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West Australian
24-05-2025
- General
- West Australian
K9 Trackers: Rescue group works with families to find the missing
It's a crisp early Sunday morning on the Shelley foreshore and there's a bunch of happy dogs having their day. They don't need a reason to run helter-skelter or follow, head down, tail up, the trail of a scent, but there is a serious side to much of their energetic activity. This particular bunch of dogs forms part of K9 Trackers Perth, a volunteer rescue group which provides support, free of charge, that gives hope to the families of missing people when official searches have been suspended. The group was co-founded eight years ago by Sonya Bowditch, whose aim is to work with families to try to reunite them with their loved ones. 'There was a gap after police called off their searches,' she says. 'Now families can come to us. We will work with them and try to find their missing ones.' Today is a regular training day, where the search and rescue dogs sharpen their skills following scents and learn to locate the remains of those who have passed away. Different-coloured harnesses mean a different type of business. A volunteer goes out first and lays tracks. The dogs may search in bushland, in urban areas and in water, focusing on a specific scent and eliminating other contamination. They may be tested over different distances and with longer time delays between the track laying and the search. In cadaver training, a pseudo scent that replicates the smell of the deceased is placed in a tube to be found. Up to eight dogs and their handlers may take part in any session. Weeks, months and years of training make them experts. The dogs don't have to be a specific breed; they simply need the appetite and the aptitude for the task. About 38,000 missing persons reports are received by police each year, according to Crime Stoppers Australia. While most are found within a short period of time, about 2600 have not been found for more than three months and are classified as 'long-term missing people'. They are listed on the National Missing Persons Coordination Centre's public register, with a photograph and such details as their age and physical description, what they were wearing and where they were last seen. Haylee O'Connell became involved with K9 Trackers in the grim months after police had exhausted their resources in the search for her brother Corey, 26. Corey was last seen on the Brockman Highway in Jalbarragup, near Nannup, on June 24, 2021, where he spoke to a mother taking her son to school. When she returned on the drive home, he was no longer on the road. An extensive police search failed to find any trace of him. 'A year afterwards, police had exhausted their resources and we were lost in what direction to go in,' O'Connell says. She created a Facebook page to raise awareness of her younger brother's disappearance, which was 'liked' by Bowditch. O'Connell arranged to meet Bowditch and her team after learning of the work they did helping families search for loved ones who had been missing long term. 'It was confronting meeting them because previously it just had been me trying to navigate how to look for my brother,' she says. K9 Trackers grew to become a huge part of her journey. 'The support from K9 Trackers was something I didn't realise I needed at the time and it was a huge help,' O'Connell says. 'Just being able to have a team of people to bounce ideas off, get a different perspective on things. They helped me to keep going. I can't explain or have the words to explain what they gave me looking for Corey.' Ultimately, it was a different search that helped O'Connell locate her brother nearly two years after he went missing. A drone pilot flew over from Canberra and scanned from the air the area around where Corey was last seen — land that could not be reached on foot. Thousands of pictures of the search posted online ultimately led police to Corey's body in dense bushland, after a person looking at the photographs spotted what he believed were human remains. 'Being able to find him, it was mixed emotions to be honest,' O'Connell says. 'A part of you still wants them to be missing because you still have that hope — the hope that they are still somewhere living their life. But the not knowing becomes very exhausting, very taxing. You can start grieving.' Since Corey was found, O'Connell has been volunteering with K9 Trackers, offering help to families who find themselves in terrible situations she knows too well. 'When the police search is over, it is difficult to know where to turn and what to do,' she says. 'They have questions like, 'what did you do in this situation?', 'when did Corey's case go to Missing Persons?' 'Each case is different. It is up to the family what they do. I remember Sonya saying we're here to support and help but the search is led by the family members.' Bowditch became involved in search and rescue because of an eight-week-old labrador-cross pup named Bella. The inquisitive young dog became so skilled in her exercises at a local tracking club that Bowditch knew she had to do something more with her talents. Extensive training with the Australian National Kennel Council led them to a group that assisted police when people went missing, but Bowditch learnt that the desperate need to keep looking didn't stop when the police search did — and so K9 Trackers was formed. The group always advises families to contact police first if someone goes missing. When they are approached to become part of the search they will ask for an article belonging to the missing person, such as a pillowslip or an item of clothing, and advise on the best way to handle the item so it only has the scent of that person. If there is a particular area where the person was last seen, the dogs will begin their mission in that spot. The searches are planned in detail and often involve volunteers with very different skills to the dog-handlers. There are off-road trail bike riders, who can cover big areas quickly and efficiently, volunteers on horseback, drone pilots who post photos of their search online, and hikers who provide the people power needed to work comprehensively. The group has helped dozens of families since it was established in Perth, including the high-profile search for grandfather Ian Collett, 65, who went missing from his home in May 2018. The body of Mr Collett, who had dementia and was believed to have become disorientated, was found in scrub on Albany Highway more than a month after he disappeared. K9 Trackers has also worked with the family of Wayne Parker, who went missing from his Mt Barker home on June 3, 2023. The 61-year-old's disappearance sparked an extensive land and air search that lasted five days and focused on the Mt Magog area in the Stirling Range National Park. His family enlisted the help of K9 Trackers after the initial search was abandoned indefinitely. Mr Parker has still not been found. More recently, the group has assisted in the search for Daniel O'Meara, who was reported missing after leaving a friend's address in Roleystone in March last year. Bowditch says the group is always ready to help. Wherever the search and whatever the conditions, K9 Trackers will work to fulfil their belief that no one should be left behind.
Daily Mirror
21-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Eerie graffiti spotted near where toddler vanished while playing hide and seek
Little William Tyrrell was just three when he vanished from the garden of his foster grandmother, where he had been playing with his sister and wearing a Spider-Man outfit Eerie graffiti was spotted close to where a toddler vanished 11 years ago while playing hide and seek. A man noticed four red words sprayed on a tree stump two years after William Tyrell went missing, and says he alerted police but never heard anything more about it. Bob Carnes said he came across the graffiti about just over half a mile from Bird Tree, a landmark in Kendal, New South Wales, about 230 miles northeast of Sydney, where three-year-old William was last seen. Mr Carnes added his "stomach churned" when he learned the area close to the site became subject to renewed search calls. Mr Carnes told that he found the stump with the words "Jesus Saves William Tyrrell" in 2016, two years after the boy went missing. He had been on a family trip before coming across the "eerie" graffiti. "We reported it to the police, they went out and looked at it, called me for directions and we never heard another thing about it again," he told the outlet. "Then today I read this and think 'just imagine if this stump was somehow connected?' What an oversight it may have been. "It sent chills through me when we came across it all those years ago and still does when I think about it today. Who writes something like that on a stump in the middle of the bush? We still don't know what happened to the young fella but whoever sprayed this stump obviously had formed an opinion." Little William vanished from the garden of his foster grandmother's home in Kendall on September 12, 2014, with a huge search operation being mounted to find him. Over 10 days locals and officials searched the rural area, looking in forests and creeks. But no trace of the toddler - who had been wearing a Spider-Man outfit while playing hide and seek with his sister - have been found, despite the efforts of emergency services over the years. Many theories have been shared over the circumstances around his disappearance as well as what happened to him. An inquest into his death at the New South Wales Coroners Court, held between 2019 and 2024, heard allegations the foster mother - who cannot be named - hid his body away after he "died from a fall," amid concerns she would be unable to access more children through the care system. According to CrimeStoppers Australia, some 38,000 missing persons reports are made each year across the country. While the overwhelming majority of these people are found within a short period of time there are about 2,600 who remain missing for more than three months.
