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Hot on the trail
Posted: Thursday, Oct 13, 2005 - 08:26:03 am PDT
By CHERY SABOL
The Daily
Inter Lake
A team of expert tracker trainers is in the valley this week,
working with local law enforcement officers and
search-and-rescue members. On Wednesday, they were to work on a
staged murder near Columbia Falls. Instead, some members wound
up going to the Glacier Mountain Shadows-Western Inn to use
their skills in a real investigation.
Flathead County Sheriff's deputy Tom Snyder is coordinator of
search and rescue for the county. He invited Joel Hardin,
professional man-tracking instructor from Everson, Wash., and
his expert team to teach the fine points of tracking in a
three-day training.
Hardin, Snyder said, "is probably the best man tracker in the
U.S."
Among his instructors were the person in charge of King County's
major homicide unit, the president of the North Idaho Trackers
that were involved in the Coeur d'Alene triple homicide Groene
investigation, and a member of military Special Forces.
"It is an exceptionally talented group of instructors," Snyder
said.
Coincidentally, the team was staying at Glacier Mountain
Shadows, where three fires were reported at about 2 a.m.
Wednesday, according to Fire Investigator Pat Walsh of the
Sheriff's Office.
Firefighters from Badrock and Columbia Falls departments "did an
excellent job" of containing the fires, said Chief Rick Hagen of
the Badrock department. Twenty-three firefighters responded to
the call, stopping the fires from spreading.
The motel was evacuated after smoke alarms awakened guests. Even
as they were hurrying out into the night, the trackers were
noticing shoe prints that might be evidence.
After daybreak, the instructors divided into teams, with
sheriff's deputies Bill Emerson, Lance Norman, Jordan White and
Snyder working with the instructors to collect evidence.
What they look for is as detailed as bent blades of grass,
Snyder said.
Seaux Larreau, an instructor who trains military professionals,
demonstrated how shoe prints are located and marked. On a wooden
ramp, he tagged a print that appeared to be work boot, such as a
Red Wing brand. He pointed out another impression where the lugs
on the bottom of a boot bit into the wood surface.
The prints could have been made by firefighters, motel guests,
or someone who spread the flammable liquid that fueled the
fires.
"It's a process of elimination," Larreau said.
Some shoe prints, particularly those in grass or gravel, are
difficult to photograph. Students in the training learn to draw
the impressions they can decipher, rather than take pictures.
The length of the print is measured, along with the width at
both the toe and heel.
Prints in grass and soil around the motel were made within the
past 12 hours, Larreau determined. They were invisible at first
glance until he pointed out the outline of the shoe or boot.
"We don't teach them anything they don't already see," Larreau
said. It's just a question of perception.
He says tracking training is akin to the way a child reads a
book. At first, the story is understood through the obvious --
by interpreting pictures and drawings. As a child learns to
read, another layer of perception is added through language.
On Wednesday, students were learning the language of tracking.
Deputy White, who had some tracking training at the
law-enforcement academy, was fine-tuning that skill. As a group
of trackers stood and talked, he found a burned match on the
ground that appeared similar to others at the scene. It hadn't
been on the ground long. Maybe it was related to the fires;
maybe it wasn't.
It's not for trackers to interpret what they find.
"We just mark it up for the investigators to come bag it and tag
it," Larreau said.
The investigators are the local fire-investigation team,
composed of officers from several local agencies.
While the trackers gathered their evidence, Walsh gathered his
own from the floors, walls and ceilings of the rooms that
burned.
He was in the same part of the valley exactly a week ago, when a
suspected arson fire burned a small building near the Ol' River
Bridge Inn.
Walsh will merge his evidence with what the trackers find.
Remy Newcombe from Idaho said that's how the evidence she
gathered at the triple murder in Coeur d'Alene this summer was
used. She put together a report and passed it along to
investigators.
"You don't know in the end what they'll put together," she said.
Sometimes, the evidence the trackers find "is the thing that
solves the case."
Wednesday's work was all about crime-scene investigation, but
the same techniques work in finding a missing person in the
woods. That's why Snyder combined search-and-rescue volunteers
and law-enforcement officers for this week's training.
It's not the first time a real-life situation has materialized
for students, Hardin said. He's been at training sessions where
someone got lost in the area of the training and students
participated in the search.
It might be the first time, though, that a motel was torched
just rooms away from where the instructors were staying.
Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at
406-758-4441 or by email at
csabol@dailyinterlake.com.
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