Try convince me ! But, careful, I'm prone to be an Eddie unconditional ;)
Martin Grime tells us that Eddie can detect very ancient cadaver odour - so unless the 'material' he alerted to is discovered (i.e. unless corroberrating evidence is found) we don't know how old the scent was. For instance It could be from something that had been buried in that area - say 50 years ago - or more. Eddie could alert to stuff which had been buried up to a couple of feet below ground. He could even detect the residual scent of material which itself had long since decayed away.
Eddie also alerted to decaying body 'bits' from living people, i.e. a torn nail part, teeth, hair or semen. The alert near the wardrobe, was also an alert near to the bed. As Grime states -the scent drifts and so it's not impossible that it was scent from semen residue that was alerted to. Cleaning and washing does not eliminate the scent.
Eddie barked outside the door of the renault. The key fob was inside the door compartment on the other side of that door, The only person to whom the FSS could partially match the DNA found on the keyfob was Gerry - who is very much alive.
Therefore it is incorrect to claim that whenever Eddie barked he could only have been alerting to cadaver scent from a dead person.
Cadaverscent is transferrable - and so could have been innocently transferred there by any number of people - over any number of years. There are loads of progs on TV about sniffer dogs at airports. Occasionally the drug dogs will alert to a person who is found not to have drugs on them, (or in them), and the reason given for the alert is not that it was a false one - but that the scent must have been transferred to them by contact with something or someone who did have direct contact with drugs. It's the same with cadaverscent.
Some people are more likely than others to come into contact with dead bodies and so would be more prone to be carriers of cadaver scent. These obviously include doctors, police officers and forensic personnel amongst others. So it cannot be ruled out that innocent cadaverscent transferral could have happened by one or more of those people who entered 5A on 3/4 May.
The above comments are based on facts given to us by Martin Grime re the abilities of his dogs. IMO the dogs are so good that it actually works against them. e.g. the dogs can detect scent deposited decades ago. That in itself is truly amazing - but is unhelpful in this instance.
Then there is the matter of 'cueing'.
Although it is a proven fact that cueing does happen - whether Martin Grime unconsciously cued Eddie or not - is a matter of opinion not fact. Personally I would feel more confident that he didn't cue his dog - if I had NOT known that he was on the very brink of self employment where the performance of his dogs in such a high profile case could have massive repercussions on his own future.
Tests have proved that dogs may falsely alert in places where the Handler expects an alert to occur - and have unconsciously passed that message on to their dogs.
For the searches to be unbiased the same amount of time and attention would have to be spent at each location and at each car. That was clearly not the case. Did the fact that Grime spent three times longer calling Eddie's attention back to the Renault than to the other cars eventually send a message to Eddie? I think it may have.
