The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office is one of the first in the nation to offer its citizens the Human Scent Preservation Kit, a powerful tool to locate missing persons.
Sheriff Farmer Bill and Lt. Robert Siemer are proud to be the fourth sheriff’s office in the nation to add this program to their non-traditional law enforcement programs. These kits will hold a human scent for seven years and DNA for six months. The scents will help bloodhounds find missing persons faster.
The purpose of the kit is to have only one scent inside the jar for the blood hound to focus on while looking for the missing person. This is a great tool when searching for people with diminishing mental faculties and children.
Historically when a blood hound is summoned to a home to locate a missing person, the K-9 handler will use a dirty shirt or a pillow case belonging to the missing person. Most of the time these scent articles have been contaminated with other scents or odors. The kit comes with a jar, sterile pad, a jar label and an evidence seal. The kit also comes with instructions as to how to properly collect the human scent to ensure the integrity of the scent. It is recommended to store the jar inside the refrigerator. The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office has three bloodhounds and a puppy in training.
The Human Scent Preservation Kit is the brainchild of Paul Coley. Coley worked as head of security for Florida State Hospital and later with the FBI in Quantico, Va.
“It is becoming known as insurance in a jar; that really does sum it up,” Coley said.
Having these kits at the ready for law enforcement , with only the scent of the missing individual for the blood hounds, speeds up the search process.
Anecdotally, he recalled a situation where a group of neighbors were trying to help a woman locate her husband. He had dementia and had wandered off. After searching for almost two hours, she remembered that she had the kit. Law enforcement arrived and the bloodhounds found her husband in 10 minutes.
These kits are a big benefit to caregivers dealing with someone who has dementia. Lt. Siemer points out that statistically six in 10 folks with dementia are wanderers.
The kits are available at the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office in Bushnell or the Sumter County Sheriff’s Annex in the Villages to the residence of Sumter County at no cost.
