These past few months, I find myself eager to start the day with new exploration. I am condensing peculiar and at times morbid niche interests into what I hope is graspable, meaningful content. If you’ve been trailing behind me as I travel through this hellish underworld, you know about the dark triad (er, tetrad? pentad? OCTAD?) personalities. These include malignant narcissists, delusional cult leaders, swindlers, grifters, MLM “boss babes” and the like.
What I’ve found throughout the years studying personality psychology is that malignant narcissists can be grouped together like swiping through a bad dating app – swipe, swipe, SWIPE – ***they’re all the same! ***After awhile, narcissistic behavior becomes easy to detect, avoid and alert others to (whether they heed it or not). While no one is immune to narcissistic abuse (vaguely defined in pop culture, IMO), their are certainly red flags that too many people are failing to spot.
Because I have difficulty picturing myself stealing vast sums of money, convincing people to buy a sham product or verbally abusing “coaching clients”, the investigation into these entitled and dangerous people is rather intriguing. But below the intrigue is the basic, perhaps even primal knowing that this person is toxic – putrid, even. Like the bloodhound, I seek out the decay. But instead of sniffing for decomposing matter, I seek to locate the morally depraved, corrupt and malignantly narcissistic.
I’m not a detective. I’m not a forensic professional. I have no PhD in catching human predators. But, I am a lifelong student eager to learn more each day. Studying narcissism and psychopathy to a neurotic level, it is almost painful not to share this information seeing as there are victims of narcissistic and even worse forms of abuse every day. Especially with the proliferation of abuse within online communities, tackling these public health issues with online content seems appropriate and even intuitive.
Stepping aside briefly from examining the nefarious actors cyber-abusing victims, I wanted to create content regarding the almost 15-year-old cold case of a teenage girl from my hometown. You can watch the video here. In the process of my research, I learned so much more than I anticipated. Specifically, regarding the use of canine (K9) police units: search and rescue (SAR) and human remains detection (HRD) dogs, in particular.
Viewing and reading content on these particular types of dogs has not only been informative but heart-warming amongst the terrible tragedy of a missing child and real-time villains that roam free. Many of these dogs successfully catch “bad guys”, find missing children and can allegedly detect COVID-19! I have a great respect for these working animals who are tasked with heroic jobs as well as their dedicated handlers.
As stated in the video, I believe that at least one of the dogs involved in Kayla’s case was a handsome Belgian Malinois imported from the Netherlands to North Carolina where he was further trained alongside his handler, Officer Carren Corcoran of Madison, WI. Officer Corcoran served the Madison Police Department and now operates a K9 training business of her own.
Kiley’s True Crime Podcast reported the following upon watching the TV-aired *Disappeared *episode of Kayla’s case along with researching other media sources:
**“In December 2009, the police contacted Officer Carmen **[Carren] Corcoran, with the Madison PD, about doing some sniff searchers on some vehicles. Her dogs were trained to only hit on human decomposition. The police lined ten cars up, with Miguel and Kevin’s cars in the mix. One of the cadaver dogs hit on Kevin’s car.”
Further down the timeline, Kiley reports that the investigation proceeded in the spring of 2010:
“The woods and fields were also searched by various police forces and cadaver dogs. The dogs hit on two areas, one on Kevin’s parent’s property, and the other on the potato farm where he worked. However, the police didn’t have enough information to prove that it had anything to do with Kayla.”
Further investigations using K9 SAR and HRD dogs have proceeded as late as 2019, from media sources. That means that a decade after Kayla’s disappearance, investigators were still sending dogs to sniff for her remains at Nicolet National Forrest. So, just how legitimate are these doggies? Can they really sniff out human decomposition, specifically? As it turns out, yes! However, really depends on a few factors, as found from my individual research:
- Methods used to train the dog: chemicals like putrescine and cadaverine do not help the dog discriminate between human and animal decay. Experts say that real human tissue is best to use to help the dog train (yes, that means the training handler needs to have access to human bodies! Yikes!)
- Experience and expertise of handler and dog: practice is key in helping the dog learn to properly identify and alert its handler to human remains. In addition, a wise handler will ensure the dog doesn’t “depend” too much on the handler for direction.
- Temperament of the dog: German Shepherds, Belgian Malinois and other very motivated working and herding dogs are often selected because of their sharp nose, keen determination and ease of excitability MUST HAVE THE BALL AT ALL COSTS! WILL FIND THE SMELL TO GET THE BALL!
If the dogs involved in Kayla’s investigation were temperamentally fit, well-trained and well-handled, we can reasonable assume that the dog did indeed smell decaying human remains in Kevin’s vehicle, on his property and at his place of employment. While these remains can supposedly be detected years beyond decomposition, and, we don’t know that these remains are Kayla’s, it is still highly suspect that the dogs allegedly picked up on a dead human that was in Kevin’s vehicle at some point in time.
In my opinion, it’s time that we take a look at the findings in front of us to determine if there is enough evidence to consider if Kevin Kielcheski knows more than he has told us. While I’m not the expert to consult, the experts are out there. The findings are recorded. Now, we just have to put the pieces together and see if they fit.
Officer Gregory Strickland and an HRD dog
And what if the shoe does fit? What if we find beyond a reasonable doubt that those dogs did indeed smell human decay on Kevin’s vehicle alone out of a 10-car line-up? In addition to the hits Kevin’s family property and his place of employment, this all leads to a full picture of one guilty party and one deceased victim.
In 2020 the Florida Court of Appeals convicted a man of murder based almost entirely from expert witness testimony, police officers and two dogs named Jewel and Piper. Jewel alerted Officer Strickland to the odor of human decay on several spots of the lawn near the front door of the victim’s residence and alleged crime scene. In addition, the defendant’s vehicle was placed in a lineup and Jewel alerted to the backseat and the trunk of the car. Piper also alerted handler Officer Martinez from the Palm Beach Sherriff’s Office to areas on the vehicle. Expert testimony given by a professor of chemistry validated the Officers’ claims of adequate training of the dogs to properly detect human decay, which emits particular chemicals opposed to other forms of organic matter decomposition.
Seeing as Wisconsin has the Daubert standard (Google tells me so), can we convict Kielcheski? Do we have enough sniffs recorded and alerts made to give Kayla the justice she deserves? Let me know your thoughts as I’ll certainly be thinking about Kayla’s case until it’s solved!
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