Mounted search and rescue

["Jeff Hasse" <jhasse@comcast.net>]

Mounted SAR Colleagues,

 

There are a lot of good thoughts being tossed around on this forum, so I thought I would try to respond to some of the questions.

 

First, I am happy to share the links to all the briefing materials to the SAR community.  I just have to be a little careful that the links don’t get into the general public.  This is where I post my reports to the Sheriffs.  Just email me at jhasse@comcast.net and I will send you the links.  There is a lot of data there.

 

Second, Una and I have been working on a Wikiversity site: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/SAR_mission_2008_02.  I put together a more detailed timeline and discussion of the early days of the search.  Check the references section.

 

Now, some specific points:

 

Regarding the cell phone log: 

Check out my Wikiversity posting.  Bottom line:  The only thing we could learn about the cell phone is what tower he was connected to during his conversation (the tower in Minneota).  This is how his car was found 20 miles from where he thought he was.  All other data was lost or never available in the first place.

 

To answer Una’s question:  Yes, the cell phone should give off a good signal with any decent metal detector.  The riverbank in question was searched over several days by a utility company person with metal detecting experience without any luck.  I suspect the phone is still on him.

 

Regarding the investigation: 

The Lincoln County Sheriff is the lead investigator in this case.  While I cannot speak for him, he has publically said that there is no evidence of foul play in Brandon's case. This doesn't mean that it can be ruled out, just that--as of this moment in time--there is no evidence to support it.  There is also no indication that he is anywhere else (ROW).

Regarding the assumption that the point the cell phone went dead is near where his body is located: 

Nearly all of the early search efforts focused on the Yellow Medicine River where a bloodhound trailed Brandon.  (My Wikiversity posting describes this trail in detail.)  While it was a reasonable assumption early on, this scenario has been searched extensively—and then some.  We were able to establish a reasonably high POD and rule out the river after only a few searches (a line search in the water and a couple of high-quality HRD dogs).  Yet the locals and the early Search Manager searched the river at least 57 times!  Cumulative POD for one section of the river is a conservative 99.998%!  The Box.net site has a map that shows the cumulative POD for an 11-mile+ section of the river.

 

It’s been interesting that I have received considerable push-back from locals when I describe the scenario that Brandon continued walking past the point where the cell-phone went dead.  For some reason, they have difficulty believing that a healthy young 19-year-old could walk more than three miles.

 

Regarding the possibility that he was tilled into a field:

We initially were told that it had been a very wet spring that year and that very few of the farmers had their crops in at the time he disappeared.  We agreed with the assumption that a farmer would likely spot an intact body within the next couple of weeks of planting.  So we avoided searching tilled fields for much of the search (for this and other reasons described in the searchforbrandon blog).

 

However, there were a couple of problems with this assumption.  We later found out that about 60% had already had their fields in at the time he disappeared.  This changed things.  (Lesson: Always continue investigating.)  Assuming he died on May 14^th (which is a fairly safe assumption since there would not likely be a search if he had survived into the busier daylight hours), Brandon’s remains were fully disarticulated by the third week of July (about two months).  This is according to the formula developed by the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology department (the Body Farm).  Disarticulated remains are much harder to spot.  Karen described the problems of spotting a body from a tractor better than I could.  This area has very large fields and the large equipment to till it.  It is possible that he was missed during fall harvest and tilling.  The area grows primarily corn, soybeans, and sugar beets.

 

In addition, in the area where we are now focusing our efforts, the farmers weren’t looking for him at all.  No one we interviewed thought Brandon could get that far.

 

Fortunately, if he has been tilled into a field, I don’t believe it is hopeless to find him.  While his remains would be difficult to spot visually, the dogs will pick them up.  They just might be spread out considerably.  And to answer Lois’s question:  They use mostly chisel plows in the area which tends to bring things up versus moldboard plows which buries things.

 

Regarding the search area:

While we avoided the tilled fields for much of the search, there was still a lot of terrain to cover.  As Kevin mentioned, there are many ditches and small creeks in the area.  There is considerable CRP land in the wetter areas with very tall and thick Canary grass.  Every farm has a shelter-belt around it of dense woods.  The larger creeks have banks that are wooded and/or thick with brush.  We have searched approximately 120 square miles of terrain for this young man.

 

Regarding the clues:

It is our experience that there are three types of clues that are typically found in missing person searches:

1) Investigative Clues. These are such things as the circumstances of his disappearance, his behavioral profile, the position of the moon in the sky, lights in the distance, etc. These are "soft" clues, but may collectively tell a compelling picture.

2) Physical Clues. These are footprints (now long gone), things he carried or wore, and his physical remains. It is correct to say that we have none of these in this case. However, this is not uncommon in these types of missing person cases. I suspect that most of the things Brandon wore or carried are still on him or very near him. I also suspect that, once we find a single physical clue, the search will be over very shortly after.  Some have focused their attention on finding the cell phone to the exclusion of much else.  However, there is only one cell phone while there are many other clues to be had.

3) Canine Clues. These are areas where certified Human Remains Detection dogs displayed behavior consistent with interest in human remains. We have 573 points of interest in this case, which is a staggering amount.

 

Why so many canine clues?  This search has one feature that makes it unique—the area has nearly constant driving winds.  And as Kevin pointed out, they can come from any direction.  The constant winds in the relatively flat terrain have moved scent great distances and caused the scent picture to be quite confusing.  It is well-documented in the SAR canine community that a dog can hit on a body 6-8 miles away.

However, both the investigative clues and the canine clues suggest that Brandon's remains will be found to the northwest of the LKP.  At least to our read of the clues.  I welcome your thoughts.

 

There are no other pending missing person cases in the area.  All burial sites have been identified.

 

Regarding the dogs used in this case:

I would be the first to admit that there is a wide range of quality among SAR dogs and handlers.  Even among the good handlers, there are differences in training methods and what the dog has been trained on which yields dogs that are better at some conditions and worse at others.  I solve that by using many dogs.  At last count, I have used nearly 30 different certified dogs on this search!  These dogs represent a cross-section of just about every certifying agency in the US. 

 

Just an FYI, all certified dogs are “proofed” off of other dead animals.  They wouldn’t be much good to us if they weren’t.  Lots of dead stuff in the area…

 

I hope this helped answer your questions.  Thank you for the input; they help us clarify our thoughts.  I will try to answer any other questions you may have in future postings.

 

Jeff Hasse