Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Like most operational air-scent dogs, Josie was off-lead so she could go where her nose led
her. Suddenly, she was in the trees, not twenty-five feet off the ramp, tail wagging madly. She
bounded out of the woods and hit Andy's pocket. Give me the ball.
It was the remains of Dawn Mendes, twenty-five, from New Bedford, last seen leaving
her home on September 4, 1988. Josie found her on November 29, 1988. After Mendes was
identified, the New Bedford
Standard-Times
's headline was blunt and offensive. The headline
started with Mendes's body, went to her sex work, and left her name out entirely: I-195
BODY
IS CITY PROSTITUTE'S
.
Andy gave Josie a day's break and then went back to searching on December 1, 1988.
Back and forth. Debbie McConnell, from Newport, Rhode Island, disappeared sometime in
June 1988. Josie and Andy found her in the midafternoon on December 1, 1988, down an
embankment off Route 140 northbound, thirty feet from the road. McConnell was less than
three miles from where the first victim was found.
These were linear miles of demanding work, going twenty-five yards in, coming out, grid-
ding the length, working the high spots, trying to keep the dog downwind, mostly avoiding
dead deer and smaller mammals. Josie did manage one delightful break where she rolled in a
dead skunk. At one point, a television truck crew distracted the sociable dog, and she started
to dash across the highway to greet them. A semi barely missed her.
Andy and Josie were back at it in late March 1989 when Josie found a third victim: Robin
Rhodes, twenty-eight, off state Route 140 southbound, lodged within the trees, just twenty-
five feet from the highway. After that, Andy organized a four-day search, pulling in six dogs
and their handlers from four states. They found no more bodies. After several days without
results, Andy called a halt to the search. “At least we know where the victims aren't,” he told
a newspaper reporter.
Only one more victim was found after that—Sandra Botelho—miles away from the oth-
ers, on I-195 in Marion. Nine women's bodies in nine months. Two other women who fit
the profiles of the Weld Square victims remain missing. Although the police honed in on two
suspects, a third possibility emerged: The killer might have worked on a seasonal fishing ves-
sel based in New Bedford.
Lighthearted Josie died in 1991, two years after that search, of a blood disorder. She was
still a young dog. Andy retired from the Connecticut State Police that same year.
If Andy hadn't pushed forward, would as many women have been found? I didn't bother
asking him; I already knew the answer. Unlikely. This was not a case where hundreds of good-
hearted volunteer searchers showed up and the Red Cross arrived to provide Gatorade and
Dunkin' Donuts for everyone. The case didn't become a case until it was too late for five of
the victims. Would it have changed anything for the women if they had been warned that a
killer (or killers) was targeting them? Perhaps not. No one will ever know.
