RSSQ & A with Dog Handler Expert, Sam Pepenella Part 2
Scared Monkeys continues with Part 2 of our interview and Q&A with Sam Pepenella, cadaver dog expert. Sam is a part of The K9 Forensic and Recovery Team and their information can be found here. The Team Members. Searches
Part 1 of the Q&A interview can be seen here.
The Q&A continues:
mskygirl wrote: Are the cadaver dogs similar to service animals. They work and then they are domestic pets around the home? Do they stay with you when you travel on a job or are they caged/kenneled?
Sam: When my girl is not working, she is very much the family pet at the house.
_scott wrote: How do your dog(s) indicate a hit?
Sam: Pending on what the handler decides for their K9, the alerts are different. On our team there are 4 K9′s and 2 different alerts. 3 sit and one lays down.
SunnyinTX wrote: To what depth can the dog find the scent….speaking about at the landfill or buried in the sandy soil…and if the body was wrapped in plastic would that impeded their being able to detect the decomp scent?? Thanks, Sunny
Sam: Sonny, There are many factors effecting what a cadaver K9 can and cannot detect. To what depth: It is not necessarily what depth but what has come to the surface. The gasses rise and that is what the K9′s detect. Often a tree will soak up the nutrients and dispel them in the air. It is not uncommon for the K9′s to “bark up a tree”. Does the plastic effect the chance of detection? Well it can but many of victims have been found in plastic wrap……so …
The News Paper Bone Pictures that everyone is talking about
Below are the pictures of the bone that reportedly washed ashore from the newspaper Diario Nuevo DÃ a. At this time no one can determine whether they are related in any way to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. We are still awaiting forensic reports.
The newspaper wanted to make the following very clear, that at no time the newspaper Diario Nuevo DÃ a published that those bones belong to the young vanished woman Natalee Holloway.
Special thanks to del Diario NUEVO DÃ A for the photos that was published in the edition of the Newspaper NEW DAY, published the 11-08-2005, in the titled note “Locate remainders of an arm in Salinetas of The Stones”.
Pizza Bomber: Introduction
On August 28th, 2003, Brian Wells, went to a rural area to deliver a pizza, as was was his job working for Mama Mia’s Pizzeria. An hour later he shows up at a local bank with a collar attached to his neck that contained a bomb. He was instructed to rob a bank just outside of Erie, Pennsylvania. When he was detained by the police, the bomb was set off, killing him instantly. This is the short version of a horrible story has had people intrigued the last two years, as the person who attached and detonated the bomb has never been found.
The person who put the bomb on Brian Wells wrote a detailed letter explaining and providing illustrations on how to rob the bank and what to do with the money after he got away. During the getaway, he was to receive information on how to remove the bomb. Unfortunately, he was apprehended by police and the bomb detonated while it was still around his neck.
That was two years ago. Now there is new information that is coming out linking a convicted rapist to the bombing. Letters retrieved by the FBI from the convicted rapist, Floyd Stockton, and his ex wife (3 times over) Janet Ponsford, show that there may be some involvement between the two and Wells. Stockton has shown that he had the mechanical aptitude to commit this atrocity.
We will have more on this case coming shortly. It is so intertwined with the characters that one post can not do the story justice.
To discuss the Pizza Bomber story go to our discussion board.
Gee Bob, Maybe You Should Just Go back To Announcing Sports
The arrogance of some of the media types still amazes me and frankly I do not know why. The latest being Bob Costas not wanting to do Larry King Live because he “refused to anchor Thursday’s show because it was primarily about the Alabama teenager who went missing in Aruba.”
Costas, hired by CNN as an occasional fill-in on “Larry King Live,” refused to anchor Thursday’s show because it was primarily about the Alabama teenager who went missing in Aruba. Chris Pixley filled in at the last minute.
“I didn’t think the subject matter of Thursday’s show was the kind of broadcast I should be doing,” Costas said in a statement. “I suggested some alternatives but the producers preferred the topics they had chosen. I was fine with that, and respectfully declined to participate.”
Costas’ manager declined to elaborate on what Costas didn’t like about the topic.
Unbelievable that some one would not think that the subject matter of a missing person was some how beneath them. Maybe Bob Costas should stick to HBO and Costas Now so that he can talk about such influential and important topics like the Terrell Owens melodrama and the Philadelphia Eagles? You agree to fill in for Larry King and know what the general topics of the day are for his programming yet some how this topic if off your list as acceptable. Maybe you would like to enlighten us with what is acceptable subject matter?
The NBC Sports personality, also host of “Costas Now” on HBO, had agreed to be host for about 20 editions of “Larry King Live” this year. He’s done six, the network said.
His decision is reminiscent of Keith Olbermann, the former sportscaster who left his MSNBC news show in the late 1990s in part because he was asked to repeatedly cover the Monica Lewinsky story. Olbermann is back now for his second run at MSNBC.
It is a little sad that you would take such a view point; however, maybe you should just stick to sports rather than dealing with such important topics to families across America like the epidemic of missing persons cases that we are experiencing with both children and adults. Gee Bob, I guess you should just call another sporting event or a commentary on your TV show with all the emotions and over alliteration as if the event was some how more important or a comparison in some way to real live issues and tragedies that people really face? Next time you use a simile or metaphor to overemphasize the enormity of a sporting event just remember that there are people out there that live in real world and deal with such circumstances first hand. Not the right subject matter indeed.
Q & A with Dog Handler Expert, Sam Pepenella Part 1
Scared Monkeys would like to thank Sam Pepenella, K9 expert, for joining us this evening and helping us learn more about dog handling and search & rescue in general. Also, his experiences in Aruba dealing with the Natalee Holloway search.
Lets all be gracious to him and each other and listen as well as ask questions.
Next Thursday, August 25, 2005 we will have the President of NNDDA as well!
THolloway wrote: How can the dogs differentiate between human remains and other scents? Are they a special breed? Any comment on their training regimen?
Sam: Training…..Training……Training……HRD or Human Remain Dogs must be trained on deceased Human scent. They must be taught to tell the difference between a decomposing body from an animal. There are several chemical compositions which make up decomposition. Dogs noses are so sensitive they can pick these smells up. When they detect the decomposition smell, they give a trained alert.
mrs. red wrote: Hi Sam, Thanks for coming on…. is there a particular breed of dog that is better suited to this type of work?
Sam: Yes there is. Generally there are certain types of dogs suited for this type of work. I work a German Shepherd due to their stamina and all around. There are several more types suited for search work, being the Belgin Malinois, Australian Shepherd, Dutch Shepherd, Labs etc. most of your herding type dogs. There are limitations to all types of dogs, and careful consideration must be made in selecting the right K9
