Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
come and go. A huge boulder might work. A concrete sewer drain. Some permanent fixture
in the landscape.
Lisa asked each handler to look around and try to find a nearby point in the growing dark-
ness that might serve as a Winthrop Point. She was standing about ten yards from a large
metal contraption with chains buried deep in concrete: a Frisbee golf basket. Distinct. Un-
movable. Reasonably long-lasting. Yet only one or two handlers saw what was right in front
of them, probably because it was such an innocuous object. Lisa pointed it out and then set
them up further: Downhill from the golf basket, the trees were too open for a killer to feel
comfortable getting rid of a body. Uphill, though, was wooded, hidden, private. That was
where the handler should start her dog. How far back? Lisa reminded handlers that the vast
majority of body disposals are less than a hundred feet from a road. These are all facts that
handlers need to know. Once the handlers were properly oriented off the Winthrop Point,
they could, in turn, orient their dogs.
The next day, it was Lisa's eleven-year-old granddaughter's turn to work her dog. Haylee
had just started to train Jayda, an evolving year-old female sable shepherd with maniacal en-
ergy. Haylee has an angelic, somber face and soft brown curls. She says “yes, ma'am” and “no,
ma'am,” especially to her “MaMa,” Lisa, who helps homeschool her. It was time for some
away-from-home schooling.
“Haylee, you've been listening,” Lisa said. “What's the Winthrop Point?”
Haylee had been listening. She rattled off the answer: “Where somebody puts a body
where he can find it again. He uses a landmark.”
“Why does he do it, Haylee?”
“So he knows when law enforcement is getting close.”
“And what else?”
Haylee didn't have an immediate answer, so Lisa gently reminded her. “So he can visit the
body whenever he wants. Why?”
Lisa knew that one, too, might be beyond Haylee, so she answered her own question with
emphatic precision: “Because he's a sick little puppy, that's why.”
Haylee nodded soberly, considered and unafraid. Yes, ma'am. That was plenty enough de-
tail. The human psychology lesson over for the evening, Haylee ran her dog.
When I saw Haylee again, more than a month later, she and her MaMa were in another
state. Lisa was training more handlers. Brad Dennis, the charismatic national search director
for KlaasKids Foundation, was there as a trainer as well. Haylee was sitting and getting more
of an education, taking notes, this time at an evening seminar Brad was teaching, devoted to
searches for abducted children and teenagers. Brad has managed search efforts for more than
two hundred missing or abducted children around the country. He managed the search after
Polly Klaas was abducted and murdered in 1993. He has headed searches during the Super
