Can tracker dogs still play a major role in local crime solving?

Aug 19, 2013 News

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Do you know that the Guyana Police Force once hired out one of its tracker dogs to help capture a dangerous Caribbean criminal? Have you ever heard of the famous dog, Rio that helped to solve many cases?
Do you know that another tracker dog once helped to solve the murder of an estate supervisor?
Dogs have been helping the Guyana Police Force for some 53 years. According to information compiled by the late Assistant Police Commissioner John Campbell, the Force enlisted its first police dog in 1960. That dog was ‘Rio’ a fully-trained canine who was handled by Corporal 5083 Williams.  He was reportedly bred here and helped solve many criminal cases. Rio died in service on September 13, 1965.
Bruce, the offspring of Rio followed in 1961. In 1964, Sergeant Robert Ling, a special dog trainer from Surrey, England, came to British Guiana with six dogs imported from England. He stayed for a year and trained local police ranks as dog handlers. Some of the dogs were Byrn, Vince, Ross and Warren.

According to Mr. Campbell’s research, in 1974, Warren and his handler assisted in the longest manhunt in Montserrat. The German Shepherd and trainer are said to have played a major role in the capture of a Montserrat criminal known as ‘Fine Twine’.
According to a police rank, in the early nineties, the body of an estate supervisor was found in a house at Number 79 Village, Corentyne. He had been shot in the head. One of the lead investigators recalled that investigators requested that a tracker dog be brought to the scene. According to the detective, the animal circled the corpse, and then bolted out of the building. It then ran to a nearby dam and sniffed around before plunging overboard. The dog’s handler also jumped overboard. The detective recalled that the animal eventually led the investigators to a business premises in the village.
According to the detective, the owners of the property set their dogs on the policemen when they tried to enter the compound. Shortly after, police arrested a young man and his mother who lived in the compound. A triangular affair was the apparent motive for the estate supervisor’s murder.
That was decades ago. Questions are now being asked as to why the heroic exploits of dogs like Rio, Warren and the un-named tracker dog in the Corentyne case seem to be a thing of the past. There appears to be several recent cases in which the Canine Division could have played a major role.
One of these cases involves the suspected murder of 11-year-old Nordex Wilkinson, who disappeared without trace on May 18, 2004. Nordex and her two other sisters, Keasha, aged nine, and eight-year-old Kimberly, lived in Pattensen, Turkeyen, with their father, Victor Simmons. Relatives alleged that the child was badly beaten and her throat slashed shortly before her disappearance. They claim to have seen the father fetching the badly injured child out of the house.
That was last time anyone saw Nordex Wilkinson. Her father has also reportedly disappeared.
Relatives searched the area but failed to locate the child.
Tracker dogs, some say, could also have helped detectives to locate Kwame Rumel Jobronewet, the 67-year-old US citizen who vanished in June, 2009. He reportedly disappeared in Buxton, after returning to Guyana to visit the home of his recently-deceased mother. Detectives later scoured the Friendship, East Coast Demerara backlands for the missing man’s remains but found nothing. There is no indication that tracker dogs were ever used in this case. The Force also does not appear to have cadaver dogs, which are trained to locate corpses.
There is also the case of 28-year-old Babita Sarjou, who seems to have literally vanished off the face of the earth on November 4, 2009, after leaving her workplace and informing friends that she was going to her estranged husband’s home in Kitty.
It is also unclear whether the Canine Division was not involved in efforts to locate still-missing Guyana Energy Agency employee LeVoy Taljit, who disappeared almost nine months ago.
Taljit’s vehicle was found in a track off the Soesdyke/Linden Highway. Though a suspect was questioned, the 25-year-old’s whereabouts remain unknown.
Police sources insist that they occasionally utilised the Force’s tracer dogs during the three-year manhunt for fugitive Steve Bovell, who abducted and raped a number of women between 2003 and 2006. The ex-policeman had spent much of time hiding out in the backlands of Stanleytown, West Bank Demerara. However, he was eventually slain while hiding out at a relative’s home.
Tracker dogs, it is believed, could have also been used to locate Richard Lord, the man who fled into the Zeelugt, East Bank Essequibo backlands earlier this month after killing two of his two children and maiming his wife.
Police sources have said that most of the animals in the Police Canine Section are being utilized for the detection of narcotics and explosives. One source said that the Force still utilizes tracker dogs, but was unable to say why they have apparently played no major role in crime-solving. According to one source, only “one or two” canines are being used at present for tracking suspects or missing persons.

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