K-9 units to search for Kristi O'Pry

Saturday, December 27, 1997

South Louisiana K-9 units to search for Kristi O'Pry -- (See also: August 30, 1996)

A team of five K-9 units from two search and rescue organizations in South Louisiana will search an area in South Caddo Parish today to find the body of Kristi Gwen O'Pry, the 26-year-old Shreveport woman who has been missing since July 1996.

Caddo Parish Sheriff Don Hathaway said his criminal investigators have requested the assistance of Acadian K-9 Search and Rescue from Gonzales and Louisiana Search and Rescue (LaSAR) Dogs of Slidell. Acadian is connected with the Gonzales Police Department and LaSAR operates out of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office. Both search and rescue units are non-profit organizations and all the team members are volunteers.

Three of the K-9 units are from Acadian, while the other two are from LaSAR. The Acadian units are Team Leader Victoria Smith (K-9 Ripley), Gary McDaniel (K-9 Sam) and Terri Campbell (K-9 Cagney). The LaSAR units are Lisa Higgins (K-9 Molli) and Dee Wilde (K-9 Spice). The three Acadian canines, Ripley, Sam and Cagney, are German Shepherds. Molli is a Black Labrador Retriever and Spice is a Curly Coated Retriever.

O'Pry and a male acquaintance visited the Merriweather Road home of her sister between 7 and 8 p.m. on Friday, July 19. After leaving there, O'Pry and the male acquaintance reportedly went to South Park Mall where they parted company and O'Pry has not been seen or heard from by family members since.

Caddo Sheriff's investigators handling the case believe O'Pry was murdered and buried in a shallow grave in South Caddo Parish. The five K-9 units will comb a 25-acre tract mapped out by the investigators.

Higgins and Molli were one of four LaSAR units that spent several days in April 1996 searching Twelve Mile Bayou near Mooringsport for drowning victim Wayne L. Terry, Jr.

The search teams are provided as a free public service and members are not compensated except for expenses in those cases where the requesting agency has the available funds. The Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office is paying travel and living expenses for the K-9 units. The team members cover all expenses for equipment, training, care and feeding of their canines.

Both search and rescue organizations have set standards that each K-9 team must meet to become operational. The operational K-9 team is then required to be evaluated on a regular basis to ensure their proficiency in search work.

"Canines have been given by nature an olfactory system that is particularly efficient in detecting scents," Acadian K-9 Search and Rescue's Victoria Smith said. "Scientists have estimated that the canine's ability to detect odors is anywhere from 40 to 100 times greater than that of humans."

A canine's nose is not hindered by adaptation of scent, commonly called "nose fatigue." Nose fatigue is the phenomenon humans experience when an initially overwhelming odor is no longer noticeable. Unlike humans whose world is identified through visual images, the canine identifies his world through scents.

Search dogs trained to locate human scent can do so in a variety of environments and in all types of weather and terrain. These canines have been trained to locate human scent in at least three ways: live persons (lost, kidnapped or victims of a natural or man-made disaster); deceased persons (crime or disaster victims, buried, above ground or in water), and evidence or articles with human scent.