Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Team Wins Jimmy Ryce Trailing K-9 Team of the Year Award!
Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Team Wins Jimmy Ryce Trailing K-9 Team of the Year Award! Dep. Robert Mata and K9 Indy, a Scent Evidence K9 trained Bloodhound, received the prestigious statewide award on Sept. 9, 2025 during the 27th Annual Florida Missing Children’s Day Formal Recognition Ceremony in Tallahassee, FL. Dep. Mata and K9 Indy were recognized for locating a missing 14-year-old with autism. The Florida Bloodhound team used a Scent Kit provided through Florida’s Bringing The Lost Home Program to deploy K9 Indy. The endangered teen had been missing for almost 24 hours and when Indy located the youth, he was in water up to his neck in a heavily wooded swamp. The lifesaving K9 trailing story made news across the country.
The award given on behalf of the Florida Dept. of Lay Enforcement (FDLE), the Florida Missing Children’s Day Foundation, and the Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse (MEPIC) Advisory Board recognizes exceptional, extraordinary, or outstanding activity that resulted in the safe recovery of a missing child.
This is the second Jimmy Ryce Trailing K-9 Team of the Year Award by Scent Evidence K9 Bloodhounds in 3 years! In 2022, Tallahassee PD Det. Paul Osborn and K9 Jon Jon won for their recovery of a 4-year-old with autism. Read about K9 Jon Jon’s missing child recovery HERE “We are extremely proud of Dep. Mata and K9 Indy! Sumter County Sheriff’s Office was our first Bringing The Lost Home Program partner in Florida and they continue to do amazing work in locating the missing using scent discriminate K9 trailing and distributing Scent Kits to the community,” stated Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley.
Learn more about Dep. Mata and K9 Indy’s award-winning missing child recovery below.
Florida Bloodhound Team Uses Scent Kit to Find Missing Teen with Autism in Sumter County
Florida Bloodhound Team Uses Scent Kit to Find Missing Teen with Autism in Sumter County. Sumter County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Mata and new K9 partner Indy responded to help locate a missing teen with autism on May 28, 2024. The Florida teen is nonverbal and had been missing for almost 24 hours. He was reported missing at about 9 p.m. and had been last seen on foot wearing only boxer shorts. Using a Scent Kit that had been prepared in advance as the scent article, Dep. Mata deployed K9 Indy, a 10-month-old Bloodhound trained by Scent Evidence K9. The scent discriminate K9 team trailed through heavy vegetation for almost a mile into a swampy area. K9 Indy trailed around a section of brush too thick to navigate through and located the teen in neck deep water, shivering and covered in bug bites. When Dep. Mat approached the teen, he said one word…” Cold.” Dep. Mata gave the teen his shirt to help keep him warm and began walking him out of the swamp until the teen stopped. Dep. Mata looked down and saw the ground was covered in thorn bushes, so he picked up the teen and carried him past the thorns back to his family. Dep. Mata and the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office have been training and preparing their community for wandering events like this for years. The lifesaving recovery was reported by major news organizations across the state. Click Here for the Spectrum 13 News article.
