“There’s a slow but irreversible erosion of the ‘good old
boy’ syndrome,” he said.
This trend is driven by dog trainers and handlers who realize that a scientifically
valid method of certification testing is the only way to prevent the loss or
restriction of scent detection canines as an investigative tool.
There are other issues with canine forensics that makes the field controversial.
The term, “canine forensics,” alone stirs the passions of some in
law enforcement.
“Some members of the law enforcement community claim there is no such
thing as ‘canine forensics’,” said Eva Cecil, an ICF board
member.
This skepticism appears partly etymological in nature. “Forensic,”
by definition, relates to or deals with the application of scientific knowledge
to legal problems. In a recent K9forensic forum exchange online, one police
officer said she would not like to have to articulate on the witness stand exactly
how that applies to a scent detection dog.
Semantics is also involved. Technically, human remains detection dogs don’t
actually detect human remains, they detect the scents that emanate from human
remains – just the sort of ambiguity defense attorneys love to exploit.
Another reason for police skepticism is that most human remains detection dogs
are handled by civilians, not by police. Few police officers handle human remains
detection dogs.
Most police agencies do not have the financial or personnel resources available
to commit to human remains detection teams. Dostie is an exception.
Dostie handles and trains his own dog. The nonconformist Mammoth Lakes detective
makes a habit of stretching the forensic science envelope. He has spent the
past five years attempting to identify the female victim of a mountain murder,
probing beyond conventional forensic science at every turn. (see Forensic Magazine®,
June/July 2007).
“There is nothing wrong with trying to be the first in forensic experimentation,”
Dostie said.
Dostie and others are currently attempting to orchestrate a suitable protocol
to govern investigation of clandestine graves using Buster and other human remains
detection dogs.
NOSE FOR TROUBLE
Like relief pitchers, forensic canines are sub-specializing.
“Scent dogs are also being trained to detect everything from estrus cycles
in cattle to contaminants in catfish ponds to cancer in humans,” Latimer
said. Dogs are commonly used by police to locate suspects, narcotics, and explosives,
and by arson detectives to discover the presence of accelerants.
“We may ultimately see dogs use scent to discriminate between individuals,
much as fingerprints do now,” Latimer said. The use of scent identification
dogs is becoming acceptable in Europe.
Dogs are also widely used by police, military, and civilian agencies in search
and rescue, as well as to help locate victims of natural or mass disasters.
In fact, the need for human remains detection dogs evolved from their search
and rescue kin.
Search and rescue dogs were originally trained to locate lost, living people,
but when a lost person expires, the scent changes rapidly to odors with which
search dogs are unfamiliar.
“Search dogs not imprinted on human remains scent would not reliably
alert if the person had died,” Morris said. “Today, almost all search
dogs are also cadaver trained.”
Morris was instrumental in the shift from cadaver to human remains detection
when the question arose, if cadaver dogs could be trained to find recently drowned
or buried bodies, could they also be trained to find human graves and old human
remains. In 1997, Morris formed ICF to specialize in dogs trained in human remains
detection only. HRD dogs are never trained to locate live humans.
Both Morris and Cecil have subsequently done pioneering work in training dogs
for historic grave detection. Morris and her dog Cholla did the first testing
on the cemetery grounds of an old mental facility in Santa Clara, California,
in the late 1990s.
“Not only can they find recent human remains, they can find ancient human
remains, as well,” Cecil said.
Morris said human remains detection dogs are different than wilderness search
dogs.
“HRD dogs are trained to work slowly and methodically, to search for
small scent sources, sometime no larger than a single tooth,” she said.
It seems improbable that a dog can find one old tooth on a 20-meter stretch
of dirt road, but this is done in training on a daily basis, according to Cecil.
ICF members include about 20 handler-dog teams available for everything from
police mutual aid to helping Native American tribes search for lost graves.
Once, NASA needed help. When the space shuttle Columbia exploded in 2003 on
reentry over east Texas, Cecil and Ness, her 8-year old Border Collie, were
sent to help determine whether items found by ground search parties were human
or not.
Hunting and herding dog breeds, such as Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers,
Australian Shepherds, and Border Collies, are usually best suited for this type
of scent detection work. When properly raised, they are fond of cooperating
with humans, are naturally good at observing their surroundings, and are willing
to follow commands.
A good breeder knows the characteristics of his line and can help pick a puppy
that is inquisitive, ready to follow, has high food, play, and hunt drives,
and will also not be bothered by loud noises or sudden changes in the environment.
Cecil said it can take a year or two to bring a dog to a point when it can
be tested and certified.
“It’s fascinating, challenging work,” she said. “The
scale of scent a cadaver dog or a historical human remains detection dog has
to learn is enormous.”
Latimer believes canine forensics will continue to build on its reputation
within the scientific and legal communities.
“But that will only happen if we work on improving the profession and
policing ourselves rather than waiting for legal decisions in big cases to dictate
the way we do things,” he said. “If we are proactive enough, many
of the legal challenges can be avoided.”
Douglas Page writes about forensic science and medicine from Pine Mountain,
California. He can be reached at douglaspage@earthlink.net
