Marion County Sheriff’s Office Forearms Out Smell Preservation Kits
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office is handing out odor preservation kits to assist them with finding missing persons, particularly those with special needs.
MCSO is using the kits for its Extra Special Person program. The ESP program has almost six hundred people registered.
The program includes those with memory debilitating diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. It also includes people with autism, who can also be more likely to wander from their caregivers.
Lauren Lettelier, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, said caregivers can sometimes contaminate the odor of a missing person, and the kits can help with this problem.
“We always tell people, on the Extra Special Persons Program, when your loved one goes missing or they wander away don’t walk over their smell,” she said. “(Don’t walk) where they may have gone out of the house or where they were last seen, because when we bring our K-9’s there, it’s going to be a contaminated track.”
The sheriff’s office is one of three departments in Florida that have purchased smell preservation kits from Odor Evidence K- 9. C-E-O and co- founder Paul Coley said his work at the FBI inspired him to begin making preservation kits.
“We would work cases and some articles would be contaminated with other odor,” Coley said. “We would have to work through those it would take time, and time is something you don’t have with missing person’s cases or abducted individuals.”
Photo courtesy of the Marion County Sheriff’s Department
The sheriff’s office is providing the kit free to those in the ESP program to pair with their ESP bracelets. ESP bracelets have an identification number that helps sheriff’s deputies identify the person missing and bring them home.
When caregivers receive the smell kit, they must swipe under the special person’s armpit to seal their odor on a pad. They must then secure it in a sterile glass jar with tamper proof gauze.
If the person goes missing, the caregiver can give the odor kit to the deputy and a K-9 will have a fresh smell to track.
“It’s going to be so much lighter when we react to that residence. They’re going to have that smell sample at the residence and they’re going to be able to give it to us right when we get there,” Lettelier said. “When we go to that call of service, we’ll have that to be able to embark tracking right away.”
Coley explained the science behind the odor preservation comes from various studies and court cases including odor preservation.
They use the armpit area because a lot of odor comes from there, he said.
Departments can also get DNA from the area if they need it. The preservation kits last from six to ten years if stored decently.
The sheriff’s office recently did a test on the kit with a sample they stored for approximately two months. MCSO Sgt. Daniel Trammell’s odor was tracked successfully by a K-9 after officers contaminated his trail to stimulate a real search. Trammell works on the K-9 unit.
Lettelier said while they are mainly reaching out to those in the ESP program for the kits, they have a handful of kits to give for children.
To sign up for the Smell Preservation Kit program residents can call the Marion County Sheriff’s Office Crisis Intervention Unit at 352-732-9111.