(WKYT) – The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office has a four-and-a-half-year-old yellow English Labrador named Charity working alongside investigators in cases involving explicit images of children. The dog is trained to locate small electronic devices that human searchers may miss.
Detective Shelby Guffey, with the Special Victims Unit of the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, handles Charity and uses her during searches for hidden storage devices.
How the dog works
Charity’s nose is trained to detect triphenylphosphine, a chemical compound found on electronic devices. Guffey said the dog can locate devices in minutes that would take investigators hours to find manually.
In a recent case, Charity located a phone hidden inside a wall after a search team had been unable to find it during an extended search of the residence.
“We’ve had a recent scenario locally where a team had been searching in this residence for an extended period of time — they were unable to locate a phone — within several minutes of our deployment on scene we were able to locate that device within a wall,” Guffey said.
Charity is capable of pinpointing a device even when concealed inside a common object. Guffey demonstrated that a hollowed-out marker can contain a SIM card.
“It could contain child sex abuse material, and it just gives us a peace of mind as investigators and as a unit that we are not leaving any bit of information or evidence behind,” Guffey said.
AG Coleman on the growing threat
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said technology is increasingly being used to commit crimes against children.
“The threat is growing, so with technology being used by the bad guys, we needed every tool in our tool kit to help protect the good guys and help protect our kids,” Coleman said.
Dual role on scene
In addition to evidence detection, Charity also serves as a companion dog for children present at crime scenes.