Handlers Describe Dogs Separately Detecting Odor | News, Sports, Jobs

WAILUKU – Two cadaver dogs searching an East Maui area where a missing pregnant woman’s clothing and remains were found separately alerted to the odor of human remains near a tree with cut marks in it, their handlers testified Monday.

The K-9 searches were done Feb. 20 and March 8, 2014, after Maui police requested human remains detection dogs to assist in searching, said Honolulu Police Det. Sharon Walden, unit leader of the volunteer Hawaii Urban Search and Rescue Team.

She and her dog, Pohaku, flew from Oahu, while team member Teresa Gajate and her dog, Beckham, flew in from Hilo.

Both women testified Monday in the 2nd Circuit Court murder trial of Steven Capobianco, 26.

He has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend Carly “Charli” Scott and second-degree arson of her vehicle.

Capobianco told police he last saw Scott the night of Feb. 9, 2014, when she drove him about 3 miles past Keanae to retrieve his truck, which he said had stalled there. After fixing a loose battery cable, Capobianco said he was driving back to Haiku, with Scott following, when he lost sight of her headlights in the Twin Falls area.

At the time, Scott was about five months pregnant with a son fathered by Capobianco.

After searchers found Scott’s clothing and blanket at Nuaailua Bay on Feb. 13, 2014, police returned to the area and recovered pieces of a jawbone, fingernails and a pierced body part, according to earlier trial testimony.

Strands of reddish hair the color of Scott’s were found in a fresh cut mark in the trunk of a thin tree, according to earlier testimony.

Both Walden and Gajate said they didn’t want to know where the human remains had been recovered before letting their dogs search. “We want to run the dog blind . . . so we don’t influence the dog in any way,” Walden said.

On Feb. 20, 2014, at Nuaailua Bay, which was described to the K-9 handlers as the “primary area,” Walden and Pohaku started at the upper portion of the dirt roadway leading to the bay and worked down, while Gajate and Beckham worked up from the ocean.

Walden described Pohaku as “laid back for a working dog.

“He’s slow and methodical,” she said.

She said that Pohaku’s tail starts to “helicopter” as part of a change in his “body carriage” to indicate he’s within target of a body odor. As a “final alert” or trained response, Pohaku sits to indicate he is “as close to that body odor as he can get,” she said.

In the heavily wooded area at Nuaailua Bay, Pohaku had worked toward an area with less vegetation when he became more animated as he reached a tree with cuts in it and a large rock, Walden said. “He sniffed the ground and went to final sit,” she said.

In the same area, Gajate said that Beckham was “methodically sniffing” but didn’t display his final alert of sitting and barking.

“His nose went down to the ground, and he sniffed really, really slow,” she said. “He was just sniffing a lot around the tree, around the rock and in the ground, deep in the ground.”

She said that Beckham is a faster dog who slows down when he begins to detect an odor of human remains.

After Pohaku alerted to the area, a police Special Response Team member confirmed evidence had been recovered at the location, Walden said. She said she rewarded Pohaku with kibble.

Pohaku continued searching. Near a stream bed, he “again showed the change of body carriage, quickening of pace and started snorkeling under the water,” Walden said.

“He would stick his nose under the water and blow bubbles, which was unusual for him,” she said. “He kind of stayed in that one area. He never went to final alert but definitely change of body carriage.”

She said police confirmed that evidence had been recovered from the streambed. Searchers reported finding Scott’s blanket covered in maggots there.

The dogs didn’t alert to human remains at four other search locations in East Maui that day, Gajate said.

The search areas included an area where there were depressions in the dirt near a guardrail at Mile Marker 19.5 on Hana Highway and another location near a guardrail where police reported bloody clothing had been found, Walden said. “There was no indication of human remains” at those locations, she said.

When both dogs and handlers returned to Maui on March 8, 2014, the dogs again alerted to the spot at Nuaailua Bay with the tree and rock, Gajate and Walden testified.

On both search days, it was overcast, Walden said. She said there was a light drizzle periodically on March 8, 2014.

Walden said none of the team’s 10 or 11 members live on Maui, so the dogs and handlers flew in to help.

The trial was scheduled to continue today before Judge Joseph Cardoza.

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at .