Document relating to prosecution's request to deny defendant's request to suppress the canine evidence (filed November 16th 2018.)
https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/06th_Judicial_District/La_Plata/Redwine/111618%20PEOPLES%20RESP%20D36A.pdfPoint 12 Cadaver dog Molly & handler Carren Corcoran....this is the same dog & handler which were deployed in the Kelly Dwyer case. The dog's alerts were contested in court & this extract from the news article is relevant to both case:-
https://eu.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2018/10/02/kelly-dwyer-case-cadaver-dog-handler-testifies-zocco-trial/1498006002/*snipped*
"Corcoran agreed that a bedroom is another spot where human shed is often concentrated.
She also said Molly did not train extensively with residual odor — that is, detecting odors of remains no longer present. Normally, the training involved finding actual human remains. She agreed there is no way to measure a detection dog's error rate, so she couldn't know Molly's.
For the defense, Andre Falco Jimenez, a former law enforcement K-9 handler who now runs a California-based training and consulting company, said use of video during training has revealed how frequently a handler's subtle cues drive a dog's reactions.
He suspected that may have driven Molly's alerts in the Zocco case, since it appeared the dog did not alert on any smells on her initial cursory sniffs but only after some direction.
Jimenez told jurors a dog won't detect evidence of the first phase of human decomposition, which occurs in the first 72 hours, without training on that specific odor. He said it is difficult to obtain such recently deceased bodies for training in the United States, but easier in South America, where his company does much work."
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Even in 2013, the experts could not agree on the validity of residual scent odour detection capability in a trained cadaver dog. Fortunately in both the Redwine & Dwyer cases there was/is other compelling evidence which tends to confirm each accused is guilty.
