Tallahassee, Florida (Dec. 23, 2024) – Orange County Sheriff’s Dep. Angela Keller and K9 Wyatt, a scent discriminate Bloodhound and Scent Evidence K9 alumni, reported finds #400 and #401 on Dec. 15, 2024. This was the 20th K9 find of 2024 for the superstar Florida Bloodhound Team. The K9 Teams that contributed to the achievement are from Sheriff’s Offices and Police Departments in 26 Florida Counties that are participating in the Bringing The Lost Home Program. The lifesaving community safety program just kicked off it’s 6th year and provides missing person response training, advanced scent discriminate K9 training, scent collection technology, and Scent Kit program resources through the highly successful Bringing The Lost Home legislative bill. The program was originally sponsored by Florida House Representative, Scott Plakon and is now championed by Rep. Rachel Plakon. The bill was signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in June 2024. K9 Wyatt was donated to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office by The Senior Resource Alliance in Orlando, a leading Bringing The Lost Home Partner Agency.
Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley, and The Alzheimer’s Project CEO, John Trombetta, partnered to introduce the bill in 2019 to help law enforcement agencies better serve their populations with Alzheimer’s/Related Dementia and autism who are at high-risk of wandering and going missing. The Bringing The Lost Home Program enhances missing person response capabilities and recovery success by raising missing person awareness, mitigating risk, and improving search performance through the use of scent trailing recognition assessments, K9 and Handler training, and innovative scent collection technology.
“We are honored to partner with the amazing K9 Teams and agency leaders who share our vision and are putting in the hard work and training needed to achieve these excellent results. Our mission is to expand the program across Florida to save more lives and create safer communities,” stated Coley.
Here are a few of the many highlights of Florida’s Bringing The Lost Program in 2024. Follow our Facebook and Instagram pages to check out all of the amazing stories from our partners.
Orange County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Team Achieves 400th K9 Find for Florida Bringing The Lost Home Program Partners!
Dep. Angela Keller and K9 Wyatt, a scent discriminate Bloodhound and Scent Evidence K9 alumni, reported finds #400 and #401 with their latest deployment report. This is the 20th K9 find of 2024 for the superstar Florida Bloodhound Team. Since receiving K9 Wyatt through a donation by The Senior Resource Alliance, the dynamic duo has worked up an impressive list of suspect locations and missing person recoveries.
“Dep. Keller and K9 Wyatt have trained with us for the past 3 years and they utilized their advanced scent discriminate trailing and scent collection techniques to help achieve this important milestone for the Bringing The Lost Home Program in Florida. Lives have been saved and the Orange County community is safer because of their hard work and dedication to the job,” stated Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley.
Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Handler Receives Master Handler Certificate!
Dep. Anthony Yannuzzi was presented the Master Handler certificate by Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley during a visit to Scent Evidence K9 headquarters in Tallahassee this week to pick up a new Bloodhound for their K9 Team. Dep. Keller and K9 Patriot earned the award for their excellent trailing work in over a dozen search deployments that included finding multiple missing children and elderly persons with dementia who had wandered. “Dep. Yannuzzi and K9 Patriot have been on fire in 2024, and we’re honored to work with them through the Bringing The Lost Home Program in Florida. Thanks to their hard work and dedication, those who were missing have been reunited with their family,” stated Coley.
K9 Daisy Mae Comes To The Rescue In The Swamp!
St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Team Helps Locate Missing Endangered Person! Dep. Melanie Merritt and K9 Daisy Mae responded to help locate a missing endangered woman who was last seen running through the woods an hour earlier. The area was swampy and had several penned-up hunting dogs, roosters, and chickens running around. Dep. Merritt collected a scent article and presented it to Daisy Mae who began trailing through a very swampy area. It was 6:00 am eastern and still dark. As the sun began coming up, the Florida Bloodhound Team restarted, and K9 Daisy trailed back in the same direction to the swamp. As she trailed into the deeper water, they could see the woman’s clothing floating in the water. Daisy continued trailing out of the woods into an area with several roosters and chickens. As they trailed past the birds along the wood line, the woman was located by another officer 100 yards ahead of them in the direction they were trailing, hiding behind some Palmetto bushes. The woman was unharmed.
“Dep. Merritt and Daisy worked through a lot of distractions during this deployment, and they helped confirm the target’s direction of travel so that search resources could be placed in the right area to find the woman,” stated Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley. In Feb. 2025, Dep. Merritt and St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office will be hosting an advanced Scent Discriminate K9 Trailing Seminar with Scent Evidence K9 for regional Bringing The Lost Home Agency partners.
3 Missing Persons were recovered using Scent Kits by 3 different Florida Sheriff’s Offices during a 3-week period in June – July of 2024.
Scent discriminate K9 responders from Sumter, Jacksonville, and Orange County Sheriff’s Offices used Scent Kits provided through Florida’s Bringing The Lost Home Program to locate 2 missing elderly people with dementia and 1 youth with autism. Check out the article
HERE.
K9 GRACE TRACKS 4-DAY OLD TRAIL, FINDS MISSING MAN ALIVE – Putnam County Sheriff’s Office
We are ecstatic to report William Scott was found alive earlier today in the area of Florida Rock’s sand pits after leaving his home late Friday evening.
The sheriff’s office received information today that a resident in the area had a trail camera that possibly caught Mr. Scott walking Friday evening with a handheld saw.
Sgt. Merritt and K9 Grace arrived at that location and began a slow track following Mr. Scott’s scent. K9 Grace tracked more than two miles to Florida Rock along the way locating a sock, footprint and the hacksaw Mr. Scott had carried.
Knowing his partner was getting tired, but they were close, Sgt. Merritt gave K9 Grace a rest and had dispatch call for two fresh bloodhounds from St. Johns County.
As they were getting ready to start a final track for K9 Grace prior to the arrival of more dogs, Mr. Scott walked out of the woods and was spotted by a plant manager about 100 yards from K9 Grace’s location.
“There is no doubt in my mind K9 Grace and Sgt. Merritt are the reason we are able to return Mr. Scott to his family alive and safe,” Sheriff H.D. ‘Gator’ DeLoach said. “We searched numerous locations including ponds and were honestly fearing the worst as the days continued and we had no sightings.”
Mr. Scott was previously reported to have dementia and possibly was under the belief he was back in Vietnam. Due to his medical conditions and that he was gone for four days, Mr. Scott was transported by ambulance to HCA Florida Putnam Hospital for evaluation.
